Y&R: 10 Snapshots from SXSWi 2015

SNAPSHOTS
10
S X S W ifrom
2015

SXSW, the annual technology, film, and music
festival in Austin wrapped up this week. Each
year it gets bigger and bigger. More people. More
countries. More brands. More inspiration. More
ideas. More ideas that work.
Y&R Advertising sent some of its brightest minds
to the interactive portion and here’s what they
had to say about the trends at the intersection of
technology, innovation, and advertising, and what
they mean for brands today.
snapshots

Since Apple launched the iBeacon, there has
been plenty of buzz around the opportunities they
could create for retailers and for live events. Their
implementation could provide new avenues for
true consumer centricity. Yet these applications are
just scratching the surface so far. Here at SXSW,
the entire event is covered by a beacon-powered
social network, which allowed attendees to find and
network with others in the same location. The best
thing I found at SXSW was the Intel iKeg, which uses
beacons to track and manage the beer supply chain,
letting bartenders know when their kegs are about
to run dry. It’s clear beacons could have plenty of
applications both within and outside marketing.
beacons are
getting big01.
Matt Farrugia
Managing Partner, GPY&R Melbourneu

While it’s certainly not a new idea, ads that make you
laugh, cry or react emotionally are getting a lot of
attention. Of course, while emotion-based ideas make
award-winning advertising, brands are more attracted
to what else it creates: great results. Procter & Gamble,
one of the largest global advertisers, even has the
numbers to prove it. They took a look at 10 years’
worth of their ads from around the world and found
that emotion-driven ads were 9x more successful than
non-emotion-based ads. Drilling into the data even
further, they found that ads with a positive emotional
slant were 8x more successful. Surprisingly, even
negative ads were 2x more successful.
So the next time you’re beginning to think about how
your idea will make the most impact, stop thinking
about the target audience and starting focusing on
the human beings inside them. That just might get the
tears—and the results—flowing.
the rise of
SADvertising02.
Mark Norton
VP, Creative Strategy and Development, Y&R Austin
u

Social profiles on networks like Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram show an incomplete glimpse into
peoples’ lives and often cause their viewers to feel
inadequate, sad or lonely. This has resulted in a
revolution against the permanence of content on
social feeds.
We are starting to see social media networks
that enforce the expiration of posted content and
require their users to experience content in real-
time. Snapchat already does this by remembering
only the last ten minutes of user-generated content
and refreshing premium content every 24-hours.
To add to the list is Meerkat and Periscope. These
applications enable users to run live video streams
from their phone and integrate with Twitter for
real-time engagement. Unlike other video content
the disappearance of
permanence03.
that is posted on Twitter, Meerkat and Periscope
streams only appear on Twitter feeds when live
and disappear once complete. We’ll see more
networks (though not all) adopt this model of social
media consumption because the notion of expiring
content paves the way for users to interact with less
inhibition and engage on deeper levels.
So what does this mean for brands? Placing lifelines
on social content will require brand messaging to
be even more relevant, timely and contextual to
their audience’s needs. But this also means that
the audience can be more trusting and forgiving
of a brand’s imperfections - as long as brands
iterate, deliver messaging that resonates, and show
that they are worthy of maintaining a personal
relationship.
Juan Charvet
Director of Experience Strategy, Y&R New York
u

Retail is dead; Long live retail! Physical retail is
getting the same data tools through beacons and
tracking systems to become as data-driven as the
e-commerce players, but with a personal touch.
Data is not everything: Big data was a major topic,
but underlying it was the acknowledgement that
although big data gives you huge insights, to be
really looking for new things and to really build
the connection, one can never forget the personal
element of the physical world.
future of retail
and data04.
Toon Diependaele
Chief Strategy Officer, These Days Y&R Antwerp
u

To paraphrase Papa John’s VP of Global Digital
Marketing Jim Ensign: We all have marketing FOMO.
We have so much fear of getting “left behind” that we
try to do everything and put out stuff that sucks. We
don’t think about trying to make it good, we just re-
size a banner ad and throw it out on mobile hoping it
sticks. Why? If we’re not cool with putting out an “ok”
TV ad, why are we cool with putting out an “ok” mobile
ad? We need to start thinking of mobile devices as
the tools that they are and give people a way of further
capitalizing on them via our brand – not just interrupt
their browsing.
With beacons coming along, we’ll be able to know when
people are shopping, where they are, when they’re
there, and possibly much more if we marry it with social
data. We’re going to go through the trouble of finding all
this out to send them a push notification that says “buy
our stuff while you’re here!” No, that sucks. Transactional
use of beacons or any other mobile utility will never
be sustainable, people will just learn to ignore it like
everything else. We need to take the time to think of
how your goals can be met through all/any of mobile’s
capabilities – email, social, SMS, push notifications, in-
game prompts, screenshotting, (call-to-action: show this
screen shot somewhere and get a free____) etc.
Let’s quit just re-sizing our banners for fear of missing
out.
05. bad use of mobile comes from
marketing FOMO
Gustavo Quintero
Brand Planner, Y&R New York
u

