SXSW: The Mecca of Awesome

**NOTE: This post doesn't really focus around the theme of marketing, as other posts in the past have. It's just about a rad time I had, that mildly incorporates some aspects of marketing into it. Enjoy!

Austin, TX—South by Southwest (SXSW), a magical experience of all things technological, interactive, cinematic and musical. I had the pleasure of attending the SXSW Music Festival this year (March 13-18) with a couple of friends, and let me tell you, it didn’t disappoint.

Despite living in Texas for 8 years, I had never experienced all the great things I had heard about Austin. Perhaps it was because the only times I visited were when I was 10 and 12 years old and were for a visit to the capitol and a tennis tournament, but I digress. When the opportunity to visit my friend Spencer, who had recently moved to Austin for work, to be able to experience SXSW and to see one of my favorite bands (Futurebirds) arose, I couldn’t pass it up.

Now I have been to my fair share of music festivals, events and concerts: ranging from Bonnaroo Music Festival to a monster Bruce Springsteen Concert to a listening session at the hallowed Bluebird Café in Nashville, but SXSW is a completely different animal. What makes SXSW so special is that it has the holy trinity, the trifecta, the triple threat, the…ok, I’ll stop…it has atmosphere, interaction and tons of FREE stuff.

The atmosphere is crazy unique; there is literally music pumping out of every door you walk by. No space is spared: bars and parks are converted into music venues, parking lots are transformed into food courts (courtesy of the plethora of delicious Austin food trucks) and your eardrums are filled with the eclectic stylings of bands from every genre. One of the better things about the atmosphere is each party/show usually has somewhere in the range of three to five bands playing. If you don’t like one of the artists, pop out to another show and come back. Literally there is always something going on somewhere.

I have never been to an event that was so interactive. While SXSW does have its own technology-based part of the festival, SXSW Interactive (SXSWi), the week before, the music portion continues that tradition. SXSW requires its attendees to be well-versed in the art of social media: RSVPing to parties and shows, checking Twitter feeds for secret shows or updates about the festival’s happenings and website URLs, Twitter handles and QR codes covering the city. For a social media nerd, like me, it was heaven.

Possibly the greatest thing about SXSW is the ungodly amounts of free stuff you get. For example, I was at SXSW for three days and two nights. I spent just under $60 that entire time on food and drinks. Why? Because SXSW has so many sponsors for each of the hundreds of events that they can give away stuff. Aside from every concert/party/show I went to being free, I got free food, booze and/or schwag (stuff/items) at four out of the six parties I attended. Thanks to SXSW, “free” has become my second favorite “f-word”.

Overall, would I say that SXSW has taught me anything? Would I say that it’s an experience I’ll cherish? Absolutely! So to all you music festivals and general event planners out there, remember that the key ingredients for a truly awesome event are atmosphere, interaction and free stuff.

The following is a list of the bands that I saw, or at least can remember seeing:

Paper Diamond

Futurebirds

The Living Kills

The Shins

Mystikal

(2 dubstep DJs)

Jonny Corndawg

J Roddy Walston and the Business

Yellow Ostrich

New Kid on the (Primetime) Block

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than four hours of TV each day. For those of you playing at home, in a 65-year lifetime, that means a person will have spent nine years glued to the tube. With so much television being watched, wouldn’t it be nice if there was something to help enhance our experience with it and, dare I say, reward us for our habit? Well my television zombie friends, there is. Enter Viggle. Viggle is an app that can be classified as a “TV loyalty program.” It enables the user to “check in” to both shows and commercials for redeemable points. This app doesn’t just give your account a special title, like “Mayor of Who-Gives-A-Damn” (as with the Foursquare app)—with Viggle, you actually earn tangible rewards. In my opinion, this app is a precursor to how viewers will interact with programs, how advertisers will target audiences, and how television data will be tracked and analyzed.

Let’s dive a little deeper into Viggle. As previously mentioned, it allows a user to “check in” to various television shows and commercials. Each one is worth a certain number of points, with featured shows such as American Idol, Pawn Stars, and Top Chef, being worth more points. These accumulated points can be redeemed for items such as gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Gap, movie tickets from Fandango, or to raise money for some of Viggle’s featured charities. The app uses “proprietary audio recognition technology” to identify shows from more than 150 channels, including major broadcast networks. While there are other apps that apply the same principle, such as IntoNow and Shazam (Shaquille O’Neal’s favorite app—if you’re over 26 years old, you won’t get that joke), their user-interfaces don’t match Viggle’s. Viggle uses gamification, the act of taking an activity and applying a game-like quality to it, to change how audiences watch and advertisers utilize television.

Viggle allows users to connect and interact with their favorite shows like never before. Through gamification, people will have a desire to watch TV in order to accumulate points. Furthermore, due to this desire, users may watch other shows they typically don’t. In addition to being rewarded for their program loyalty with points, the Viggle app includes a community where users can Tweet, post comments or chat about each show’s events in real-time. Within this community, users are not only interacting with the shows, but with other users to enhance their experience.

The heightened experience and gamification create a win-win scenario for all parties involved: users, television networks, and advertisers. Let’s break it down: Users are rewarded for watching TV, nothing out of the norm. They have to give away only a small amount of information (name, age and email address) to be rewarded for essentially doing nothing but watch. Television networks are compensated by the competitive aspect of the app—Viggle users wanting to obtain more points by tuning into their programming. If a network’s show is worth a lot of points, more people will want to watch it. Simple enough. Advertisers are indulged a couple of ways: a new medium with data tracking/analytics. Viggle provides a new app and medium upon which to advertise. This could take the form of paying a larger fee for a client’s show or commercial to make it worth more points to the user, banner displays and other options. Additionally, everything from number of watched shows, networks, and commercials to demographics data can be tracked and analyzed for easy data mining.

Advertisers can associate themselves around key shows that they’re engaged with. “You’re basically creating a direct response out of their advertising, which is the Holy Grail,” says Chris Stephenson, president of Function (x), the company behind Viggle.

I believe that Viggle, with some investing, could become the future of television data tracking. If users were to provide more demographic information upon signing up, Viggle could possibly become a better alternative to the Nielsen Box. Viggle is mobile, allows for multiple check-ins for multiple viewers, can field data regarding opinions and feelings of the shows and commercials, offers a motive for users to practice, and can be readily available to a greater population than the Nielsen Box. Suck it, Nielsen. (Sorry, I have nothing against Nielsen, it just felt right to say).

Viggle has the possibility to truly become something special—the next great app. Viggle’s practice of gamification enhances people’s experience with television to the umpteenth degree and allows for interaction with other viewers like never before. Moreover, it creates an uncanny win-win scenario for everyone involved: users, television networks and advertisers. Finally, Viggle could change the way television data is gathered, tracked and analyzed through its mobile components and its built-in community features to gauge audience opinions. I don’t want to get too excited, but Viggle could be the future. And the future is now.

To learn more about Viggle, click here.