How it Works

Pick your movie details. You start by choosing a film you want to promote and the city you want to watch it in. Then enter some basics about your social network—how many followers you have on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and how many you’ll email about the event. This helps them determine the size of theater and potential to fill the seats. (Guessing they have some fancy algorithms and combobulators to figure that part out.) At this stage you also have to agree to their promoter terms, basics on what you can and cannot do.

Promote your event. Then it’s up to you to get the word out about your event, via social networks, email, etc., and get people to sign up. Their website will soon have an area for users to browse local events to hook up with others. And depending on the film (and licensing agreement), they’ll provide digital images, clips and/or sound recordings for you to advertising the event.

Attend movie. Once you hit the required amount of RSVPs—it tips similar to Groupon-type services—you can enjoy the movie in a theater with your friends and community.

What They Offer

Tugg works with film studios and independent filmmakers to offer a rich content library. They continually add new titles including the biggest blockbusters, film festival favorites, award-winning shorts, repertory classics, and everything in between.

It’s a great opportunity for movies that have limited release or go straight to video. Right now their site is promoting two films: The Tree of Life which had limited release; and The Loved Ones, described as “Sixteen Candles meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” which sounds like either.

It doesn’t look like there are any limitations for brands using the service. So I’m looking forward to Pacifico’s event and screening of The Endless Summer (hint, hint).

The photo-sharing app Instagram is perhaps the most intriguing example of a platform built for Collective Curation. (Actually, it’s also a damn fine tool for establishing your brand as a Guru, but we’ll get to that later.) The app is popular among users because of its simple photo filters and incredibly easy sharing functions, but also because it implements a Twitter-like tagging system that lets the images do the talking in these conversations. For instance, The Washington Post has asked readers to document the local impacts of the recession via Instagram by tagging their photos with the #econdebate tag (a couple are shown above). The collected images spark a multifaceted and compelling debate far more effectively than a vitriolic comment section ever would. (We’ve used a similar strategy on Upshot’s own homepage to showcase what’s inspiring us – look for the filmstrip at the bottom of the window.)

But the app isn’t just simple for users. An ideal example of Seamless Tech, Instagram’s flexible platform makes it easy for marketers to compile (and curate) photo galleries into their websites, Facebook pages, or other digital properties. For instance, the band The Vaccines managed to crowdsource a music video by asking attendees at their shows to tag their Instagram pictures with #vaccinesvideo. The band selected their favorite shots and incorporated them into the video shown below. And if an indie rock outfit can pull this off, just imagine what big-time brands like GE, Starbucks, and Levi’s could do. We’ll show you in part two of this post, coming tomorrow.

As a runner (and a marketer) I had several preconceived notions about the race—I won’t share them all, but here are a few that really struck me.

Firstly, I assumed live music would somehow be integrated into the actual run. With a tagline “The World’s Largest Music Festival just got a little more sole!” was I crazy to think so?

Hey Summerfest, you’ve developed a stellar brand. You’re noted around the Midwest for the best array of live music from all genres, all in one place. If you’re going to host a race, slap your name on the logo and email participants non-stop for 6 months with messaging focused around music, you have to know people are expecting some live tunes during the race. Silly me, I almost didn’t bring my iPod!

Now let’s pretend there was live music during the painstakingly long run over the Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge. Still wouldn’t have covered up the fact that the water stations shut down before any of the 10Kers had a chance to get a drink. That’s right, the water ran out! So my second preconceived notion: a sufficient water supply.

OK Summerfest, here’s the deal. Always learn from other people’s mistakes! No one will forget the 2007 Chicago Marathon and its water shortages, overwhelming runner dehydration and communication breakdowns, all because of a midday temperature reaching a record 87 degrees. That was October, not July. No excuses.

Guess what, I do have a compliment. The problems were addressed without finger-pointing. It’s a bummer when things go wrong, but it’s much appreciated when someone takes responsibility. Kudos to the Race Director for emailing a note of apology that very evening and a high-five to the President and CEO of Summerfest offering a refund for a portion of the registration fee a couple of days later. Thank you for addressing the chaos and taking responsibility!

Some fun thoughts for next year (if there is a next year).

Use the assets that are right at your fingertips. Round up local cover bands to play some peppy tunes every couple of miles. It’s a great opportunity for the bands and the race. There must be a huge waiting list of groups vying to perform for anything related to Summerfest.

