SXSWi 2012 Or How I Learned To Stop Caring And Love The Insanity

Jonathan Tatlow, Connections Planning, Digitas

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• Three Themes

• Three Topics

• Three Takeaways

Photo via O’Reilly.com

THEMES

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(I’ll give you a clue: It’s not rain, homeless hotspots and Jay-Z)

Sensory Overload

• 25,000+ people, 1500 panels, presentations, a trade-show…and parties • Unparalleled opportunity to meet, discuss, listen and learn • BUT we’re all staring at glowing rectangles: Where’s the “i” in SXSW?!

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End of the line for registration (2 hours to get to this point!)

Unheralded Optimism

• Democratization of innovation – fueled by growth in technology • Digitization making lives better: AI, Robotics, Nano-tech, 3-D printing • Calm technology and invisible interfaces = real utility and easy to use

5 Ray Kurzweil Keynote

Tension!

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• Excitement of possibility and terror of change: What are we going to do? • Behavioral shifts and societal implications of tech ubiquity • Data vs. privacy // transparency vs. exclusivity

Photo via The New York Times

TOPICS

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Digital: Not a Channel; An Age We’re In

• Brands for digital age (not tech brands) impressed & engaged: Nike, Amex • Being useful wins: Chevy, FedEx, Samsung • Expressions over impressions: Act like a start-up and innovate

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Nike Fuel Park in Austin via Fast Company

If You Have an Idea, You Have an Opportunity

• Data availability = currency of inspiration • Participation is an expectation – role of passive crowd-sourcing • Keep calm and…do stuff: More code, less decks

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Photo via CNET

SoLoMo

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• Interest graph is the new social graph: Aspiration and potential intent • Emergence of passive location based services, gamification of involvement • No one is launching a website: Apps, services, platforms

Google Village via CNET

• P.S Too many vowels/not enough consonants

TAKEAWAYS

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Do what you say > Say what you do

• Post advertising era: Experiences that demonstrate who you are • Telling brand stories: Expectation of trans-media eco-systems • Demonstrate interest: If all you do is show, all they’ll do is look

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Relationship is a high bar

• Persona of One: Expect brands to deliver to me…now • Gamification and socialization = imperative not after-thought • Be a generous brand: Create more value than you capture

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Pepsi Co Central

Occasion Based Agile Marketing Approach

• Mobile first: Geo-, time and context specific to deliver personal value in moments of need • Plan for participation, design for effect: GRP GRPe • Stay flexible: Can’t be responsive to the data if plans are locked down

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Nike Fuel Park in Austin via Fast Company

APPENDIX Tatlow’s Session Notes

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• Brands as Patterns • FOMO • Harvesting Intent from Social Web • Why Ad Agencies Should Act More Like Tech Start-ups • Google+ Fireside chat Vic Gotondra and Guy Kawasaki • From Waterfall to Agile Marketing • The Future of Social Marketing • How Transmedia is changing TV • Ambient Location and Future of Interface • Social Media Coming of Age • Milk, Drugs and Money: Social Media in Regulated Industry • MIT Media Labs • How to Get the Most Out of Google+ • Evolving Leather Wallet to Digital Wallet • Coolhunting and Cool Farming

Brands as Patterns

• Brand repetition feels unresponsive. Coherent brand behavior builds equity: create patterns • Coherent brand stories endure as context changes, so be dynamic but be consistent • TED.com experience is distinctive branding tool. Interaction device says more than the logo • Consistency without expectation is chaos. Consistency without variation is repetition • Digital-first brands are designed to be distinctive, relevant and active • See http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664145/branding-is-about-creating-patterns-not-repeating-messages

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Photo via Fast Company

#SXpatterns

FOMO

• Anxious? Indecisive? That uneasy all consuming feeling is FOMO • Its not new, but social media has amplified it to the nth degree • We live in what has become a “tell-all” culture = Social one-upmanship (73% of

people use social to brag about their lives) • We spread ourselves too thin as a result of FOMO. Its “Yes overload” • FOMO backlash. You can enrich your life by living in the hear and now • See http://www.slideshare.net/jwtintelligence/fear-of-missing-out-fomo-may-2011

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Photo via JWT Intelligence

#FOMO

Harvesting Consumer Intent from Social Web

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Photo via Springpad

#SoMeIntent

• Interest graph has power to enable brands to inspire consumers vs. market to them • Interest graph is a representation of consumer aspiration and potential intent • Demonstrating interest vs. demographics = relevant engagement = higher rates of

conversion • Brands need to capture preference and interest: if all you do is show, all they’ll do is look • Business of business is business. Learn from and market to the data, not obsess w/ Like • http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/11971997#

Why Ad Agencies Should Act More Like Start-ups

• Structure: Agency hierarchy doesn’t let creativity flourish. Scale doesn’t need hierarchy. Stay small as specialization is the enemy of innovation. You just need hacker, hustler and hipster!

• Compensation: Retainer = bodies, but bodies ≠ people. People are where ideas come from. Think talent casting not “resource allocation”

• Process: Insight +desire + utility. Stay flexible and adapt to change e.g. Instagram. Create strategy+storytelling+software

• More code, less decks!

