Monday, April 7, 2014

SXSW

Every year, professionals and celebrities connected in the Music, Film and Interactive industries flock to Austin for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival. With over 72,000 registrants and artists in attendance, it’s a great opportunity for marketers to try create buzz, although each year it gets harder to stand out as the event becomes more commercialized every year. From experiential activations to free food and giveaways, brands look to outdo each other and parties look to be more fantastic than the last.

Key SXSW trends themes this year included 3D printing, online surveillance and privacy, wearable computing, futuristic tech culture. To see an example of a technology enthusiast personified, check out this attendee, Nick McGlynn, 31, photographed riding around Austin, Texas on a Segway, wearing Google Glass while checking his smart phone:

A few highlights from this year’s conference:

"The Strain": While television show promotions were all over the festival, one of the most interesting activations was FX-The Strain's “Transformation Station”. A museum was converted into a “vampire spa” featuring sleep pods with Samsung tablets playing footage. Exhausted festival attendees could sign up and take 20-minute naps, billed as a cure-all for “The Strain of SXSW.”

3D Printed Snacks: Oreo epitomized real-time marketing and printed out customized Oreos using a three-dimensional printing system. Mondelez International (makers of the Oreo) partnered with Twitter to offer attendees "deliciously hyper-personalized and customized snacks based on real-time data collection." The edible, 3D-printed Oreos assembled within two minutes by the machines, let snackers choose from a dozen varieties. The flavors offered were based on which trended highest on Twitter. Wow!

Cookie Shots: My favorite new product launch? New York pastry chef and creator of the cronut Dominique Ansel debuted his latest dessert creation: Chocolate Chip Cookie Milk Shots. The inspiration for the dessert — a chocolate cookie "glass" containing a "shot" of milk — came after Ansel tried his first Oreo and was encouraged to eat it with milk, which apparently is not "a natural combination in French culture." Figuring that "if everyone was drinking milk with cookies, you might as well make a dessert that allows them both to be combined," Ansel has created a chocolate chip cookie recipe that "stayed crispy and moist in parts" even as it held milk." Genius!

Did you attend the show? What was your favorite highlight?

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