Tag: South by Southwest

Looking back on SXSW Interactive 2015

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Originally posted on PRSA Austin Chapter website. 

SXSW Interactive celebrates its 21st year in Austin, Texas.
SXSW Interactive celebrates its 21st year in Austin, Texas.

Every year, South by Southwest Interactive brings together the most innovative, entrepreneurial and accomplished individuals to showcase their products and ideas in front of eager audiences. 2015 was certainly no different.

A number of PRSA Austin Chapter board members were in attendance and answered a few questions about their experience. Check out their insight below:

What was your favorite session/panel at SXSW Interactive and why?

  • Sara Lasseter: I immensely enjoyed the panel on the Next Generation of Retail Innovation with the CEOs and founders of StitchFix and Rent the Runway. They had wonderfully insightful commentary on the state of retail and ecommerce operations, as well as where they see their innovative companies going in the future. As a woman in the technology industry, it was inspiring to hear the obstacles they faced in a male dominated startup/venture capital world.
  • Madison LaRoche: My favorite panel of SXSWi was on Reinventing the Cooking Show, in which representatives from PBS Food, ingredient sourcing show Original Fare and online cooking site ChefSteps.com discussed their experiences with digital cooking and food content. Regardless of their goals or plans for how their content would be consumed, all agreed that the digital format allowed for flexibility that was nonexistent in the time of Julia Child. Versus broadcast TV, the digital format allows for greater audience participation, allowing for content to create a feedback loop and a channel for dialog not previously available. At the close of the panel, the message was clear: stay true to the story you want to tell and maintain your authenticity in order to build and maintain brand equity. This lesson rings true well beyond the foodie content culture.
  • Erica Schuckies: My favorite session was called Entertainment and the Edge: Post Millennial Culture. Ian Pierpoint and Jack Horner (who both had very sexy English accents, by the way) provided insight into the minds of ‘Generation Edge,’ which consists of individuals born right after the Millennial generation (after 1995). Pierpoint’s research into this group showed that kids today are more socially aware of the pitfalls in our society and feel a responsibility to make positive changes more than any other generation (at least at their age). Horner described this generation as “rebels with a cause,” acting against the norm to make life better for not only themselves, but also their peers and future generations. Generation Edge is also more thoughtful of what they post on the web and social media; as Horner so eloquently put, “posting less shit.” Let’s hope this is true for all our sakes.
  • Alison Kwong: I really enjoyed the Lyft keynote on Monday afternoon. CEO and co-founder Logan Green is such a smart, articulate spokesperson who was very clear about his company’s story, vision and key differentiators from his competitors. It was apparent in the messaging and what he said about the marketing and plans for growth and future expansion. I also enjoyed Charles Barkley’s panel about staying relevant in the digital age. As a well-respected member of the sports media, I thought his perspective on why he doesn’t participate in social media was interesting as most of his peers and athletes do. The main takeaway was that authenticity and honesty go a long way in the media, especially in the sports industry.
  • Catherine Seeds: My favorite session by far was What Fashion Can Teach Women-Led Companies, which included a panel of the CEO and co-founder of Birchbox, the founder and CEO of Reformation Apparel and the founder and chief editor of Snob Essentials (Great blog on hand bags, by the way, if that is your thing!). This was a wonderful session on how these women have differentiated themselves and their companies by the way they communicate and engage with their customer base and by knowing exactly what their customers (mostly women) want and expect from these fashion and beauty brands. The panel discussed the social media effect on their companies, advice to other women on successfully launching their own companies, and some of the challenges they’ve faced as women-owned companies.

What were the trends that stood out to you while attending the Interactive portion?

  • Alison Kwong: Big data and analytics; the Internet of Things and how it drives innovation; the importance of good content.
  • Catherine Seeds: Retail tech was HUGE this year at SXSW.
  • Sara Lasseter: How to harness big data; mobile tech, of course; the customer experience.
  • Erica Schuckies: Customization of EVERYTHING, from wearables to user experiences to marketing & advertising; short-form video and social platforms catering to this concept (Meerkat, Meerkat, Meerkat); mobile-first mentality.

Did you Meerkat at all during SXSW Interactive? If so, what did you Meerkat?

  • Madison LaRoche: I downloaded Meerkat but was too scared/busy/uninterested to experiment with it at the time.
  • Erica Shuckies: Same as Madison – I downloaded the app with all intentions of Meerkatting my life away. To be completely honest, I kind of forgot about it most of the time, especially in moments that would have been perfect for it.

What was the coolest/most unique thing you saw during the Interactive portion?

  • Madison LaRoche: Unfortunately I didn’t see many amazing brand executions at SXSW this year, but to be honest, I wasn’t looking for them as hard as I have in the past. One of the most interesting panels I attended was the last Interactive Keynote of 2015, in which Dr. Astro Teller, captain of moonshots for Google[x], gave a passionate speech on failing with purpose. At his “moonshot factory” – a sci-fi-esque arm of Google devoted to exploring new technology to solve global problems – Teller encourages his colleagues to fail fast and harness those failures as learning opportunities toward success. He gave case study after case study of huge, time-intensive and expensive projects in which failure was part of the process to figure out what doesn’t work to get to what does. Though these examples were fascinating on their own, the best part of the speech was Teller’s extraordinary tenacity for and promotion of this “fail fast, fail often” approach. During the Q&A portion at the end, an obviously inspired but desperate attendee asked via Twitter how a company without the luxury and budget to fail could harness this approach. An exasperated Teller exclaimed that this poor soul missed the whole point of the talk, which was the simple fact that failing at the START of something (and being able to fix it) is much cheaper than failing at the END (when it’s simply too late to do anything about it).
  • Catherine Seeds: My colleagues and I had the opportunity to sit in on a session with the editor of Lucky Magazine, Eva Chen. She was fantastic and very down to earth. Here is a great write-up on her.

If you weren’t able to attend the Interactive portion of SXSW this year, we did the hard work for you and compiled a list of some great SXSWi recaps. Be warned, there are plenty of Meerkat mentions.

How about we all meet back here around this time next year? Until then, we will be catching up on sleep, nursing our blisters and over-tweeted fingers, and putting our learnings to good use!

Retail Tech & KG @ SXSW 2015

Posted on | by Ketner Group
Media Tech SXSW Image Think
Visual capture of Mashable CEO Peter Cashmore’s featured session at SXSW Interactive

It was a whirlwind of a week for KG at South by Southwest Interactive, and now that we’ve recovered from our java jitters and breakfast taco binge, we wanted to bring you the best recaps and insights on SXSW we’ve seen so far!

Several media outlets had their own opinion on the state of SX and trends we’ve seen become the hot topic

A few tech announcements and launches were made as well, including the rise of Meerkat and the Google Glass cause of death.

For the KG team, we really resonated with several of the gender-focused sessions highlighting the gender gap in technology and how next-generation retail companies are turning that on its side. We also loved this chat on optimizing content for growth!

We live and breathe retail at KG, so of course we hit up the amazing retail sessions throughout the conference. Our esteemed colleague and Editor-In-Chief of RIS News, Joe Skorupa, (who also moderated the OrderDynamics Ghost Economy panel) published an amazing recap of SXSW Interactive.

As well, UK publication The Guardian did a splendid write-up on retail’s growing presence at the innovative convention where retailers meet techies meet investors meet media meet tacos.

What were some of your favorite Interactive sessions this year? How was it different from past experiences you’ve had at the conference? We’d love to hear from you!

Until next year, SXSW!

SXSW: A blur in the rear-view mirror

Posted on | by Ketner Group
Photo courtesy of SXSW Interactive Festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both Austin and myself are fully recovered from the sleepless madness that is the South By South West (SXSW) onslaught of all things branded and hipster and geeky-cool that is now a much-loved and/or much-hated March tradition, depending on whom you ask (and whether or not you ask them as they sit in gridlocked traffic courtesy of all the road closures).

