SXSW 2010: Agency Proposed Panels
Those of us in agency account service don’t always find ourselves at industry events… I didn’t go to SXSW this year and I may not get to go next year. But the growing wave of talent already developing makes me believe that 2010 will be a stellar year for interactive panels and I need to start making whatever plans I can to attend.
I know some of the people that have provided proposals and wanted to vote on their ideas, but 2211 interactive-category proposals is a staggering amount to consider and vote on. Therefore, I gathered a list of prominent advertising, interactive and PR agencies and used SXSW’s search tool to see what each has suggested. You have until September 4 to vote on panel ideas that interest you the most, so get voting!
The highlights:
- Most of the traditional large-scale advertising agencies have not submitted anything (aside from DDB and DraftFCB)
- The digital agencies with the most proposals are Razorfish & Sapient. Both were recently given accolades from Forrester in its Q3 Wave Report for their leadership in digital strategy & execution. NEO@Ogilvy also has five submissions mostly in the SEM/SEO space.
- Agencies located closer to the event (GSD&M, Tocquigny) have a mixed showing but it’s clear that IMC2 (based in Dallas) wants to make its presence known. It submitted the second-most of any agency reported here (21)
- Notably absent are other digital front-runners VML, Rosetta and R/GA despite their ‘au courant’ status in the industry
- Public Relations agencies (2nd tab on the sheet below) have a limited presence and even notable thought-leaders like Steve Rubel haven’t sent proposals in this round. Then again, people like Steve could end up as keynotes, so it remains to be seen what will happen between now and next spring.
Finally, the most interesting agency submissions (IMHO) come from Schematic. They’ve proposed five topics that seem very interesting and definitely worth checking out.
Table of SXSW Panel Submissions
Which panels interest you the most?
Update: R/GA’s Richard Ting & Chloe Gottlieb have submitted two ideas.
Are you counting people who work at an agency and have submitted a panel?
I’ve tried to. I had identified individuals who had affiliated themselves with a company in their panel submission. If people who work for agencies listed here haven’t shown that they work for a PR firm or ad agency then I didn’t count them toward that agency’s total.
Did you notice certain people you’re familiar with who work for places that appeared to not have any representation? If so, let me know and I can add them. Thanks Len.