Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Getting “activated” by the #brands of SXSW”.
Hi, i’m emily yoshida, i’m the entertainment editor at the verge, and i am at south by southwest most people. Think of south by southwest as a three-tiered festival, you’ve got film. You’Ve got music, you’ve got interactive, but the glue the special sauce that holds it all together. That nobody quite gives enough credit is brands. So, while, as entertainment editor, i’m mostly out here to check out the best film and music the universe has to offer, i also can’t help but be curious about these brand activations.
I want to see how detailed they are. I want to see how they’re engaging with us socially, i want to see what kind of stuff they’re giving out – and you know i just want to see what a brand activation is and how i myself can get activated into the den of brands when i walked Into south by south westeros, it was pretty much in what you might call an event space or an art space, just sort of an empty hall that maybe one might have a bat mitzvah in for the most part, it looked a little bit slapped together. I wasn’t too impressed by the optics at this activation, but considering that there was a vending machine that basically forced me to tweet game of thrones so that i could get a prize. I mean they did a pretty good job of making sure that some kind of social action came out of this activation. The prize ended up being a pretty crappy iphone 6 case, which i just pawned off on brian bishop and he promptly lost so to wrap up game of thrones south by southwesteros. Not my favorite activation here didn’t get too activated, except when i was actually forced to tweet something in order to get not the best prize in the world.
It was sort of hard to explain a little abstract with the interactive sword game. I’M gon na give this one a pass ready to get out of here. Yeah, let’s get out of here. Can you tell me what a brand activation is a brand activation brand? Get it started, get it going? Let people know i don’t know introducing a new brand into the market by giving it to consumers. I don’t know so. I walked into this booth and it wasn’t really clear exactly what i was supposed to be doing.
I got a few prompts with some vague questions about what i would like to see in the future of music festivals and then suddenly, my picture came up on it and i was supposed to record a message, a message about what i’m not really sure wait. What am i supposed to do? Yo music festival, if you’re supposed to contest – let’s be real, i’m not even gon na bother to critique this one. It was a disaster. I did not know what i was supposed to be doing there. This was a massive fail. I have no idea what just happened. That’S it. Can you tell me what a brand activation activation? What do you think it is um? It sounds like something that i don’t know it sounds like uh.
So can you tell me about brand activation, so i have to say: i’ve been a little bit disappointed by the brand activations at south. By so far this year, haven’t felt very activated to be honest, but i got an invitation tonight to stay at the bates motel, which of course, is famous from the a e television show bates motel, and this is my hotel for the night. What the this is the most activated i have felt the entire time i’ve been at south by southwest.
This is the gold standard of brand activation here at south by southwest okay, it’s a freaking, motel room. Okay, there’s like an actual bed, a crappy fan in the corner. Artwork.
Everything that you would find in a real motel is here. Look at all this stuff. They gave me. I got an illy espresso. I got a a brownie of some sort. I got hot sauce. I’Ve got so much vodka, so we’ve seen a lot of brands here at south by southwest, try and fail to get activated, seeing a lot of different methodologies, different philosophies of activation and i think there’s one thing that we can learn from the bates motel activation, provided By a e is that it’s really not that hard? All you have to do is give people a place to sleep. Let people sleep in your brand.
People love to sleep uh. Speaking of it’s been a long day. I need to get some shut eye catch up on some work, so uh other brands take note i’m about to get activated. Oh .