Mazda, the SXSW Marketing Dream Team
South by Southwest is a big marketing magnet festival in Austin, Texas. Marketers like Mazda, use creativity and interactive ways of marketing, which works best with the audiences at South by Southwest.
South by Southwest (SXSW) is a music, film, comedy, and interactive experience all bundled into one event for a week in Austin, Texas. SXSW started in 1987 and had a total of 700 people registered to attend. In 2016, a total of 95,506 people attended the conferences alone. SXSW attracts many different types of people from different states, countries, and backgrounds, but they all come together to share their love of the arts for music, film and many more. CNN states, “The purpose of SXSW is to create an opportunity for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet, and share ideas.” This creativity can be seen everywhere, from the people, music, films, conferences, and in the marketing of the companies at SXSW.
Mazda used incredible and impressive marketing skills a SXSW. They were the main automobile sponsor at SXSW in 2017 and they brought all the marketing skills they had for this special moment. Mazda did incredible things to target their audience and to get their name mentioned or thought of at SXSW. Russell Wager, Vice President of Mazda, stated, "Mazda's presence at South by Southwest puts us front and center in the conversations taking place around experiences, music and creativity.” Mazda did this by using interactive and interesting marketing tools that the audience didn’t even notice was marketing. They used the latest released car to drive people attending SXSW to certain stages, bars, or their favorite places in Austin. This lets the audience get a firsthand look at what the car is like and if they like it or not. Another smart and creative way of marketing was having an art piece out for the perfect selfie so people were able to share their selfie to all their friends. Again, this targets the audience very well because most people are active on social media and will see that Mazda created this art work. Mazda also had a charging station for cell phones, which was really great considering people love to take pictures on their phones, but a phones battery cannot last the whole day. This got Mazda in the audiences head, and will always make them remember how Mazda helped them out by giving them a charging station. Mazda had other interactive marketing techniques everywhere at SXSW. This just shows how well marketing can be done and how hard it can be as well.
The marketing at SXSW is endless. Being able to market a company at SXSW could be the best place for a company. It is easier than one might think be a sponsor or get their company's name somewhere at SXSW. All it takes is to go on the SXSW website, contact them and let them know what exactly one is interested in doing. SXSW is meant for upcoming bands, companies, and everything in between!