In an age where everyone is trying to create sticky, shareable,
consumable content, we (as content creators) are often telling our
customers what they want to consume. What we really need to be
doing is creating lots of content quickly (low cost, short production)
and having the market tell us what they want more of. Users don’t want
to click on a banner anymore to go to your site and consume your
content on our terms. Advertisers have been afraid of putting their
content out in the market to be consumed outside of their channels
but if they don’t they will just be abandoned. We have to put content
where people want it (native advertising, social media feeds, in apps)
and develop feedback mechanisms to still learn from these efforts. No
piece of content - no matter how great you think it is - has any value if
there isn’t a way to capture data from it.
content marketing:
leverage your assets06.
Meredith Cuevas
Account Director, Y&R Austin
u

Actress Jessica Alba spoke about building a
lifestyle brand called The Honest Company –
touted to be the next Johnson & Johnson. The
idea for the company – which began in the
baby category – came to Alba when she had
her first-born. Suddenly it was important to find
effective, safe, affordable, beautifully designed
and conveniently available products – and they
just weren’t out there for Alba. Cue a big business
idea. The three-year-old business turned over
$150 million last year and is now valued at over
$1 billion. As a company for today, it answers
the “Internet-Shaped Expectations” of customers
now: Transparency, Speed, Control, Abundance
a company for
today? honestly07.
(the concept of an “endless aisle”), Interaction (the
chance to be both creator and consumer), and
Bespoke (a tailored experience). And it also caters
to the shopping experience demanded today:
Value, Stress-Free, Efficiency (everything in one
place, quick and convenient), Information, and Fun.
As well as a great story, it reminded me of what
it takes to be successful in business in 2015. And
while you can dismiss The Honest Company as an
actor’s folly, there is real substance and value there,
and useful lessons for us all. Perhaps we all need
to push the limits of compromise just that little bit
further.
Jon Bird
Global Managing Director, Y&R Labstore
u

When the Internet of Things first became a, well,
thing last year, it was more about solutions looking
for problems. But as Claro Partners’ Chris Massot so
rightly stressed during his Does the IoT Need to be
User-Centered? We say Yes panel, “where there is a
need, there is technology.”
And what that need for consumers today is
technology that will positively affect their quality of
life – helping them to live healthier and less stressed
lives. As we move more into the realm where
connected devices become more commonplace
it’s important to remember that while historically
technology has the man working the machine,
this new era needs to flip that dynamic and build
experiences for life, not machines.
the internet of
people08.
So less sensors that let you know when a chicken
lays an egg, and more smart socks that can detect
ulcers on diabetics, and more sleep monitors and
lights bulbs that work to better your sleep cycles.
And while the thoughts of drones someday
becoming as everyday as cellphone towers seems
intrusive (and downright frightening), when it comes
to healthcare that may be the future we’re looking
at. As one speaker mentioned to me, a drone could
be beneficial in life and death situations especially
in large cities like New York City, where the average
response time for an ambulance is about 6 minutes,
and a person suffering a heart attack has about 4
minutes.
Sulaiman Beg
Director of Global Digital and Social
Communications, Y&R Global
u

This may be a given considering SXSW is a festival
of innovation after all, but the technologies on
display are absolutely unbelievable. From prosthetic
limbs that can be controlled by reading the wearer’s
brain, to clothes that change color based on the
environment they’re in, it’s clear we will never stop
pushing the boundaries.
And maybe these things won’t directly impact
advertising (right now?) but they should sure inspire
us all to push the limits of what we can do with
technology, how we can interact with people, and
what we can do to share our brands’ message and
experiences with consumers around the world.
technology will
never stop
inspiring
09.
Matt Farrugia

There is no doubt that the retail world is going through
some challenging and dynamic times. With both
physical and digital stores adapting to new technologies
and responding to changing consumer behaviours, it’s
interesting to watch how retailers respond and change
the experience they are creating. Jennifer Hyman, CEO
of Rent the Runway, offered up these insights on the
future of retail and how retailers need to adapt:
Analytics is King: The “Rent the Runway”
analytics team not only analyze sales data but
project pricing by demand, provide predictive
models for designers around what styles will be
“kept the longest” and code all the products and
garments at POS
10. redefining the next generation
retail experience
Forget the Dove “Real Beauty” Campaign: Her
research indicated that women overwhelmingly
described themselves as ‘smart,’ but felt retail
brands weren’t talking to them in a way that
recognised this. Many had forgotten that they
are selling a sense of confidence, not simply
clothing.
Reinvent for Relevance: Retailers must begin to
deliver an experience that can’t live purely online
OR offline. Perhaps it’s turning stores into service
centres, entertainment hubs or diversified
offerings. Being known simply as the ‘menswear
shop’ will no longer provide business longevity.
Julian Bell

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Y&R: 10 Snapshots from SXSWi 2015

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Y&R: 10 Snapshots from SXSWi 2015