This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you startling birds with a brass horn.
When you peruse the SXSW panel listing prior to making your way to the annual nerd-fest in Austin each year and you come across a panel entitled Social Media is a Bubble and SXSW is a Fad, interest is piqued. The panel aimed to explore if, in fact, social media is a bubble about to burst and whether or not SXSW has simply jumped the shark and become too large.
The panel, which was moderated by Attention Founder and CEO Curtis Hougland, kicked of with what, for a second, seemed like the introduction of some kind of new killer app that would ensure that your social media activity would always rise to the top. A few seconds in, it was clear the app was a joke but, because of the app's "boom! there it is" approach to popularity was an integral component, it did get everyone to shout "boom" before they asked a question. Which, of course, was funny. But even funnier was one woman who came to the session late and had no idea why she had to say "boom" before she asked the question.
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you chicken for breakfast.
Each year blog ad network BlogAds takes a look at the number of agency personnel attending SXSW. And each year they crown an agency The Agency King of SXSW. This year the honor goes to Digitas which sent 79 employees to Austin this year. Congrats, Digitas.
Last year saw a huge increase over 2010 in the number of ad agency people attending SXSW. Reason? Agencies finally realized this annual geek fest in Austin was worth their time, ponied up the money and sent ten times the number of agency personal than they did in 2010.
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you chicken for breakfast.
Friday night at SXSW, TechKaraoke was held at The Stage on Sixth. TechKaraoke makes its appearance each year at SXSW and at BlogWorld. It the one time when you can see your co-workers get on stage and make complete idiots of themselves. OK, well, some co-workers are actually good. Really good.
We were there to take pictures for the event so we can share a few with you. The others have to go to TechKaraoke and we'll share those when we can. But we're going to share the good ones. The important ones. The ones you want to see. You know. Pictures of beautiful people. Because we all wish we were as beautiful as some of the people in these pictures. Come on, you know you wish it.
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency, the agency sponsoring that banner ad over there.
OK so where are we? Austin, Texas. For SXSX. Got confused there for a minute. Can we just talk about how crazy busy it is here for a minute? Some poor suckers had to wait in line for over an hour to register. The conference is spread across 12 locations all over Austin. And it's raining. Which sucks because, ya know, you have to go outside to get to the hundreds of panels on the program.
Speaking of panels, we headed to the Hotel Intercontinental earlier today to attend a panel entitled How Brands Build Advocates by Anticipating Needs only to find out that not only was that panel full but all the branding and marketing panels were full and no one could get into anything. Glad we walked 7 blocks for that! Apparently, overcrowding has been an issue with branding and marketing panels all day. Gee. Who knew there were so many marketers here at SXSW? Wait, we know. We told you so.
But we're not going to let a little overcrowding stop us. After all, we're here to deliver you important news about the latest trends in advertising. And since we've been to so many panels just like the one we couldn't get in to, we're going to tell you what the panelists said even though we weren't there.
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you irreverence.
There's really nothing worse than rain during SXSW. Why? SXSW is in Texas. Austin, Texas. And it's supposed to be warm and sunny here. All. The. Time. Well at least during SXSW when the entire country decides to call it home for five days. Alas, we can expect sun only one of the five days during SXSW Interactive. But we're not going to let a little rain get us down.
And the rain isn't letting the marketers down either. Even more so than last year, the brands are out in full force. Even GE. Yes, GE. Now you might wonder, what the hell does a company like GE have to do with marketing or social media. Well they've set up GE Garages, a hands-on lab filled with their latest technology for people to check out. The Garage will enable people to create personalized products for themselves using laser cutters, 3D printers, metal inert gas welders, computer numeric control mills and more.
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you speling.
ClickZ has an interesting piece on B2B brands an SXSW. As we wrote last year, SXSW has overwhelmingly been taken over by marketers leaving the geeks to grumble about their presence. Hey, things change. Go with it. There's really nothing else you can do.
Of the presence of B2B brands at SXSW, Eloqua's Jesse Noyes told ClickZ, "Some people tend to think of 'South By' as more of a consumer-facing event where the next big thing like Twitter gets launched. But you have a lot of B2B brands setting up booths next to B2Cs. You'll go to a panel and see the head of marketing for Adobe sitting next to Pepsi on stage. That's what makes it great."
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you magic tricks!
As we prepare for SXSW which kicks off this Friday, we're wading through the thousands of possible panels, events, exhibits and other activities to attend. We thought we'd share a little bit about what we plan to do while in Austin. And plan is the operative word here. If you've ever been to SXSW then you know your plans can (and do) change at any moment. But for now, we hope to attend these panels.
The Power of Visual Storytelling. This panel will take a look at how brands and individuals can use storytelling to build their brand.
Integrating Brands Into Social Television. This panel will examine how Facebvook brand pages and Twitter handles have become second screens to the television viewing experience.
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This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you leftover moonpies.
Ever been to a marketing-related conference? Ever read a conference guide? Ever checked out a panel description? Then you know conference event vernacular can be a panalopy of buzzword bingo. SXSW, the mother of all interactive conferences, puts the rest to shame with its propensity for buzzword bingo. An analysis by BlogAds of SXSWi panel buzzwords has discovered Monday, March 5 will be the sexiest day of the five day event. And by sexy, we mean geeked out hotness.
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We're happy to announce Red Square Agency will be sponsoring our coverage of SXSW which begins next friday. Red Square Agency, located in Mobile Alabama, has done work for Google, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Full Sail University. They also came up with the Parentalyzer and proved cats improve Facebook ad response far better than cleavage.
We're happy to have them on board as a sponsor. Follow along as we bring you the best of SXSW. We'll be covering as many of the marketing, branding and social media sessions as we can along with those always interesting surprise announcements, the parties and who got so drunk they'll be ashamed to go back to work after SXSW. OK, well we're not going to out anyone or ruin anyone's career but we are going to have as much fun as we possibly can.
Join us for the ride.
Have you noticed an absence of content here on Adrants? Well it's because yours truly is in Las Vegas for LeadsCon. Taking pictures. Getting interviewed. Doing interviews. And generally getting lost in everything Vegas has to offer. Apologies. But a guy needs a break once in a while, right?
So LeadsCon. It's a conference about lead generation. And it's grown to 2,600 attendees. This year's conference seems to be twice as big as last year's. Held at the Mirage, the exhibit hall was bustling, the session rooms were packed. And the hallways were filled with people networking and doing business.
With the downfall (that's what it is after all) of traditional advertising (and we include traditional online advertising in the statement), the ad industry is begging for new ways to connect with consumers. If you've been asleep for a bit you might not have noticed the meteoric rise of social media, affiliate marketing, content marketing and, yes, lead generation.
For the snarky ones among us, social media is just digitized word of mouth, content marketing is just custom publishing, affiliate marketing is just a form of multilevel marketing and lead generation is just good old cold calling on steroids.
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