Don’t overlook the meaning of your well-established brand. Summerfest stands for music almost as much as a music note itself. Be sure to use the brand properly because your messaging might mislead your target. It’s always useful to take a step back out of the “weeds” and get an outsider’s (or a runner’s) opinion. Nothing better than to get the thoughts of your audience—they’ll be truthful.

Best of luck next year. I’m kind of curious how things will pan out. I might even run it again, if you promise to offer live music (did you see that one coming?), change the course and drench the runners head to toe in water!

The video above is the latest installment in our Upshot Smartshot webinar series, and complements our recent Potty Posting that introduced the concept of marketers with Twitterphobia. This 15-minute episode goes a step further, assuaging marketers’ three biggest fears about the service:

• What should you say?
• What should you do?
• What should you make?

If you’ve missed any of our previous Smartshots, scoot on over to our YouTube playlist for the whole series. Of course, you wouldn’t have missed those if you’d just follow us on Twitter already, at twitter.com/upshotblog. Since you’ve now vanquished your Twitterphobia, you’ve got no excuse!

But the four-wheeled madness doesn’t stop there. Check out the above race from Hot Wheels, featuring a three-dimensional obstacle course projection-mapped on a building in Sydney. (Thanks to Karlin from MUSE for the tip.)

Speaking of races, check out the above clip from a Cornetto projection in Istanbul. In the midst of a big ol’ street party, the brand projected an interactive casual game where onlookers could compete against each other using their phones. As if an interactive projection didn’t have enough stopping power! It’s great to see that, no matter how many projection examples we share, someone always seems to be raising the bar on what’s possible with this medium.

• Part 1: Last Year’s Breakouts Level Up. The biggest stories coming out of this year’s SXSW were iterations and smarter applications of the services that broke out at past SXSWs, including those using gaming mechanics.
• Part 2: The (Sort-Of) Killer App. This year’s big story – the emergence of Group Texting apps – wasn’t a “killer app” per se, but these services are undoubtedly useful and have the potential to be even more widely adopted than Twitter or foursquare.
• Part 3: The Location Story. Location-based services like foursquare and Gowalla are focused on telling more compelling stories, offering more relevant services for users, and working to move beyond check-ins.
• Part 4: Can Net Promoter Scores measure how well you’re engaging your followers? With C-Suite executives clamoring for social media ROI, can Net Promoter Scores bridge the gap?
• Part 5: The Value of a Facebook Fan is Exactly… Zero. (Spoiler alert!) The value of a Facebook fan is completely relative, dependent on how each marketer engages with Facebook as a marketing channel. Even with clear correlations between social engagement and sales, it’s still going to be a while before even the smartest minds can indisputably calculate ROI for social media.
• Part 6: Stocking Up for the War on Whiners. Even we were surprised that, of all our 2011 trends, the War on Whiners was the most relevant at SXSW. We take a look at how brands are getting smarter about preparing for these (inevitable) conflicts.
• Part 7: New Weapons in the War on Whiners. Preparation is only half the battle. When marketers determine that it’s time to engage their critics, they’re finding themselves armed with a slew of smart new tactics and weapons.
• Part 8: Is Crowdsourcing the Problem or the Solution? Crowdsourcing is still a hotly debated topic, but the most effective implementations have managed to synthesize the knowledge of experts and the insights of the crowd.
• Part 9: Selling Yourself at SXSW. Some of the most useful lessons from SXSW weren’t learned at the panels. Rather, they came from seeing how brands were marketing themselves at the conference.
• Part 10: Deep Thoughts. In addition to all the deep dives linked above, we heard a ton of smart one-liners and random thoughts that are worth noting.

And that’s a wrap(up)! See you in Austin in 2012.

You can’t go wrong with helping people get around at these events, and we spotted complimentary private limos (from a social network called Tagged) grabbing people at the airport and getting them downtown. But, this was a tech fest after all, so the most appropriate mode of transportation were the pedicabs from Uber (pictured above). The clever Uber system cut out the dispatcher, and let attendees hail a cab by simply sharing their current location via the Uber smartphone app. That sure comes in handy after those free parties with the free beer, don’t they?

