As SXSW kicks off, marketers embrace it as an ‘accessible’ conference for content, connection

Being surrounded by attendees with that mindset makes it a crucial stop for Swan, who has over the years changed his networking approach for the festival. Instead of seeking out the hottest parties, Swan now hosts what he calls “stranger dinners” each night, where he gathers eight to 10 attendees for dinner to talk about what they saw and debate ideas. That’s his plan for this year’s conference, which kicks off today and will run through March 15th in Austin, Texas.

For Swan, when it comes to the marketing and advertising conference circuit, he sees SXSW as the more “accessible” option — no one has to fly to Portugal for Web Summit or be slated to win a Cannes Lion — to be able to have “philosophical discussions” and “be part of where culture is heading.” 

Those discussions and that pulse on culture has only become more important post-pandemic for marketing leaders, noted Swan, adding that the networking and chance encounters that SXSW offers help prepare for the year ahead.

As the marketing playbook continues to shift and marketers desire their brands be part of culture rather than advertising around culture, a conference like SXSW, particularly emphasizing music and film, becomes even more important for marketers, according to the six agency execs, marketers and attendees that Digiday spoke to for this piece. The focus of the Interactive portion of the festival continues to evolve as marketing evolves, which may be why the festival has a bigger focus on the creator economy this year. (The creator economy is something industry festivals are more seriously courting.)

This year’s conference will feature execs from the likes of Rare Beauty, Disney, Bumble, BlueSky. After the event’s outright cancellation in 2020 and the virtual conference in 2021 during the height of the pandemic, the conference shifted to be hybrid online and in-person. In 2023, marketers “kicked it up a notch” with experiential marketing efforts with the expectation that more attendees would return in person; the conference had 76,015 attendees both in-person and online that year (the festival did not break out the numbers by attendance style). Last year, SXSW’s conference had 228,738 attendees with 47,611 of those in-person and 181,077 streaming content on YouTube. Event organizers did not share how many had registered to attend this year.

As marketers return to SXSW this year, they expect the festival will continue to evolve from the launchpad for apps and new technology to a focus on ideas over flash. That’s not to say marketers won’t use the festival for the experiential efforts — companies like FX, Amazon and Paramount will have their own experiential marketing and immersive event offerings this year. But marketers, agency execs and attendees see the festival as more focused on the content and connection this year.

“It’s a lot less bombastic than there has been historically — and thank God,” said Jason Carmel, global creative data lead at VML, comparing the event to previous years. “I don’t know if that’s specific to SXSW by itself as much as an industry thing. [If you think about] the Web3 hype cycle, that was particularly miscalculated by everyone. And so even with the new technologies that are front of mind for everyone, everybody’s taking a much more measured approach.”

SXSW, like all other in-person event companies, has been forced to reinvent itself to re-engage attendees. Early on in the pandemic, marketers had to rethink their approach to the festival, which had been known for experiential marketing efforts. Even as marketers return and experiential returns, marketers, attendees and more continue to figure out the balance between what worked pre-pandemic for events and what works today.

“I feel like there are still a lot of deals being done at SXSW,” said Goodby Silverstein & Partners’ CCO Margaret Johnson. This year, Johnson will attend with documentarian Lauren Greenfield to lead a discussion on teens and social media.

“I always get inspired by these conversations,” said Greenfield, adding that she’s interested in talking to brands about collaborations beyond traditional commercials. “One of the things that excites me about this nexus of film and advertising is the way things are also changing in the streaming and film world and advertising [world] — the kind of boundaries are being broken down. So we’re doing branded content, films for brands and longer pieces for brands. It’s not just about the 30 or 60 [second spot]. It’s about so many things to do.”

Regardless of how the conference shifts and evolves or how fragmented it may seem for some attendees, it’s ultimately a matter of what attendees make of it, noted Ty Gates, communications director at Mother.

“The idea that SXSW jumped the shark — that idea is lazy,” said Swan. “Like every major cultural event, Coachella, ComicCon, even the Super Bowl gets criticized for losing its edge. That growth is a feature, not a bug. There’s a reason why top brands are still there. If it wasn’t valuable, companies wouldn’t want to send their top executives and creatives.”