We went to SXSW 2016 to soak up the atmosphere, to learn, be inspired and network. At that time, we were running 3 side projects/startups - Lensy, Hashably and Freshly Pressed Socks. For Freshly Pressed, we created a SXSW sock "Austin" (https://www.freshlypressedsocks.com/products/austin) and did a giveaway by running an onground Twitter campaign. We also created an unofficial guide to SXSW using Hashably that leveraged on Instagram to show conference goers the best places to go and things to do around Austin during the festival.

1. TITLESXSW 2016

3. NOT YOUR
TYPICAL
agency digital
/ tech trends

4. WHAT WE
SAW
THINGS WE
LEARNT
INSPIRATION

5. • Music, interactive, film
• Where creatives, makers and
geeks converge
• Spread over entire downtown
Austin
WHAT’s SXSW?

6. All the fuss that
happens at sxsw
Keynotes and panels
SXSW Accelerator Gaming Expo
SouthbitesSXStyle
Brand HousesTrade Show Parties & Networking

7. • Long queues everywhere. For
food, for sessions, to try out
things…
• Organised chaos in the entire city,
Obama visiting the city didnt help
WHAT TO
EXPECT

8. • To learn, to soak up the
atmosphere, to network
What were we
there for?

9. • VR was just starting out (Game of
Thrones)
• Private networks was a big thing –
Whisper and Secret created a lot
of buzz
• Meerkat was a huge hit last year
TWO YEARS
AGO

10. • VR exploded
• Meerkat got trumped by
Periscope
• Secret closed down
• No big shout outs this year
Fast forward
2016…

11. • VR exploded
• More brand presence
everywhere
(Mazda, IBM,
Mcdonalds, Samsung,
Esurance, Spotify……)
Everyone was trying to
be a thought leader
Fast forward
2016…

12. CONFERENCE
KEY THEMES

13. TECHNOLOGY
IN CIVIC
ENGAGEMENT

14. POTUS
• Government’s role vs. the
community’s role - It is everyone’s
civic duty and responsibility
• Perception of government
• Technology to help uphold democracy
• The biggest challenge for government
• Solving the digital divide
• Privacy vs. security
“And right now, with all the talent that’s
out there, our government is not working
and our politics isn’t working as well as it
should -- the only way we’re going to
solve that is make sure that we’re getting
citizens involved in ways that we haven’t
up until now.”

15. CASEY GERALD
• Casey Gerald, MBAs Across America
• Purpose over profit
• Redefining entrepreneurship
• The need for a social awakening “What would you do and
say if you are not afraid?”

16. Reimagining
transportation

17. HYPERLOOP
• The Hyperloop is a high speed
intercity transporter using a low
pressure tube train with a top
speed of 1,200km/h
• Key issues with public
transportation
• Currently being built using open
sourced design and technology
• 3 companies building it through
a collaborative and
crowdsourced model

18. SOFTWARE AS
AN AGENCY

19. SOFTWARE AS
AN AGENCY
Speaker: Cory Clarke, VSA Partners
• Technology has the opportunity to transfer the agency
business
• Fallacy that agencies have a lot differentiation
• Work product has changed radically but the agency
model hasn’t transformed with it
• We have standard inputs - hen you have standards, this
is the best opportunity to standardize with software
• Software augments the way agencies can design for brands
and create marketing experiences and raises the value of
work beyond just creativity and intelligence of the team

20. SOFTWARE AS AN AGENCY
• Our business is ripe for change. There is an opportunity to automate standards, augment our
adaptability and enhance our creativity
• We can capitalize these opportunities by employing
• Open source to expand our reach
• Machine learning and big data for expertise
• Self service to change the calculus of scale
• Metered usage to extend our revenue model
• What’s next – big 3 agencies vs independents vs consulting firms

21. EVOLUTION
OF ________

22. WIKIPEDIA
• First words
• Bringing together the sum of all human
knowledge
• The importance of being kind and
thoughtful
• Greatest fear – health of the community
• Robots and automation
• The people’s operator
• Living in London

23. SEARCH
• Accessing the inaccessible - Jelly 1.0
vs Jelly 2.0
• The goal of technology is to amplify
humanity’s best traits.
• Fire it up and forget search, go back to
life
• Asking the right question
• Jelly vs. Quora

24. THE MODERN MEDIA
COMPANY
• Structure of media company – Single
brand across multiple verticals or multiple
brands
• Quality content has a business model
• Data informs content and advertising
decisions
• We need to make the experience as
good as the content to do justice to
the message

25. THE MODERN MEDIA
COMPANY
• Expansion in media companies
• Vox creative services.
• Vox influencers + Chorus
• Biggest issues in the industry
• Ad blockers, ad fraud, CPM lowering, ad
quality getting worse.
• Question of quality vs quanity
• Focus on first party advertising vs third
party (like programmatic)

