Your guide to SXSW Interactive 2016 - the brands, the technology startups, the sitting presidents. Use this to create your own recap deck for your clients after South by Southwest.

1. NEW
(but not
improved)
for 2016!

2. #DamnSXSW, back
at it again with the
Obamas!
Your guide to SXSW Interactive 2016
by David Berkowitz, CMO, MRY
@mry / @dberkowitz
David.Berkowitz@mry.com

3. Alternate titles for SXSW 2016 recap deck:
• OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (either one)
• The most virtually productive conference ever
• The event that launched the massive hit Meerkat
• Just get me a photo opp with a meme and let me go home already

4. Insert outline here
• Overview
• Brands
• Tech
• Whatever

5. Overview
Pro tip: put some heavy hitting stuff up front to justify
the mechanical bull rides on your expense reports

6. Insert inspirational quote here
“I found courage when I found inspiration, and that’s the
story that you tell. Because you can’t let someone else tell
your story. Have it your way.”
- Whichever of these keynote speakers you recognize

7. Insert something political here
“Innovation is part of our foundation, and our foundation is
part of our innovation.”
- No, really, WTF??!?$@?% How did SXSW land the
OBAMAS?!?!?!?!?!?!? Is this SXSW or the UN Security Council?

9. Top things discussed at SXSW
• Complaints about traffic due to the Obamas
• Complaints about security due to the Obamas
• Complaints about the lack of hotel rooms due to the Obamas
• Complaints about people tweeting so many pics and quotes of the
Obamas that their phones died after an hour
• Complaints about how SXSW is totally over once a sitting president
comes to the conference
• Emerging tech stuff, the future of media, and everything else

10. Insert a few high-minded quotes from sessions not
featuring an Obama
• Get at least one quote from a coworker
• Plug your own panel
• Reference a few others and make it look like you went
to them, even when you got all the quotes from
TechCrunch

12. Insert selfie with #DamnDaniel
Mashable or someone has to trot him out, right?

13. Insert gratuitous selfies with celebs
• Try to get someone A-list
• If not, just look for a Kardashian or Joseph Gordon-
Levitt or whoever’s investing in a ton of stuff right now

15. Brands
Keep Austin Weird – but not too weird or brands will
have to shut off their Periscope feeds of their SXSW
activations

16. Show images of brands doing startup competitions
Because that’s still a trendy thing for brands to do at
SXSW

17. Compilation of brands doing stuff with VR
AKA, a compilation of what every brand is doing at SXSW
2016

18. SXSW 2016 bingo:
Find brand activations using any of these Austin icons
Cowboy boots Cowboy hat Food truck Barbecue Texas
Longhorns
Guitar Taco Breakfast taco Cactus Pedicab
Bats Horses FREE (recharge
your devices
here)
Armadillos Mechanical bulls
Map of Texas Texas flag Stars Willie Nelson “Keep Austin
Weird”
State Capitol
building
Margaritas Beer Ethan Hawke Liberals

19. And the best brand activation of SXSW is…
Mention a client here

20. Another great brand at SXSW…
Mention another client

21. OMG, this brand did the most happy-emoji-worthy thing!!!
Mention the client of a sister agency

22. Biggest brand flops of SXSW
Use clients from competitive agencies

23. Tech
Hey, everyone at SXSW still uses Twitter, right? That
got big at SXSW… back in 2007

24. Note which tech will be the next Meerkat
Funny how that went from a really positive reference to a
really negative one in the course of a few months, isn’t it?

25. Show something techie NOT related to VR

26. Use “virtual” and “augmented” as many ways as possible
to sound super smart
• Virtual messaging
• Virtual drones
• Augmented calligraphy
• Augmented automation
• Virtual augmentation
• Augmented: SVU
• Augmented triskaidekaphobia
• Virtual herpetology

27. A few other cool apps
Just list a few things run by people you happened to run
into at SXSW; pretend like that was everything that
mattered at the show

28. Something about wearables
If there’s nothing, just pop in a slide from the SXSW 2015
recap. Or the CES 2015 recap. Or the SXSW 2014 recap.
Or the Mobile World Congress 2011 recap.

29. Cool drone image
Ideally one delivering a breakfast taco or Willie Nelson or
something

30. Insert random comics from The Very Near Future

32. Wrapping up

33. Good reads
• Obama looks to SXSW for ideas and tech to
modernize government (VentureBeat)
• The Austin 100: A SXSW 2016 mix (NPR)
• Marketers Should Expect the Unxpected at SXSW
(Matthew Scott in The Drum)

34. Contact
@MRY / @dberkowitz
www.mry.com
David.Berkowitz@mry.com
Add some other GIF or something
If nothing else, just mention the Obamas again