Commentary

Agency Real-Time Newsroom @SXSW Amplifies Festival Buzz

Resolution Media, FleishmanHillard, and Annalect have created a real-time newsroom dubbed StoryConnect at South By Southwest (SXSW) to see what people search on and talk about online specific to the festival. The data comes from about 55,000 traditional media resources, as well as hundreds of thousands of social media insights across the Web.

Omnicom's Annalect analyzes the data, while Resolution Media and FleishmanHillard create the paid search ads, video media, infographics, and other textual content related to topics at the show. "Every year we need to sort through the crap to make it easier for people to understand who aren't here," said Darrell Jursa, FleishmanHillard SVP/Partner, global emerging media and technology. "We look at the words, and even if the words are not directly related, we find a connection with the festival."

While it's not the first year the group created the newsroom, it is the first year they took a focus on specific topics, one for each day of the show. For instance, gaming on Friday; Food, Saturday; startups, Sunday, music and sports, Monday; and healthcare, Tuesday.

Ryan Smith, FleishmanHillard VP of insights and analyst, said 58% of the conversation around food was drinks.

The group also looks and analyzes the general news to determine content. Sometimes things happen in the world that has a direct reflection on a campaign topic.

Resolution Media creates paid search ads within 10 minutes to target specific people looking for information on a specific topic in Austin. George Manas, Resolution Media director of services and platforms, said there's a lot of preplanning that takes place. "The only potential drawback would be Google's editorial approval process," he said. "We have ads running on search, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter."

The trio also work with General Motors and Sleep Numbers aside from the festival festivities.

Next story loading loading..

Discover Our Publications