Though March and April(!) have come and gone, as have the road closures, thank goodness, I’m still thinking about a few sessions at SXSW Interactive (SXSWi) that opened my eyes to new ideas, and that’s the true value of SXSWi. As a busy professional, and one of the 69% of PR professionals that eat lunch at their desks every day, it’s so easy to put on blinders as I sit, chained to my computer every day, waging war against deadlines and monitoring budgets. Everyone needs to shake it up sometimes, and two sessions in particular posed questions that, a month and a half later, I still can’t shake.

The first session that blew me away was #bingle, a joint session with Danny Sullivan, Founding Editor Search Engine Land at Google, and Duane Forrester, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Bing Webmaster Tools. A pure Q&A format, the conversation was fluid and candid as SXSWi attendees took to the microphone to ask the experts. See the whole #bingle twitter feed here—look at the tweets from March 8-14.

 

 

 

The main question I walked away asking myself was this: What is the value of wire distribution for press releases?

Search engines have been discounting press releases for SEO for years.  So what’s the real value here? This question has come up a few times recently at KG, but hearing it directly from Google and Bing has increased our sense of urgency in reevaluating our internal processes. While we’ve always been very selective about which press releases we distribute via the wire and which circuits we recommend, we can still be more strategic in why and when we recommend wire distribution.

The other session that I still quote and think about daily (not exaggerating) was #socialb2b, “B2B Social Marketing: Blazing New Trails,” led by marketing experts Jamie Grenney, VP of Social Media & Online Video at Salesforce.com, Jason Bartlett, VP of Global Social Marketing at Xerox Corporation and Jeanette Gibson, Sr. Director of Social & Digital Marketing at Cisco Systems Inc. See the feed of tweets from March 11 here.

This session was packed with tidbits that have not just lingered in my memory, but have actually inspired change within myself and across KG:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to quote myself quoting the panel:

 

 

 

The question that a session attendee asked the panel that still haunts me is: How can we translate big enterprise B2B social media success to much smaller companies with fewer resources?

The panel didn’t have an especially confident answer on that one, which is admittedly a really tough question with which the majority of businesses across the country struggle. The idea the panel did suggest, though, resonated with me. They all stressed how successful YouTube videos have been for their enterprises, and this is something many smaller companies do not invest in, but could produce on a budget. So long as there is a direct call to action within the first 15 seconds, YouTube videos are highly effective. One reason for this is how safe it is to share a familiar YouTube link. This point was driven home this week when I found an email from Networld in my inbox that aggregated some incredibly compelling stats about video:

  •  “89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos today.” (A second source: Comscore)
  • “Online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016.” (Source: MediaPost & Cisco)
  • “Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks.” (Source: TechCrunch & Bytemobile)

What’s more, PR giant FleishmanHillard saw the writing on the wall and this week announced they are rebranding from a traditional PR agency into a “channel agnostic” integrated marketing communications firm that will tackle digital marketing projects, including video.

SXSWi 2012 left me enlightened but exhausted. SXSWi 2013 left me inspired and recharged. The post-SXSWi zombie syndrome is always worth it to get out of my comfort zone and hobnob with the bright minds and progressive thinkers that are shaking up my industry. Ketner Group is committed to evolving with the times, staying fresh and current to bring our clients the most relevant, thoughtful counsel possible. We’re excited how far we have come—the new website, the new-and-improved PB&J blog, and the addition of the incredibly digitally-savvy Sara Lasseter—and we look forward to continuing to chart this new, more digital course through the rest of the year until SXSWi 2014, when we’ll fill up our inspiration tanks once more.

5 SXSWi Sessions PR Pros Shouldn’t Miss

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Image provided by SXSW.com, photo by: Brittany Ryan

Image provided by SXSW.com, photo by: Brittany Ryan.
It’s T-minus one month and six days until Austin’s most anticipated conference of the year. South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) begins Friday, March 9 and the whole city is preparing. Hotels have tripled their rates and are mostly booked, the city is organizing the transportation routes and local Austinites are planning their schedules and thanking their lucky stars they live close by.