26. MASHABLE
• Importance of consistent engagement
and relationship-building with your
audience over one-time success.
• Mashable studio was set up last year -
serialised mashable content
• Video most impactful way to tell a
story, fastest way to consume lots of
info and get across feel and emotion
• Big data – Velocity

27. ADVENTURES
IN DIGITAL

28. ADVENTURES IN DIGITAL
1.Human centered approach will continue to be critical for designing in a digital world. Data will
be key
2.Companies will have to embrace the continuous design to meet the liquid expectations of
customers. Instead of designing one experience for many, they will need to design many
expectations for each consumer
3.Products and services will no longer stay the same for very long
4.Emerging Tech like VR will mean that we can immerse customers in an experience wherever
they are in that point of time.

29. GETTING UP
CLOSE AND
PERSONAL
• Personalization of content and experiences
• The 4Rs – Recognise, remember, recommend,
relevance
• Key challenges – multiple identifiers
• SXSWgenome

30. INSPIRATION

31. ANTHONY
BOURDAIN
• “I joke about ‘not giving a fuck’ as a good
business model – but it’s true”
• “I never had a reputation to lose. It’s an
advantage.”
• I’ll go back to brunch, motherfucker. I don’t
care.”
• Sometimes when you’re eating, you have to
acknowledge the elephant in the room.”
• Aims to “[make] an artificial process less
artificial”
• Authenticity in shows – never had a meet and
greet reshoot
“We know what people like. If we
cared about that, every show
would be about barbecue.”

32. BRAND
WATCH

33. UNDER
ARMOUR
• Brand story: The feeling I can do better
• Company origins and success
• The string of athletes

35. UNDER ARMOUR
CONNECTED
FITNESS
• Brand story – The feeling I can do better
• The string of athletes – all the reigning
MVPs
• Foray into their digital and their digital
strategy
• The company that will win are those who
use data to their advantage
• Don’t forget to sell shirts and shoes
• UA connected fitness - helps predict
health, macro trends
• Map vs. Terrain
• Four pillars - Make a great, tell a good story,
service the business, build a great team

36. SELLING THE
EXPERIENCE

37. SOCIAL
COMMERCE
• How do you hold visual storytelling across all
different networks and platforms?
• Each channel lends itself differently and not
everything is meant to be shop-able. Some need
to be inspirational. Some needs to be UGC
driven.
• Content creation is expensive so it’s tempting for
brands to try to crowdsource content from
customers
• Importance of lifestyle images vs product shots

38. SOCIAL
COMMERCE
• What’s holding social commerce back
• Mobile commerce needs to improve
• Marketers focusing on outdated metrics
(brand recall etc). Need to be able to look at
high value actions
• No social commerce story has gone viral
• What social platforms will be the winners
• Snap chat with time sensitive offers and
deals
• Facebook Messenger for brands (think
operator and magic)
• Oculus rift for VR

39. THE NEW
MENSWEAR
CONSUMER
• Ethan Song, Founder of Frank & Oak
• Get your customers to buy into your culture
and values, and they will become loyal paying
customers.
• It’s about creating a lifestyle right to the
products. Sell culture, not products
• New products all the time just like a blog.
• No overstock and products are deliberately
left out of stock
• Strictly no wholesaling
“Woman buys the pieces.
Men buy the lifestyle.”

40. HEADS + HEARTS –
Consumer
engagement whEre
it counts
• Christina Binkley (WSJ), James Thompson
(Neuroscientist), Melody Lee (Cadillac)
• Goal is to set as much hardwiring as we can
• Rational touches on value and emotional
touches on value
• Expected value vs experienced value
• High expectation of a really nice experience
in retail stores (where SG is lacking)
“Woman buys the pieces.
Men buy the lifestyle.”

41. Designing
Happiness
• Bruce Vaugn (Walt Disney Imagineering),
Gabby Cohen (Soulcycle), Randall Stone
(Lippincott) and Mark Wilson (Fast Company)
• All three brands strive to create happy
experiences, not as an afterthought, but as
the first step in what they do.
• Everyone wanna feel their life is special.
• Happiness designers must consider the
beginning, middle, and end of an experience
“Happiness is mostly
the anticipation of the
event and memory of it”

42. TRADE SHOW

43. TRADE SHOW
• Focus on food tech

44. TRADE SHOW
• Focus on VR

45. TRADE SHOW
• Gamification

46. Trade SHOW
• What caught our eye

47. Trade SHOW
• What caught our eye

48. Trade SHOW
• What caught our eye

49. Trade SHOW
• The weird

50. BRAND
HOUSES

53. SNEAK PEEKS