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Digital phone operator Visible is returning to South by Southwest this year, albeit virtually. The brand was the last on the field in Austin at the 2019 festival with a pop-up activation for the music portion of the festival.
Digiday caught up with Visible’s experiential manager Kristie Rivard to find out how the brand is approaching the festival this year and how the company envisions the experience later this year.
This conversation has been slightly edited and condensed for clarity.
You have already completed an experiential activation at SXSW. What is your approach this year to connect with a virtual audience?
2019 was the first year for Visible at SXSW. What drew us to the festival was that in-person and hands-on activation, the experience and that feeling when you walk away from something thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve never done this before. We had a transparent music box [for our activation at SXSW] in 2019. It’s really hard to replicate that without being in person. What brands have done – and this is also true of SXSW – is that you connect in a different way. It can be just as meaningful, different, but just as meaningful.
This year we are very digital. We digitally support SXSW as one of the main sponsors of the music festival. We’ve looked at the themes of connecting through our blogs, tweets, and reminding people of the importance of connecting and being kind.
What are you doing to log in?
Specifically for SXSW, we looked at our blogs and tweets, all the social aspects that they have. For a brand, even seeing your brand is important. We wanted to make sure that we always supported the artists. We know it was extremely difficult for them. It is really important to stay active in this arena. In fact, we did a Red Rocks Unpaused activation last year when the pandemic hit. We wanted to do something that would still put the consumer at the center of an experience while supporting the artists. We wanted to do something fun and interactive in a different way.
Why did you want to be at SXSW when it was virtual?
SXSW has a very compelling community that they’ve built. It always presents us with new audiences that we wouldn’t reach through our other marketing tactics. We’re a digital brand for consumers – we don’t have retail stores – that’s why SXSW’s in-person and experiential offering [in past years] was very convincing to us. But when you remove that, we still want to support music, artists, and SXSW.
How has the last year changed your view of experiential marketing?
I don’t know if that has changed. I think we understand that this still serves its purpose in the beliefs we had before that people connect with the brand more intimately, they are more likely to view us, they are more likely to activate. All of this is still true. In fact, it allowed us to introduce people to the use of different formats to connect. For example, our Red Rocks Unpaused activation. We never would have done this if the pandemic hadn’t happened. The place was closed. As a marketer, you need to think about how you can reach people and reach them on a large scale. We also had a captive audience as there was nothing going on in real life to compete with this event.
As people start to get vaccinated and areas open up more, do you think of in-person events or in-person experiences for the second half of the year?
We are thinking about it. We have a partnership with Denver Arts and Venues. They run the Red Rocks property so we already have some things we’re planning there. We’re also looking at a few other partnerships that would have in-person elements. We are definitely considering it. We just want to make sure, wherever we are, that we are attentive, that people feel safe and can have fun without worry. We will obviously adhere to all [Covid safety] Strategies.
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