I’m excited Ketner Group is sending a couple of us to SXSWi—I can’t wait to absorb all of the marketing, new media and technology ideas and advice everyone has to share. The session line up looks really interesting, and the only thing that disappoints me is that I can’t be in more than one place at the same time. You should see my schedule on the SXSWi. The site lets you star the sessions you find interesting and adds them to your “My SXSW Schedule” tab in your account. There are places where I have five sessions at the same time—that’s just not possible.

This got me thinking, “I wish someone would read through all several hundred sessions and let me know which ones are a MUST-SEE as a PR professional.” Apparently, bottles aren’t big enough to hold genies and leprechauns are really hard to catch. So I read through every single session description and starred my favorites. If you’re a PR pro, I would recommend starring the following sessions for yourself:

“Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas”
Presenter: David Meerman Scott (Best-selling author!)
The rules have changed. The traditional PR model—sticking closely to a preset script and campaign timeline—no longer works the way it used to. Public discourse now moves so fast and so dynamically that all it takes is a single afternoon to blast the wheels off someone’s laboriously crafted narrative. Enter newsjacking: the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business. It creates a level playing field—literally anyone can newsjack—but, that new level favors players who are observant, quick to react, and skilled at communicating. It’s a powerful tool that can be used to throw an opponent or simply draft off the news momentum to further your own ends. Marketing and PR expert and bestselling author David Meerman Scott prepares you to launch your business ahead of the competition and attract the attention of highly-engaged audiences by taking advantage of breaking news

“We Made This, and it’s Not an Ad”
Presenter: Robbie Whiting, Director of Creative Tech & Production, Duncan/Channon
What if agencies and marketers created products and services, not just ads? And what if they made these things for themselves, not just for clients? They do. But tackling things like product design, creating new businesses or building complex real-world experiences requires a creative, technical, managerial and entrepreneurial spirit more associated with Silicon Valley than Madison Avenue. It demands new roles, agile approaches, external partnerships, technologies, investments and compensation models that can drive even the most hardened finance director crazy. And in some cases, it may even require a complete reboot from the ground up. The ability to make something that isn’t an “ad” is no longer optional in modern advertising. But it’s certainly not easy, either. So what can we learn from the makers, technologists and agencies already playing in this space? Turns out, a whole heckuva lot.

“Get Lit: Why Story Matters”
Presenter: Jill Meyers, Editor, American Short Fiction
You built a product. It’s amazing, brilliant, even earth-shattering. You know it, your team knows it, your mom knows it. So why doesn’t anyone else seem to get it? The answer may be that you haven’t told them the right story. As it turns out, good writing is hard to come by, and people who are good at making things aren’t necessarily the best at telling their story. But don’t worry: you can learn! In the world of fiction, we’ve been thinking about story–and how to make it powerful, visceral, and beautiful–for a long time. This panel will bring the practices and structure of fiction to help you transform your idea, product, or service from the mundane to the sublime. Continue reading →

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes

Posted on | by Ketner Group

It’s coming. I can hear the buzz, the distant rumble of excitement from anticipation and preparations. It may be early, but people are already planning for it. It comes every year and the eyes of passersby twinkle at all the sights and sounds that flood the senses…

…at the annual South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, Film and Music festival in Austin, TX. Did I have you thinking about Christmas for a second? I don’t blame you. But today, I’ve got SXSW on my mind.

We Ketner Groupies are just plain excited. We all have special connections with SXSW. I got married this year during the music festival (which hosted an awesome Friday-night outing for our out-of-towners). Another Ketner Groupie’s love story began there. We helped launch a new social media application there. And every year, we learn something new and valuable that we can share with our clients and friends.

As PR professionals, we ‘heart’ SXSW Interactive (SXSWi), the marketing, digital media and technology hub of the festival. How lucky are we to have the brightest minds and entrepreneurs from all over the globe meet up in one place to share an explosion of ideas and knowledge—right in our own backyard? And we are doubly excited for SXSWi 2012, because three of our clients have submitted their own panels, which are up on the 2012 SXSW PanelPicker now! Check these out and if you like what you see, give ‘em a thumbs up (AKA: vote for their panel)! Continue reading →