SNAPSHOTS10

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 FarrugiaManaging 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 NortonVP, Creative Strategy and Development, Y&R Austinu

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 CharvetDirector 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 DiependaeleChief 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 FOMOGustavo QuinteroBrand Planner, Y&R New Yorku

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 CuevasAccount Director, Y&R Austinu

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 BirdGlobal 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 people 08.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 BegDirector 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 FarrugiaManaging Partner, GPY&R Melbourneu

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 generationretail 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 BellManaging Partner, GPY&R Melbourneu

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