Cashing in on Experience — SXSW in Review
If I had a penny for each time someone mentioned the word experience over my five days at South by Southwest Interactive, I could pay for my trip to Austin, my SXSW pass, plane ticket and hotel in one fell swoop.
I collected the word experience like lucky pennies left on the sidewalk as I strolled in the hot Austin sun and waited in line for one of the many sessions. I scooped up experience reaching for my cold beer at the bar and hammered experience out on my phone as fast as my two thumbs could type a well-timed tweet.
I tripped over experience stepping through the halls of the exposition floor and bit into experience dripping in barbeque sauce at a late-night event. Experience clung to my coffee cups and conversations and experience looped across the pages of my beat-up notebook.
Experience.
This new buzzword is actually not new at all. But over the course of SXSW, these 10 letters have somehow taken on a new meaning for not only our human future, but those of our companies and our brands.
With all of the technological and creative advances in our world, it is no longer enough to go about business as usual. And as we humans seek to make the most of our waking moments, brands must adapt themselves to be deemed worthy of precious life moments spent.
So, how are they doing it?
Out of each of the core trends we extracted from the many South By talks we attended, we found brands are centering their products, stores and futures around what else but experience to draw consumers in and keep them engaged in this stimulation-saturated world.
“ These days people are willing to pay for experiences over material things.” — Julie Rice, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director at Soul Cycle
Observe the following key takeaways from the conference-attending portion of our SXSW experience:
Personalization: The Experience of Self
As consumers become increasingly savvy to typical marketing techniques, brands must quickly adapt to grow their base of brand loyalists. Many are turning to personalization to create a unique experience for their target audience.
As we have seen with subscription-based services such as Le Tote and Blue Apron, the ability to create custom style and taste profiles, along with the large aggregation of data, allows brands to serve their users in a way that is more specialized for each individual — and therefore more satisfying.
The more users shop, offer feedback and update their profiles, the more tailored their experience may be.
“ People want to have an experiential relationship with brands and products. Personalization allows for this deeper relationship.” — Paul Gaudio, Global Creative Director at Adidas
The Future of Retail: A Community Experience
In the future of retail, it is no longer enough to satisfy shoppers with racks of trendy clothing and an attentive salesperson. Instead, brick and mortar stores are turning to a focus on community experience to transcend the merely transactional.
Luxury leisurewear brand Kit & Ace houses a large dinner table in their store locations, hosting weekly supper parties with a variety of clientele. Each of their stores also collaborates with local designers and artists in order to create a unique space with a local, artistic flair that better reflects the communities in which they serve.
TOMS, a shoe brand known for their “buy a pair, give a pair” philanthropic retail model, also focuses on community in their brick and mortar locations. Each TOMS store is much more than a place to sell shoes. The stores not only sell products, but provide a rich, multi-sensory brand experience encompassing all TOMS stands for: giving back and creating a global community. A coffee shop and a gathering and event space built right inside — along with a plentiful calendar of TOMS-hosted events — gives people a space to meet, relax, and enjoy themselves.
Other companies seek to merge the brick and mortar shopping experience with the digital, integrating technology into their stores and seeking to improve the online shopping experience. Even subscription e-retail brands, such as Le Tote, cultivate a digital community by fostering buzz and engagement around the brand through social media channels.
Virtual Reality: An Out-of-This-World Experience
One un-ignorable tech trend discovered at South by Southwest: virtual reality is everywhere. This increasingly popular futuristic trend is making rapid advancements across many different industries.
From entertainment to gaming to TV-watching, research and more, virtual reality holds the ability to transport the user to a completely different time and place for an experience quite literally out of this world. Our own Director of Strategy Danielle Narveson was able to experience riding a roller coaster and exploring ISS on Mars by simply donning a headset.
Trends project that as virtual reality evolves and becomes more affordable, it may one day be a go-to option to enhance everyday activities such as watching movies and sporting events, exploring space, gaming and more — transforming them into full-immersion experiences without leaving one’s home.
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As a society, we are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve our human experience. We want to make life easier, more comfortable, more exciting, entertaining and productive.
Whether it is simplifying mundane or necessary tasks through tools and apps or enhancing our connections and relationships, we have harnessed human ideas and laced them with rapidly advancing technology to improve the quality and length of our lives.
“ Mobility is not the devices you carry, but the experiences that travel with you.” — Thom Gruhler, CVP Apps and Services at Microsoft
South by Southwest was, at its highest level, an overwhelming and all-encompassing experience. It was one in which inspiration-seekers, idea-makers and game changers from all over the world descended upon the hot, happenin’, BBQ-loving city of Austin, Texas for five inspiration-filled days and long rowdy nights.
We peeled ourselves away from desks and obligations to confront the future in all of its innovative glory. We gathered around for talks on putting men on Mars and growing real beef without cows. We witnessed robots brought to life and what it looks like to explore outer space through virtual reality.
And when the skies grew dark, we tossed back cocktails at tables with app inventors turned new friends and snuck into parties where we licked spicy barbeque sauce off our fingers and moved to the beat of Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood spinning records at a secret DJ event.
And then, somehow, we rose again the next morning, daylight savings and time-changes be damned, to suck down coffee and do it all again.
“ The future is difficult to believe. But believe in the impossible more often.” — Kevin Kelly, Founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine
South by Southwest: not quite a convention, not quite a conference. A meeting of minds, a sharing of ideas. An experience of the body, mind and soul.
So, if I had a penny for every time I heard experience over those five days? Well.
Time to cash in.
Avery is copywriter & resident wordsmith at LIFT Agency in San Francisco. LIFT connects subscriber and retail brands to their customers in today’s hyper-connected world.
