SXSW 2024 was a gathering of thought management, offering a glimpse of “what’s subsequent” in media, expertise, and advertising, amongst different subjects. I’ve been attending SXSW since 2010. It’s costly, crowded, and — with 500 classes a day — overwhelming — however I regard it as an important a part of my skilled progress.
Every year has its personal character. My first convention in 2010 represented the daybreak of social media — unbridled pleasure! SXSW 2024 appeared extra somber as attendees contemplated deep fakes, the existential nature of AI, humanoid robotics, quantum computing, inclusivity, and psychological well being.
I took pages and pages of notes — this can be a severe studying alternative! However I wished to go alongside not less than a number of observations. I wish to emphasize that my expertise is a tiny sliver of the SXSW 2024 actuality. I skipped out on the celebrities, the film debuts, and the glitzy model activation events in favor of related subjects, smaller discussions and intimate dinners.
I attended a workshop on find out how to be a futurist. The large a-ha for me was approaching numerous future eventualities by storytelling. Articulating a story in regards to the future makes you assume by the implications of developments. Very helpful.
The primary analysis on Gen Alpha was fascinating. Gen Alpha is 0-10 years previous so this got here by interviews with their Millennial dad and mom. They’re projected to be:
- Fiscally conservative, an outfall of fogeys who’re in debt
- Extremely conscious of manufacturers and model preferences
- Already influential in household buy selections
- The primary headset era. They like VR to tablets
- Non-readers of ebook
- 40% spend not less than three hours a day on-line, and 24% spend not less than 7 hours a day on a smartphone (if they’ve one).
Researchers emphasize the vital worth of instinct within the AI Period: “The best supply of knowledge is in our our bodies.”
An fascinating concept: Think about your model as a personality. What would it not appear to be? What would it not say? What’s its aesthetic?
There was progress with expertise to detect deep fakes however the social media platforms have rejected it as a result of hate and controversy are good for his or her advert gross sales. Specialists level out that elections are already being disrupted all over the world by deep pretend content material and the US election goes to be a misinformation shit present. Largest risk in 2024 is voice fakes, in 2025, lifelike video avatars. Sora was talked about as a game-changer.
There are 100,000 purposes that make deep fakes. No person stands an opportunity to discern deep fakes with out technological assist. We’d like AI to beat AI.
Throughout a keynote dialogue about OpenAI, protesters yelled exterior, pleading to guard the roles of graphic designers. Poignant second and an uphill battle.
Attention-grabbing analysis on what creates buyer immersion (past engagement):
- Consciousness – Overcoming distractions and getting their consideration. Embody them on their phrases.
- Willingness – They resolve to take part. Is it worthwhile? Do we’ve the time? Are there others we all know who’re concerned? Is it secure? Security is essential.
- Connection – Does it meet expectations? What’s it providing? Can I contribute? In case you don’t make this connection shortly and clearly, you lose folks. “I used to be drawn in, it appeared related.” As soon as they’re engaged, is the security validated? Studying in regards to the norms of the group.
- Funding – Risking their social capital, giving their consideration, an ongoing funding. Folks wish to see an instantaneous return. Is the neighborhood aware of my wants?
- Sharing – Earned by a gratifying expertise. We would like different folks to share this expertise. Neighborhood networks are the important thing to engagement loops (self-sustaining engagement, collective immersion)
SXSW 2024 was stuffed with thrilling model activations like this 3D spatial laptop promotion for a Netflix sequence.
I used to be inspired to see plenty of content material centered on the significance of word-of-mouth advertising as a “lived model expertise.” I wrote extensively about this in Advertising Rise up as a key a part of the way forward for advertising. I actually assume we’re transferring into a brand new period of name advertising!
58% of Gen Z assume the extra absurd, the cooler it’s. 82% say being bizarre is in. Maybe discomfort is the way forward for advertising – breaking taboos.
Business humanoid robots are a 12 months away and shall be below $50,000. Good at transferring issues and lifting, nimble bodily dexterity. Integration with AI permits extra human-like decision-making.
TikTok has established an expectation that manufacturers are outlined by co-creation (re-mixing memes) and neighborhood as a substitute of “broadcasting.” Co-creation is the language of the platform. You not have full management of your model. Manufacturers should be taught the language of creation. Folks anticipate manufacturers to be a part of the humor and that may poke enjoyable at a model.
There was loads written in regards to the period of time folks spend scrolling on TikTok however what will not be being captured the huge time spent on creating for TikTok. It actually surprised me to understand how many individuals are devoting their lives to ephemeral content material within the hope of their quarter-hour of fame.
One other realization … nearly each TikTok viral model “success story” is a fluke. It wasn’t deliberate, it wasn’t strategized, it had nothing to do with an intentional inventive effort. The well-known cranberry juice case research is an instance. TikTok’s suggestion for achievement: Decrease your model requirements. Hmmmmm … that isn’t going to be a well-liked suggestion.
Development within the gaming business is stagnant, and the enterprise is experiencing an upheaval attributable to consolidations and new platforms. As an alternative of latest titles, progress is predicted to return by interactivity and neighborhood.
With a historical past of worker abuse, the sport business is predicted to be unionized.
SXSW 2024 was stuffed with plenty of film star glitz, however I skipped that half (and the traces!) to deal with academic classes that can energize me for the remainder of the 12 months!
Main advertising business disruptors disclosed in numerous classes:
- Hyper-fragmentation of tradition and media. How can we attain them? 250 million creators = 250 million new media channels
- Speedy progress of Discord and different non-public communities
Advert-free social media platforms - No watercooler moments – no shared experiences attributable to isolation
- Spatial computing
- Immersive and metaverse — headset prices will drop, experiencing merchandise shall be remodeled
- Knowledge privateness — 2.6 billion information information breached within the final 12 months
- Crackdown on amassing biometric information
- Knowledge wallets. Shoppers management the narrative
- Sustainability — Promoting eats up plenty of vitality. Instances Sq. may energy 160,000 houses
- Neuroscience — EEGs, Eye monitoring, wearables, neural hyperlinks. Meta is engaged on a tech that may learn your thoughts
- Actual-time promoting reactions enabled by AI
- There’s a backlash in opposition to purpose-driven advertising as a result of too many manufacturers make guarantees they don’t hold.
Japanese expertise used human brainwaves to speak with a 3d printer and print a purposeful guitar. The command line is “your ideas.”
We’re in a expertise supercycle that can create sustained modifications within the financial system. The final instance was the Web. Three applied sciences are driving this cycle: AI, biotech, and interconnected units.
What if anyone creates an “AI occasion” with hundreds of faux accounts and quite a lot of actual content material and reactions? It will take us a very long time to determine it was pretend, and by that point, it may set off a real-life response. The tip state of AI will not be cartoon pictures; it’s a conflict, said futurist Amy Webb. You’ll be able to watch her discuss right here:
AI is working out of information, so firms are inventing new units to get extra information into their methods. We’re about to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of sensors to not solely know what to say subsequent but in addition what to do subsequent. VR, like Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, is a face laptop that can gather particulars about your life. It would learn your intentions by studying your pupils, which react earlier than your physique does. It would know what you’ll do earlier than you do it. There shall be a battle for face supremacy.
If anyone steals your biometric or motion id, there is no such thing as a approach to get it again or reset it.
The market doesn’t reward security. It rewards supremacy.
An organoid is a pc grown from human mind cells. That is already taking place. Mind-based computing (organoid intelligence) disconnects our want for uncommon supplies and large vitality consumption.
AI will create huge disruption in jobs and the financial system. Governments must create a Division of Transition (create a tender touchdown for companies, transfer folks to trades)
In comparison with different years, social media, content material advertising, and Web3 had been down; podcasts, metaverse, influencers, privateness, experiential advertising, neighborhood, and storytelling had been up. And naturally, AI was featured in a thousand classes!
Effectively, these are a number of takeaways from SXSW 2024. Hope you discovered one thing helpful right here and possibly I’ll see you at SXSW subsequent 12 months?
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