Has the Tide turned for brands at SXSW?

What does the laundry detergent brand Tide have to do with ‘the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture’? It turns out everything, and nothing, depending on how you look at it.??

Tide didn’t activate at SXSW to align with speaker tracks, neither did they lean into emerging entertainment technologies nor launch their latest educational program in the arts – in fact, they probably didn’t even know who was speaking (or where to find the stage). To be clear, I loved the Tide activation, it was original, engaging and experientially rich, go check it out. This is not an article about what Tide did at South by, it’s an exploration into why they were there.?

Tide was at SXSW to win the hearts and minds of new audiences, to position themselves as ‘innovators’, to sell their brand on the global stage as a disrupter simply by being in Austin, showing up (and spending the $$$). It's only since 2018 we’ve seen big-budget brand experiences enter the events program, leveraging the equity built by SXSW over the past 36 years as a platform for ‘helping creative people achieve their goals’.?

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SXSW attracts a community of creatives, curators, and visual leaders, united through explorative personalities, a penchant for artistic innovation and pulled by the opportunity to network with cognitively diverse minds, in a place steeped in a history of newness. It’s a damn cool place to be for a week, even by association.?

Tide is just the latest in a long line of brands to pop up a physical brand experience that feels out of kilter with the festivals thematic content but, it really doesn’t matter. They are there, rubbing shoulders with the Google’s and Spotify’s and Porsche’s. And that’s what matters, aligning to the other cool kids, right??

Beyond looking cool, why show up? What’s in it for Tide? What’s the business problem they’re aiming to solve or audience they want to engage? These questions could be answered by aggregating every brief across my desk in the past year (B2B & B2C inclusive). Every brand is questioning their validity and authenticity to Gen Z – this audience, as we all know, has changed everything – nothing will ever be the same again in marketing! This sounds dramatic but Tide and SXSW define this thinking.?

Gen Z are gaining economic independence and are on the way to becoming the highest spending generation ever, with 40% of global spending already attributed to them, challenging brands to adapt or die. Unlike the boomers or millennials before them, Gen Z are built differently, think differently, and are spending differently. Sofia Hernandez , TikTok Global Head of Business Marketing, highlighted this shift in the Cannes Lions Official wrap-up report of 2022, referring to communities as ‘the new demographics’. Shifting away from demographics to communities signals a change in how brands communicate, leaning into value systems, ethos, and culture rather than product USP’s to build brand love. Gen Z buy brands, not products.??

This crystallisation of macro-generational trends birthed in the death scroll of social media has, in recent years, become a far bigger brand play. The Edelman Report 2023 discovered 68% of adults say ‘teenagers and college-aged people influence where and how I shop’, a sentiment well known by brands running afoul of green-washing or DE&I calamities over the past few years –?what starts on social feeds rapidly influences broadsheets and CMO’s understand this.?

So, why did Tide activate at SXSW? They were there to attach themselves to the communities attending as well as the communities following those attending. They were there to immerse audiences in their brand, communicating their readiness for the next generation, adapting in real-time, with a finger on the social pulse.??

Here lay the big questions for brands: Should you activate your brand on the cultural stage? Should you pop-up at Coachella, bring a Soundsystem to Notting Hill Carnival or spend big at the Olympics even if you’ve got nothing to do with sport? I say yes, go for it – just follow a few simple guiding thoughts and the path to brand love and product success is simple:?

• Authenticity – Do jump on the cultural-events bandwagon but speak to the attending audience with authenticity, they’ll smell out the BS in a heartbeat (and share it on social media).? ?
• Experience first – Gen Z want unique experiences, not to be sold to. They want to understand what motivates your brand and how you act in society, this is your brand experience. ? ?
• Audience – Understand who you are speaking to, what you want to show them and why. Experiential audiences are no longer exclusively IRL, think bigger, what are your attendees sharing, how does the experience read on socials and how can you (the brand) control the visual output (or not) to ladder up to your brand values.? ?
• Brand not products – Brand truths are the new product launches –?be bold with your brand, let people inside, let them play to learn and they will love in turn.?

If you take one thing from this article it’s to remember: products are dead, long live brands.

Written by Seen Presents' Creative Director, Jonathan Bates