SXSW 2025: The Questions That Could Define Your Marketing Future

The future of marketing doesn’t belong to those with all the answers—it belongs to those asking better questions. That’s why we sent some of our sharpest minds to SXSW, not just to collect insights but to challenge them. And they came back with a powerful realisation: the biggest shifts in our industry aren’t about finding definitive solutions but about rethinking the questions we ask.

Here are a few that should have every marketer re-evaluating their approach:

Do people really have short attention spans—or just less patience for things that don’t interest them?

We’ve been told attention is shrinking, but that’s not the full story. People binge 10-hour docuseries, fall deep into TikTok rabbit holes, and analyse memes like they’re decoding the universe. The challenge isn’t capturing attention—it’s sustaining interest. If your brand isn’t making people feel something, you’re stuck in Vanilla Valley—and no one remembers vanilla.

In a session with Andrew and James MacKinnon of TABOO Brands, they unpacked the power of breaking bad rules for good reasons. The takeaway? Emotion drives impact. If your campaigns aren’t sparking a reaction (good or bad), they’re forgettable.

Does AI kill creativity—or just expose mediocrity?

AI isn’t replacing great ideas; it’s exposing weak ones. When anyone can generate an ad, script, or campaign in seconds, originality and human intuition become the ultimate differentiators. If AI can make anything, what makes your brand worth remembering?

Unsurprisingly, AI dominated many discussions at SXSW, not just as a disruptor but as a mirror reflecting our own creative strengths—and weaknesses. The real challenge isn’t whether AI will change the industry (it already has). It’s whether brands will rise to the occasion with creativity that can’t be automated.

Can we trust what customers say they want—or should we be listening to their subconscious?

People say one thing, think another, and their brains tell a completely different story. Neuromarketing shows that subconscious reactions don’t always align with what people claim to want. So how do we market to what they actually feel, rather than what they say?

In a panel with Michael Platt of the Wharton School of Business, we explored the massive, often untapped insights our brains reveal—without us even realising it. The key takeaway? It’s not the customer’s job to make sense to us. It’s our job to help customers make sense of our brands and products.

What if the way we use time matters more than how much of it we have?

“If we only had more time”—the phrase that haunts every marketer. But are we spending more time talking about the work than actually doing the work? Endless decks, internal debates, pivots, and process overload slow us down. Maybe it’s time to rethink productivity—because how we work shapes what we create.

In a session with Meg Murray of AnalogFolk and Ligia Giatti of MESA, they came out swinging with solutions to keep teams motivated and moving at speeds we didn’t think were possible. The real challenge? Making space for creativity by cutting through the clutter.

The future of marketing isn’t about having the perfect answers. It’s about daring to ask better questions.

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