B&T’s MD Rosie Oakshott has torn herself away from the latest barbecue joint to file this insight-filled recap from SXSW Austin. Check out the day one and two recap here, if you missed it.
Day three and SXSW expo is officially open. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love an expo so I headed straight in!
The innovation pavilion was as I had imagined. Robots were somersaulting down the aisles, Casio was showcasing its latest tech for guitarists and the TooFar Media App was transporting delegates to a world of hornets via AR.
The entertainment pavilion featured a podcast lounge where a session on Gen AI in Healthcare overflowed with delegates.
I also stumbled upon the SXSW London double decker bus—designed to encourage delegates to attend the newest SXSW destination in June 2025.
Next it was time for Apple’s senior VP, services, Eddy Cue and Severance’s Ben Stiller’s session on moving culture through innovation and creativity. There was serious security within the session and, as two unseen clips from the newest Severance episode were being released, I was told to refrain from recording the session. Basically, Stiller and Cue raved about their “amazingly great, creative relationship” with Severance being the most streamed series on Apple TV +.
I then headed to Rainey St to check out some brand activations and houses. The Lodge: A Paramount + Experience was first and impressive. The lodge was designed to resemble a ski lodge (which worked as the weather has suddenly taken a turn for the chilly).
Each area of the lodge featured a photo activation for a show or movie on Paramount + including Yellowjackets, Survivor, School Spirit and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
I also visited Netflix’s Love is Blind House and Amazon Prime’s House: Espace with Prime.
I then came across the She Media Co-Lab @ SXSW and watched a session up there with one of my favourites. It was called ‘Why Not Now? Optimize Your Time, Health and Wealth’ with Amy Jo Martin, host of The Why Host of The Why Not Now? podcast speaking with Dr Brooke Weinstein a neuroscience based sensory and emotional regulation expert and Dr Kenna Ducey-Clark, founder and CEO of HealthStyle By Dr. Kenna.
The panel spoke to a full room of mostly women. They discussed the struggles of work-life integration and the importance of emotional regulation. Dr Weinstein urged women to take control of their time and their health both physically and mentally as ‘your body and your brain creates structure, stability and control’. They finished the panel with the compelling questions of ‘If not know now, then when? If not you, then who? Why not now?’
Continuing nicely, my final session of the day was an all-women gaming panel called ‘Pixels to Reality: How Gaming Is Transforming Our World. This panel featured Julie Piskin, head of global partner programs, ROBLOX and Valerie Vacante, VP, solutions innovation, Dentsu. They were joined by two clients who work with both ROBLOX and ROBLOX strategic partner, Dentsu, to produce games for their brands: Ad Council and OTC Acne – Galderma.
Lindsey Scales, marketing director, OTC Acne – Galderma launched a ROBLOX campaign for skincare brand, Differin this very week. The ‘Differin Level Up’ campaign, previous to launching on ROBLOX, has been running on Twitch and Activision Blizzard and is seeing results for the acne brand. Dentsu and Differin are most proud of the 1.2M minutes watched. Proving a much higher dwell time than other channels.
I have always been fascinated with attention and dwell time in gaming so this panel was an excellent way for me to end the day. It was especially refreshing to see a gaming panel of four women!
Australia House opens this evening so I’m off to say g’day to a few familiar faces!
Day 4
SXSW Austin rolls on. The last few days have been all about the content.
I kicked off with an AI session, of course! The session was named ‘AI is the New UI: Transforming Your Everyday’ from Cristiano Amon, president and CEO, Qualcomm. 30 minutes into the session and, again in true SXSW style, Cristiano invited a valued Qualcomm partner to the stage; tech entrepreneur and Grammy Award-winning artist, Will.i.am.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard Will.i.am speak about his AI product, FYI.AI on stage. In 2023, Will.i.am introduced his productivity tool designed for creatives at Cannes Lions Festival. The session took a similar format this time around where he shared his mobile screen to show off the features – I must say that the tech is looking much slicker these days (possibly thanks to Qualcomm).
The key stand out for the product is its cultural relevance – responding to Will.i.am’s questions with ‘chaa. I got you, Will’. FYI’s agents are designed to connect with you based on your cultural background. Amon described the FYI agents as ‘completely redefining our interactions with computers’ he said ‘an FYI agent is going to talk with you the way you want to be talked to. Specific to your community and to your taste.’
Cheryl Houser, award-winning filmmaker and founder of Creative Breed was up next to discuss ‘Human-Centered Storytelling’. Houser acclaimed Gatorade’s ‘Pause is Power’ campaign with Simone Biles for its impactful storytelling.
Houser explained that ‘In 2020 champion gymnast Simone Biles shocked the world when she dropped out of the Tokyo Olympics. She needed to protect her physical and mental wellbeing. Some called her a quitter, a failure, a national disgrace, and for others she was a hero, especially those struggling with a mental health condition.’
‘When she dropped out of the Tokyo Olympics, the media wondered if her sponsors would drop her too but Gatorade did the opposite.’ By launching the ‘Pause is Power’ campaign, Gatorade used the power of empathy to deliver their brand message. Super inspiring.
After a couple of tacos, back I went into Ballroom D for comedian Conan O’Brien’s session alongside Johanna Faries, president, Blizzard Entertainment. O’Brien and Faries discussed O’Brien’s ‘Clueless Gamer’ partnership with Blizzard and the importance of connection through gaming. As a thank you for the partnership, Fairies gifted O’Brien a Giant World of Warcraft Doomhammer on stage.
For my final session, I walked to the Sports Momentum stage at The Line Hotel. I was keen to catch some content on Superbowl advertising while in the USA and this session included the CMO of GoDaddy, Fara Howard speaking alongside Lisa Rosenberg, global president, consumer brands, Allison Worldwide; Obele Brown-West, president, Colle McVoy and Stacey Moore, founder and commissioner, American Cornhole League.
Howard stood out on the panel, discussing GoDaddy’s recent Super Bowl ad featuring Fall Out and The White Lotus actor, Walton Goggins, to promote its new AI product GoDaddy Airo. Her advice to the audience looking to spend big on the Super Bowl: “tease the heck out of your content, get it out there. Get people familiar with what you’re going to talk about so that when you show up for 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, they’re already plugged in and they want a little bit more.”
BBQ was calling at this point. Greg ‘Sparrow’ Graham took the Aussies to the legendary Terry Blacks. The meat sweats have arrived but I am not complaining one bit!
