Leo Burnett Had Largest Agency Presence at SXSW

If you attended SXSW this year, you know it was very different than prior years. How was it different? Marketers and agencies finally gave the conference credence and attended in droves. BlogAds did a bit of follow up analysis and concluded agency presence at SXSW has increased 1,000 percent.

Of the 100 or so agencies BlogAds found in attendance at SXSW this year, Leo Burnett tops the list with 56 (updated to 65) people at the conference. Rounding out the top 10 are Saatchi, Digitas, JWT, SapientNitro, BBDO, HUGE, Ogilvy, DraftFCB and R/GA.

The list also examines attendance in 2009 and draws comparison. The numbers are stunning. Two years ago, there were literally no agency personnel at the conference. This year, attendance was in the hundreds.

Explaining its methodology, BlogAds wrote, "We did a little hacking, BBQ-style, to see which agencies had the biggest presence at SXSWi. We combined agencies with the same name (Leo Burnett and Leo Burnett/Arc WW, and JWT and JWT New York, for instance), chopped and sorted by attendance, and poured a little sauce on top to get the following top-10 list."

And as we wrote the first day of the conference, this is a very good thing. Further, we wrote, "For brands, SXSW is a chance to stay in front of a very quickly moving target: the future of marketing. In many instances, marketing, today, starts with technology and innovation more so than it does with the colloquial big creative idea as it once did. Advertising is no longer dominated by "the creative." Hasn't been for a long time but as the topic of one panel this week, Do Agencies Need to Think Like Software Companies, will address, it's not about pretty pictures that win CLIOs and Lions any more."

Seems things are progressing just as they should.