You also can’t go wrong by feeding these poor, starving conference attendees (who coughed up hundreds of dollars to attend). Many, many companies were offering much-appreciated free food throughout the event, ranging from street teams with breakfast tacos to food trucks with more breakfast tacos. (People like their breakfast tacos in Austin, alright?) But the brand that had attendees lined up around the block for the entire conference (literally – see the image at right) was a stationary food truck from the publishing platform Squarespace, who smartly submitted to the experts when it came to cooking. Each day, Squarespace brought in a new local food vendor to take over their site, delivering unexpected and unbelievably tasty treats each day (see the menu here). By offering both a rotating menu and tapping favorites from the local community, Squarespace managed to generate tons of word-of-mouth recommendation and capture the conference’s attention among countless of other free food offerings.

Considering that conferences are inherently temporary, it wasn’t surprising to see brands investing in pop-up retail experiences at SXSWi. While the most buzzed-about store was definitely Apple’s pop-up dedicated to selling the iPad 2 (it sure helps to be selling the most desired device at a conference full of tech geeks), the most unexpected pop-up came from CNN, as they completely took over an existing bar (even installing their own sign, as seen in the image to the right) where they held events and parties all week. Again, the ever-changing content, as well as the all-out commitment to the takeover of the building, got a lot of heads turning and stimulated a lot of conversations on behalf of CNN.

It also helps to think about the most pressing needs of conference attendees. At a place like SXSWi, everyone is essentially attached to a cyborg’s-worth of devices that each have a limited battery life. Fortunately, the automakers in attendance thought this through, with Chevy offering branded power strips at almost every outlet around the conference center, and Lincoln offering free access to every imaginable phone charger at a nearby restaurant . Sure, a nerdfest like SXSWi is the ideal place for these solutions, but as smartphones, tablets, and other devices become increasingly ubiquitous, offering (branded) power options at any conference will always be a much appreciated gesture.

But, of all the things brands can give away at these conferences, perhaps the most valuable takeaways aren’t schwag or tacos or even beer. They might just be your smarts. To steal a point from this great article by Scott Belsky, some of the brands that made the biggest impacts at SXSWi did so by simply getting themselves involved in a number of innovative panels and presentations. To paraphrase Belsky, brands have to work very hard (and spend a lot of money) to get people’s attention through traditional advertising, but attendees will gladly come running to them when they share their peek-behind-the-curtain insights and unique experiences. In particular, PepsiCo did an excellent job of contributing to a number of panels we’ve referenced in our earlier SXSWrapups, which did as much to activate their sponsorship of the festival as some of their other initiatives, such as their live stream of keynotes and panels at pepsico.com/sxsw.

This might seem like a lot to take in. Well, it is, especially when you’re there amidst the chaos. But if there’s one thing we’ve harped on since introducing our Driven by Data trend, it’s the benefit of being a good curator. And curation becomes especially useful at a place like SXSW, where data overload is a given. The Appstores site delivered a brilliantly simple service before anyone even arrived, offering attendees a series of recommended smartphone apps that would enhance and improve their experience. (Low hanging fruit alert! Brands should definitely offer a similar suite of recommended apps for attendees at other giant conferences or tradeshows.) During the conference itself, AOL offered a booth with a streaming screen of the top news from the conference, sortable by viewers interests. Interestingly, at a conference where every attendee had their own way of monitoring tweet streams and foursquare check-ins and the like, AOL still drew a crowd simply because they did an effective job of paring down the clutter to the real meat of the conference. And, of course, we did a pretty good job of that ourselves.

Speaking of getting to the meat of things, we’ll finally be wrapping up our SXSWrapup with our next post. Be sure to check back to see how the story ends!

Meet our SXSW Interactive visualizer (at sxsw.upshot.net), which’ll help you navigate the onslaught of tweets that are cascading out of Austin. Click on any of the five featured hashtags to monitor the conversations about those panels, or just watch the steady stream of tweets in the background.

Plus, as shown in the image below, you can scroll to the bottom of the visualizer to see what Upshot’s own four correspondents have to say about the proceedings. Either way, we hope that this’ll help you feel like you’re here too. Except for the 80° weather part – not much we can do about that.

Of course, stay tuned to the blog all week for the big-picture takeaways and in-depth analysis of the panels. Don’t miss a thing – follow us on Twitter and/or subscribe via email through the link at the top right of this page.

But don’t worry, we’re bringing the music.

Yes, Upshot’s SXSW Interactive coverage team has arrived in Austin, and just like last year, we’ll be covering the town with our QR-coded stickers. (Unlike last year, we’ve got a slick new design, shown above.)

