Three trends to watch coming out of SXSW Interactive 2016

This year marked the 30th anniversary of South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual gathering of our industry’s foremost tech disruptors, digital marketers and futurists hoping to deliver — or simply stumble upon — the next big thing in innovation. Who can forget Twitter ’07 or Meerkat ’15? OK, maybe not the latter.

Three decades in, the event has certainly matured, if not jumped the sharked just a bit with its ubiquitous brand takeovers. Nevertheless, every year there’s at least something — save for the crazy parties — worth remembering, and this year was no different. Here are a few trends we’re keeping our eyes on at TURNER:

Virtual Reality (Again!)

It’s new! Kinda! No? Ugh, we know. VR feels like the “3D movies will take over cinemas!” conversation redux, but trust us, it’s worth staying aboard this train. 2016 will be the year in which both Oculus (Rift) and HTC (Vive) launch their actual VR products. Perhaps now that we're gotten the hardware questions out of the way, we can finally move on to deploying it for real consumer engagement.

Social Messaging is the New Social Media

Fact: Social messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Snapchat are the most dominant “social” platforms in terms of active users. Simply put, consumer (and generational) behaviors have shifted dramatically towards more personalized engagement. What does this mean for social media marketing? Brands need to start thinking beyond their active efforts on traditional social media channels and focusing on a more passive approach that enables engagement through social messaging. Hyatt’s already ahead of the curve in this respect, and others are starting to follow suit.

Redefining “Innovation”

Again, at 30 years old, one could easily argue that perhaps SXSW is no longer at the forefront of “innovation,” but truth be told, it’s still a great place for folks to come together and deconstruct exactly what innovation should be to brands. One of the most interesting points about innovation, in our opinion, came from Visa Global Head of Digital and Marketing Innovation Shiv Singh. Singh described Visa’s approach to “innovation” as part product innovation and part consumer innovation to better understand a world in which their consumers have “no time for [Visa].” Additionally, he noted Visa’s “10%” rule, which allows for 10% of their marketing investments to be allocated to experimenting and learning to ensure innovation is consistently baked into their efforts. Resources notwithstanding, we think this is an important way to view how innovation should be approached in any organization.