Dan Lacaze: A Suit in SXSW – day two

Dan Lacaze, a Group Account Director at BMF Sydney, is attending SXSW in Austin, Texas and is writing a daily diary exclusively for Campaign Brief.

Day 2: the Capital

There’s not many cowboys in the capital of Texas.

It’s awash with an eclectic mix of geeks, marketeers, ad men/women, entrepreneurs and celebs. Downtown Austin is closed to traffic and it’s buzzing with people, bars and food trucks (I am still trying to locate The Simpsons Kwik-E-Mart truck). Every big hotel in town is hosting SXSW events, and in short it is incredible.

Austin is a tech hotbed. Google Fiber is on trial here – they promise a connection that’s up to 1,000 megabits per second, and there are lines around the block to get into their store.

Ryan Gosling and Guillermo Del Toro held a session today. So did Al Gore. There are NASA trucks parked out the back of the Convention Centre and they are presenting a keynote on how they are going to get to Mars.

My first session was Beacons, mPay and the Great Shopper Reboot. Much of the discussion was around how technology can facilitate a smoother online to bricks and mortar purchase. Lowe’s, a big box hardwear retailer, was represented by their Director of Digital Experience. They use real-time inventory tracking and have developed an app so their staff can capture live conversations  with consumers about projects, build a shopping list of what the consumer needs, and then track their purchase behaviour.

The Director of Retail Analytics from Intel was really impressive. Intel has developed an iKeg with one of the big brewers here. It monitors tap and keg “velocity” and provides a wealth of real time data about what beer is being drunk, at what time, in what bar, and what speed etc. This allows brewers to react quickly to minimise out of stocks, swap overs and ultimately ensure the freshest draught beer.

Beacons seem to be a bit 2014. Who ever asked to be bombarded with messages on their phone when they walk past a store? There was some interesting application around linking SKUs to video content in-store e.g. in Fashion you could wave your phone over a beacon to see an instant feed of how a product is worn/accessorised, or in Grocery you could get an instant recipe and video on how to cook your Xmas leg of ham.

Privacy and use of data was also a hot topic. It’s now possible to have disposable RFID tags imbedded in clothes to track stock movement in store (and out of store once it’s bought!). Intel were also working on facial recognition software that can determine your age and gender.

It’s Minority Report stuff.

See the full SXSW On Streaming Schedule here.

#bmfSuitInSXSW

Dan Lacaze is a Group Account Director at BMF. With over 13 years experience in the industry, Dan has been driven by the power of creativity to create unfair advantage. He has worked across a range of Agencies and also spent three years on the inside at Coca-Cola. Whilst there he launched Coca-Cola Australia into social media. He then delivered the experiential component of the Share a Coke campaign, and most recently developed a world first innovation for Australia Post – a Video Stamp, which has been awarded at Cannes, D&AD, the Webby’s and the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards. At BMF Dan works on Lion, FFA, Sporstbet and new business.