If you’re in town – or if you’re just curious about what’s happening in town – scan the QR code above to make sense of Austin’s music scene during Interactive week. (Need a QR code reader for your phone? Shoot us a message with your handset type and we’ll recommend a free reader.)

And that’s not even the last trick we have up our sleeve…

[UPDATE: For more information on the foursquare / American Express partnership mentioned at the bottom of this post, click here.]

SXSW Interactive starts tomorrow, which means the battle for blogosphere buzz will be starting shortly… ah, hell, it’s already been going on for a couple of days.

Category-wise, the big buzz is focused on group texting apps, which are pretty much what they sound like: services that enable users to identify groups of peers (often temporary) with whom they want to swap texts, images, videos, events, real-time locations, and more. With hordes of trend-setters and trend-trackers (us included!) heading down to Austin for a week or two, these services are sure to help coordinate meetups, idea swaps, networking, and more during the time when everyone’s in town. There are some obvious implications here for our travel and B2B clients, as these services could be used to coordinate everything from networking professionals to families vacationing together. We’ll be tracking how these services fare over the course of the conference, how (or whether) they differentiate themselves, and what unexpected implications will emerge. For now, we’ll encourage you to peruse a brief posting on Mashable if you’d like to see where the frenzy stands.

As for specific services, the first one to land a big blow has been… foursquare? Again? Clearly, these guys know how to capture the attention of the tech crowd, and they’ve managed to do so with a lengthy blog post about the release of foursquare 3.0. While they’ve got a lot to say, let’s focus on what’s most relevant to us folks in the marketing world.

We’ll start with the fact that foursquare has grown to 7.5 million users who have checked-in 500 million times over the past year. Man, that’s a whole lot of data. If only someone could apply that information in a relevant way to encourage exploration. That someone turns out to be foursquare themselves, and the biggest piece of their big upgrade is the Explore tab. In addition to their classic approach of highlighting the closest venues to your real-time location, the Explore function enables users to also filter by a variety of more refined factors. This is partially enabled by venue tagging (looking for places with fireplaces? got a thing for wings?), but that’s something that’s basically becoming a cost-of-entry to the location-based services’ space. Now, here’s where those aforementioned 500 million check-ins come into play. If you combine venue tags with the aggregate information about your check-ins (and those of your friends) – such as the types of venues you patronize, how loyal you are to those spots, etc. – you suddenly have the ability to receive some extremely relevant recommendations. As we mentioned in our earlier discussion of foursquare’s Pepsi/Safeway partnership, check-ins are increasingly becoming a valuable proxy for aggregate behavioral data that smart marketers can manipulate to provide extremely relevant offers. For instance, foursquare can identify your “areas of expertise” in this new version; if you attend a lot of burlesque shows, you’re probably an expert on the art of tasteful teasing & tassels. If your friends are considering a dive into that world, isn’t your check-in history a valuable asset? Damn right it is.

The next big change worth noting: foursquare’s bringing the “social” back to location-based social networking. While the battles for venue mayorships have certainly been effective for frequent users, these check-in frenzies tend to exclude the service’s more casual users from reaping the benefits of foursquare specials. That’s about to change with foursquare’s new types of specials (shown in the image at right), including deals that target groups of friends checking-in together, first-time visitors, or swarms (i.e. certain thresholds of users checking-in all at the same time). For brands that are looking for innovative promotional mechanisms, foursquare just armed you with a pretty powerful tool.

Oh, our coverage of the foursquare frenzy wouldn’t be complete without their biggest PR coup: landing a partnership with American Express. The gist of the deal is that users who link their foursquare accounts to their AmEx accounts can get receive exclusive deals just by using their card (starting with a variety of “spend $5, save $5″ deals). Interestingly enough, these deals don’t require a foursquare check-in to be redeemed, nor do the purchases automatically check you into venues. Instead, the deal is being touted for its seamlessness – consumers automatically receive the rewards thanks to foursquare’s work on the backend, while the participating businesses benefit because their salespeople don’t need to handle the redemptions. (Our hunch: foursquare benefits too by growing their user base beyond the 7.5 million mentioned earlier.)

[UPDATE: For more information on the foursquare / American Express partnership, click here.]

We’ll be keeping an eye on these developments, as well as the deluge of information that’s about to spill out of Austin, over the next week right here on The Awesome Blog. Let us make sense of the madness for you – be sure to follow us on Twitter and/or subscribe via email through the link at the top right of this page.