SXSW Diary: A list of 10 interesting things

By Tony Dunseath, group account director, BMF Sydney.

The reality is trying to capture and distill 6hrs of lectures a day into a digestible format in the free hour of the day has been beyond me. There is so much to bring back to you all. We just need time to do it justice.

So as a form of an apology here is a list of ten interesting things. For now this is just a pure brain dump of some of the stuff I’ve seen – it isn’t all mind blowing and revolutionary, but for me the question is how much of this are we applying? How often do we stop and ask ourselves these questions or look at our day to day with these filters?

1. Start with what you are born as. You are human, be so in everything you do – ‘talk to people’ don’t ‘communicate with customers’. Real, meaningful relationships have to be the cornerstone of our work.

2. Before you start getting in deep ask yourself and your team to be honest – is it good? Are you in love with it? When I say ‘good’, that is in the context of the world of content not our little advertising bubble. It has to be moving, funny and entertaining when compared to all content being produced. Not just that it is funny or better than the last thing you did for that brand. Would you share it? If not why not – be honest is it a bit shit really? Don’t compromise; there isn’t room in people’s lives for ok content.

3. Brands are not leading the way. We are in a world of millennials; they are makers and publishers. We need to change our focus to how we can help build people’s brands not our own. Give them value as your first focus.

4. Viral – a word often used by clients with HUGE EXPECTATIONS but tiny budgets. They are asking the equivalent of setting a forest on fire with just one match. But why do they want the whole forest on fire – are they cold? Or do they need more light? Find the reason and build from there. There has to be a strategy, ‘viral’ is not a strategy it is often ego driven.

5. Think about integration in content. There are incredible opportunities if you start thinking more like a media channel. What are you creating? Where can you involve other brands, people, opportunities?

6. Trust is everything. Loyalty comes from trust. BUT for people to trust you, you have to form a relationship with them. You need to understand them, walk in their shoes and they have to get to know you – be transparent and authentic. Brand communication is not trusted. Corporate fear is rife. It isn’t human to human, therefore hard to trust. Employees are seen as 80% more trustworthy than companies – leverage them and the massive footprint they offer as invested fans.

7. Don’t be naïve. Hollywood puts hundreds of millions of dollars behind promoting and pushing their films. “If content is King, Distribution is its powerful Macbethian wife”. Build with distribution in mind. Gangnam style featured The Voice winner, a celebrity comedian and one of Asia’s biggest musicians + it  was backed by a music company a huge established following.

8. Nothing beats real. Learn, test and operate in the real world. Theory will not teach you anything, it can give you a hypothesis but not an actual fact. Experiment and learn. Fail and learn. Win and understand why.

9. Tec is not an end goal. It should be invisible, it should enable an engaging meaningful bond.

10. There is a MASSIVE content overload. In the US consumers already watch 10hrs of content a day. We are approaching a maximum capacity. But content continues to grow, people receive 4500 messages a day at the moment and by 2020 the internet is predicted to be 6 times bigger than today. You have make it worth their time – there is a value exchange. They give you time, what are you giving them?