Auraria Campus Undergoes Its First Brand Refresh in 50 Years
Auraria Campus
Evolving Consumers and Changing Behaviors in a New Era of Brand-Building – SXSW 2025 Recap
For the 14th year, GFM immersed itself in the vibrant energy and forward-thinking discussions of SXSW Interactive in Austin. Sifting through hundreds of sessions covering digital marketing evolution, emerging tech, shifting consumer behaviors and the future of creativity, our team returned energized and ready to share key insights at our annual Denver Download event. While every SXSW brings a unique flavor, several clear themes emerged this year, painting a vivid picture of the landscape brands and organizations must navigate in 2025 and beyond. The core takeaways revolve around building trust through authenticity, mastering the new search ecosystem, embracing creativity, and strategically deploying AI as a co-pilot so that we can focus on the things that bring the most value.
This year’s Denver Download panel included GFM’s Jim Licko and Jon Woods, as well as Ashley Thompson from Jackson Spalding, one of our PROI Worldwide partners.
Brand Building: Win Trust Through Authenticity
In an increasingly skeptical world, playing it safe is the riskiest strategy. SXSW 2025 hammered home the idea that building genuine brand connection requires more than just functional benefits; it demands authenticity, a deep understanding of community values and the ability to be interesting, even if it means breaking traditional rules.
- Breaking “Bad” Rules: Sessions like “Taboo Brands: Breaking Bad Rules for Good Reasons” argued that many conventional marketing rules are outdated. The presenters challenged marketing norms, like never associating your brand with negative emotions (people crave understanding, not just relentless positivity) or trying to appeal to every customer segment (trying to please everyone makes your brand as ignorable as hotel art). The key takeaway? Your audience doesn’t care if you’re right; they care if you’re interesting. Brands like Liquid Death, with its “Entertain or Die” mantra, exemplify this, arguing the real risk isn’t being edgy “wasting money on boring ads no one watches.” Liquid Death’s success comes from minimizing internal roadblocks and embracing humor, even absurdity, when appropriate.
- Embracing Realness & Community: It’s not a new concept, but authenticity again reigned supreme this year. Crocs famously leaned into their “ugly” perception, owned it and cultivated #crocnation by “listening loudly” and partnering with genuine fans like Post Malone before they were official collaborators. Liquid Death similarly turns hater comments into music albums, owning its own narrative.
- Deep Value Alignment: The “Demystifying Rural Life” session provided powerful insights applicable far beyond geography. It underscored how true connection comes from understanding values as actions and codes of conduct (respect, loyalty, showing up for people) rather than abstract badges often touted by brands (sustainability, equality). Marketing needs to prove alignment through action, respecting values rather than dictating them.
The Changing Consumer: Navigating the Community-Driven Discovery Ecosystem
How people find information and discover brands is fragmenting rapidly. Google is no longer the default starting point for many people, especially younger demographics. Discovery is now an ecosystem heavily influenced by community validation, creators, agentic tools and social platforms acting as search engines.
- Community is the New Ranking: Trust and relevance, often conferred by communities and creators, are the new search currency. Users seek deeper, validated content on platforms like TikTok (a powerful “discovery engine”) and Reddit. As the “Community-Driven Search” panel noted, “You are what the internet says about you.”
- Optimizing the Ecosystem: Brands must adapt optimization strategies beyond traditional SEO. This includes optimizing for social search, engaging authentically in community platforms (like LucidLink monitoring Reddit and adding value) and implementing Agentic Optimization for how large language models (LLMs) perceive your brand.
- Community & Creators as Pillars: Community-building is the new link-building. Fandoms expect authentic engagement (like Paramount using TikTok to re-release the original “Mean Girls” movie in snippets). Creators can build trust (one in 10 fans reportedly became fans via creator collaborations), but partnerships must be authentic.
Creativity: Beyond the Big Campaign
SXSW emphasized the need for creativity that’s not just clever, but genuinely entertaining and interesting. It also broadened the definition of creativity beyond the splashy campaign.
- Time to Entertain: Echoing the brand-building theme, Liquid Death and Duolingo showcased how hiring “professional funny people,” minimizing internal bureaucracy (“if our C-suite understands what we’re doing, we missed the mark”) and embracing humor can steal share of voice. Challenging outdated rules requires creative bravery.
- Creativity in Insight: Innovation isn’t just in the output, but the input. Google’s “Unconventional Research Methods” session revealed how using LEGOs, theater exercises and even sushi chefs can unlock deeper user understanding than traditional methods. The “Rural Life” session highlighted practical, communal ingenuity (“casual mischief”) as a valid and powerful form of creativity often overlooked by marketers.
- Creativity With “Boring” Topics: In “Transforming Boring Messages Into Social Media Gold,” representatives from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Utah Department of Transportation, Zion National Park and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission outlined ways to make everyday content interesting for the user. Tactics like making your personality a priority, capitalizing on humorous social media and pop culture trends and showing rather than telling can help turn the most mundane of topics into engaging and memorable social media posts.
AI: The Strategic Co-Pilot for Deeper Work
Artificial intelligence was one of the prevailing themes of the conference, but the conversation matured beyond mere automation. The focus shifted to strategically using AI to augment human capabilities, freeing up time for more meaningful, creative and connective work, while consciously mitigating AI’s risks.
- Augmenting, Not Just Automating: Sessions like “Beyond Productivity” highlighted AI’s potential to eliminate drudgery (“take the robot out of the human”) and spark curiosity. Examples like Zoom’s AI Companion (summarizing meetings, enabling translation) and Canva’s internal tools (helping draft performance reviews, saving time on prospect research) showcased AI’s capacity to enhance workflows to allow for focus on higher-value tasks.
- Safeguarding the Human Touch: A strong counterpoint emerged in sessions like “Enough with the Delving.” Over-reliance on AI risks creating generic, jargon-filled communication (using words like “innovative” and “delve”) that erodes trust. The consensus? Human judgment, creativity, emotional intelligence and brand voice remain paramount. Human intervention, correction and redirection is the valuable IP. Strategic implementation requires training, experimentation and clear guardrails.
How SXSW Trends Translate to Intentional Brand-Building
These themes — authenticity, discovery and creativity — reinforce a timeless truth: Trust is the ultimate currency. It’s earned through genuine connection, understanding and, increasingly, a willingness to be truly interesting and human. Inauthentic efforts, whether ignoring community values or letting AI drain personality, will likely backfire. The goal shifts from a simple purchase funnel to building an ongoing loop of trust, engagement and advocacy.
