At South by Southwest (SXSW) 2014, brands outdid startups in terms of technology. It was also the most ironic SXSW ever.

1. SXSW 2014:
Startups, Bow to
Your Marketer Overlords
David Berkowitz
CMO, MRY
david.berkowitz@mry.com
@dberkowitz / @mry
www.mry.com
about.me/dberkowitz

2. What we’ll cover today
• Overview
• Brands
• Tech
• Speakers
• Resources

3. Who am I? You can judge a man by his #selfies

4. Meet The Man
“The closest I came to meeting The Man at
SXSW this year is David Berkowitz, the chief
marketing officer of digital agency MRY.”
- Casey Newton, The Verge

5. The most ironic SXSW ever! 3 key themes
• Irony 1: Sharing privacy
– Everyone’s sharing public updates about the speakers and apps that
are trying to protect our privacy
• Irony 2: Branded technologists
– In a striking inversion, the most successful technologies at SXSW were
launched by brands
• Irony 3: FOMOgraphy
– The focus is often less about what you do there than how jealous you
make the people who aren’t there

6. Reach of SXSW chat: 2.45 billion

7. Truth
If you can't get business
done at SXSW, you're not
doing it right. – Peter Kim

8. Brands #pwn Austin

9. It’s a show about marketing, not tech

10. Brands are the new startups
“Once upon a time, long, long ago, SXSW was
the place you'd visit to experience cool, new
startup technology…. While there are still
startups at SXSW and that remains a big
reason brands attend, this year it was mostly
big brands sharing tech wizardry.”
- Steve Hall, Adrants

11. Want to meet brands? They’re on stage everywhere

12. Want to #win #sxsw? Combine #food & #tech

13. Kind Bar gave a lift to Enterprise renters

14. CBS made it rain for Under the Dome

15. Pennzoil brings Mario Kart to life

16. Of course, some marketers ran out of ideas this year

17. Words to live by
From Effie Worldwide Blog,
The Hidden Effectiveness of SXSW

18. And then there was this
little ol’ brand known as
MRY (ahem)…

21. We unleashed a 3D printed Rev Run army

22. People loved their little Revs

23. A true team effort

24. We showed we cared #PoPbook

25. Come on, get happy

26. Old school!

27. We’ll agree to not disagree

28. Hundreds share #mrysxsw love

29. Fine, tech was there
too

30. Not a show for breakthrough tech

31. Omlet wins startup buzz
Source: DigitasLBi

32. Most Buzzed About Start-Up

33. Secret captures the underground SXSW

34. Avoid Humans lets you escape the mobs

35. Samba introduces reactive video messaging

36. Locus Social surfaces social, local trends

37. Skully Helmets, Avegant Glyph wear their buzz well

38. Want to be lord of the Ring?

39. Pixc introduces a new business model for photo editing

40. Least popular tech company? Uber!

41. People REALLY hated Uber
Source: DigitasLBi

42. Most popular food trucks
1.Dominque Ansel – Milk & Cookie
2.3D Oreo
3.IBM Truck

43. Explore more startups at #WiN30S

44. Speakers

45. Curiosity > Information
Inspiring curiosity is the ultimate
form of empowerment.
– David Trahan, AgencySpy

46. Privacy a hot topic for the most
tweeted speakers
Source: DigitasLBi

47. “Stand up for your
work. No one else
can do it as well as
you can.”
– Lena Dunham

48. “They are setting
fire to the future of
the internet. You
guys are all the
firefighters.”
– Edward Snowden
on the NSA

49. “One of the best ways
to achieve justice is to
expose injustice” –
Julian Assange,
WikiLeaks

50. “It’s not about reading
facts on a Wikipedia
page. To feel that
knowledge makes you
take ownership of that
knowledge.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

51. “People are far too
skittish to talk about
failures.”
– Chelsea Clinton

52. Resources
• Effie Awards roundup of what’s effective at SXSW (David Berkowitz contribution)
• Effie Awards: The Hidden Effectiveness of SXSW (David Berkowitz byline)
• Adrants: 6 Reasons Why SXSW is Still Awesome
• Keyhole Real-time tracker tracker: SXSW
• #WiN30S startup competition
• SXSW Startup Accelerator awards
• iMedia: 4 trends disrupting marketing strategies (David Berkowitz interview):
• AgencySpy: 3 simple yet impactful SXSW takeaways (David Trahan byline):
• Ad Age: How SXSW Became All about Innovation in Marketing, not Tech (David Berkowitz byline)

53. THANK YOU
David Berkowitz
david.berkowitz@mry.com
@dberkowitz / @mry
mry.com
about.me/dberkowitz