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#SXadCoders

Fireside Chat with Vic Gutundera

• Google+ a social layer that connects everything Google does • Google could do things better, Google+ helps them understand people • Give a little bit of information and Google will give you back a whole lot more value ,

more specific to you (and you can manage everything they know about you • Google won’t inject ads into social experiences, as that’s not where people have

“intent to buy” • Social signals (+1) are driving lift in ad response rates 5-10%

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Photo via AllThingsD

#SXgoogle

From Waterfall to Agile Marketing

• Demonstrating immed value is a requirement. But marketers not yet able to pivot in real time • We’re competing with feed with locked down budgets and “post-campaign wrap ups” • Agile process has great promise, but a tough sell:

• More transparent than people are comfortable with: The death of the grand unveil! • Lacks structure: Hard to budget, know timing • Less holistic so may be liable to change

• Consider planned spontaneity approach: Should think 75 planned/25 real-time flex. • Events will happen, what will happen at them? How to be culturally relevant? How to respond? • Measure success beyond what platforms dictate i.e. not about the Like • Think about GRPe’s: Account for engagement piece and in vocab of offline brand measures

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#AgileMktg

Future of Social Marketing

• Expectation of value requires greater personalization: Getting close to A persona of one • Brands having personal info is not new. It was just collected in different ways. We’re all

complicit in the war against our privacy • Think: How do you scale personalization and focus on shared interest not segments • Don’t rely on tech to solve your social strategy. Change will always come. Its about judgment • Consider the cost of distraction: If you get on Pinterest, how much will FB suffer? Channel

fatigue

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Photo via Brian Solis

#futuremktg

How Transmedia is Changing TV

• Bravo TV philosophy on content: “If it doesn’t spread, its dead” • 26% of viewers watched Last Chance Kitchen online (highest of any NBCU show) • No perceived distinction between “the show” and and “digital”. Its all about

creating great content • Next step is fan co-creation (may be coming for Real Housewives)

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Photo via flipthemedia.com

#byBravo

Ambient Location & Future of Interface

• Liquid screens: Buttons show up at any time and do anything • Ambient Intimacy: Anytime you click you have all people with you and around you • Information jet-lag: Different interfaces each with own expectation time-zone • Communicate anywhere means we now have to temporarily negotiate our private space

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Photo via CNET

#SXAmberCase

Social Media Comes of Age – Without the Help of Porn

• Social has become our primary entertainment: Too many choices, means social = default • Its v. easy to tell a brand what you think, they expect you to pay attention • Social intel is a fundamental shift in consumer research: Unbias – people don’t know they’re

being analyzed and there’s immense value in aspirational data (e.g. Pinterest) • Social listening is limited due to volume on FB not indexable. Loads still happening on forums • Its not free, or easy and ROI is not best way to calculate success. Think $ saved, risk mitigated

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Photo via conversations.nokia.com

#SXSocTechAge

Drugs, Milk and Money: Social in Regulated Industries

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Photo via MarketingProfs

#SXregulated

• Regulated industries are where interesting conversations happen, due to tension • Empower employees to participate and activate content, its more social (and safer) than

they realize • Be a generous brand: Give as much/more as you take from the system • Expedite publishing via system of content approval: Red, Yellow, Green and a process

to manage each and make legal a part of our core team, not a separate department • Go where the conversations are

MIT Media Labs: Making Connections

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Photo via onemanandhisblog.com

#SXMediaLab

• MIT believes media is anything or any place where you can express an idea • Cognitive limits of organizations exist: double size doesn’t double capability • Cost of innovation is reducing, allowing people to build first, raise cash later • Innovation requires throwing away the map. Plans are the enemy of serendipity.

Embrace serendipity

Getting The Most Out of Google+

• Created to be a thread across Google products that makes all experiences better • For brands it creates a powerful, connected eco-system (and helps search performance) • Fuel for Search: Apply identity, relationship, sharing activity to makes search much more

powerful • Hangouts: Powerful utility to make online interaction easier, better • Google Analytics for G+ in development and likely to help make business case for “why”

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Photo via Google

#SoMeIntent

From Leather to Smartphone the Wallet Evolves

• Digital wallet addresses two things: how to pay in retail and how to manage fin relationships • It won’t be adopted if its just replication of existing wallet (hence NFC wrong focus) • Value of Dig. Wallet greater than “convenience”

• Control: Transparency into what’s in your wallet i.e. inside the credit card • Incentives: Smart discounts and deals based on context, time, location • Simplification: Combine financial relationships, plus easier to pay P2P

• No one platform will win out-right. Until then, an arms race. To succeed brands will need to evolve “agnostic” platforms (not just stuff for their customers)

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Photo via TechGenie

#SoMeIntent

Cool Hunting and Cool Farming

• Coolhunting: Finding trends, coolfarming: nurturing trends • Swarm creativity: Requires three levels of collaboration • Visionary with a cool idea excites people, who recruit others until it becomes hot • Initial recruits need to be dedicated team, collaborative innovation network • Recruit believers, they evangelize for you to create collaborative learning network

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Photo via amazon.com

#coolfarm

Thanks.

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