As the festival begins to wind down, Wilson Standish, Head of Content & Creativity at Hearts & Science US, takes us to beautiful Rainy Street in Austin to cover his key themes and takeaways from SXSW 2023.   Key Learnings from SXSW:  AI is the darling of the festival: If you couldn't tell by now, artificial intelligence and machine learning were the most popular topics of conversation in Austin. From OpenAI to robotics, AI is coming to life in a myriad of ways. Ethics and Energy, specifically: A sampling of the unanswered questions around AI/machine learning are prominently centered on…

In our third edition of SXSW Leadership Perspective, Wilson sat in on The New Playbook for Winning Customer Loyalty, which discussed how several high stake business hurdles such as inflation, labor shortages, and supply chain issues are colliding with sky high consumer expectations. Here's the dish on building and maintaining long-term brand loyalty... Key Learnings from the session:  Incentivizing loyalty: Investing in the quality of your product, ensuring accessibility, and identifying relevance in consumer passion points are key pillars of building authentic connection with your audience. Providing experiences that are not only innovative, but also consumer-centric, is imperative. Meet your audience where they…

In our second edition of SXSW Leadership Perspective, Wilson Standish had the opportunity to attend the popular Amy Webb's Tech Trends for 2023. Ms. Webb, CEO of the Future Today Institute and professor at NYU Stern School of Business, dove into a data-driven analysis for the approaching tech trends to watch in 2023 and how to assess emerging innovation in various scenarios. Key Learnings from the session:  Re-perception: Adaptability is key. Don’t be afraid to shift your perspective. Amy Webb explained, “Reperception is the ability to become aware of white spaces, things others can miss. Remember to questions your assumptions about how…

March 15, 2023 | By Michael Bürgi Anyone who attended South by Southwest in the three or so years before Covid hit might have gone into this year’s event thinking they were going to get bedazzled by all sorts of experiential activations. Turns out, it was a more sober and serious conference in 2023, according to Wilson Standish, the head of content and creativity at Omnicom Media Group’s Hearts & Science agency. Standish, who has attended about a dozen SXSWs in Austin, Texas (but not last year’s), was a bit surprised at the general sentiment he noticed this year, which was…

Wilson Standish, Head of Content and Creativity at Hearts & Science US, will be reporting throughout the week on key learnings from the most highly anticipated panel discussions and breakdown how those will impact the consumer and inform our media and marketing strategies. In this first edition of SXSW Leadership Perspectives, Wilson outlines what he predicts will be the buzziest trends and topics to dominate the festival, including AI/machine learning, psychedelics, and the future of brand loyalty.