After reading some industry press about the brands present at the large indie music and tech summit, I am thoroughly impressed with some of the avant-garde tactics that marketers came up with for the festival. It is know for its breakout technologies though -- think Twitter's big push at SXSW in 2007, which helped the social media service get the ball rolling. Tony Weisman, president of Digitas, said, "The bar's pretty high for authenticity. It's not overrun with brands yet; it's still principally about ideas, not about posing."
Some of the most engaging implementations that I have read about include Microsoft's Bing and Chevrolet's Equinox and Volt. Attendees could get a free taxi ride within a certain radius of downtown Austin on the condition that they downloaded the new Bing application onto the phone (a no brainer). And Chevy, which was declared the biggest marketing winner by a plethora of blogs and newspaper articles, used a variety of marketing ploys to help grab attendee's attention. One example is their use of Volt-branded power strips which allowed individuals to charge their laptops and cell phones. Given that the attendees are constantly updating their status' using these two devices, the power strips allowed Chevy to brand themselves using a technique that is not only in their face, but also has actual utility -- an excellent pairing. I would have loved to have witnessed the hullabaloo firsthand, but I'll just have to wait another year when the festival storms Austin for the 24th year in a row.
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