Chaos, collision and crowdsourcing - key trends from SXSW 2013

This article discusses many of the core trends which defined South by Southwest Interactive 2013. Wearable technology, exemplified by Google Glass and Nike's FuelBand, was one notable hot topic, working alongside the advent of voice-recognition tools like Apple's Siri and motion-sensor technology such as Leap Motion to close the gap between the digital and physical worlds.

Chaos, collision and crowdsourcing - key trends from SXSW 2013

Sarah Shearman

Amid the vast crowds, noisy start-up marketing campaigns, free beer, barbecues and parties at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas, numerous cutting-edge ideas, new technologies and innovations emerged, ready to be discovered and interpreted. This year, wearable technology, personalisation, co-creation and chaos were some of the more prominent themes that stood out, all of which have implications for marketers wanting to be relevant in the digital age.

Digital and physical collide

The strongest theme to emerge from the event was how the digital and physical worlds are...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands