Delegates from Mindshare attended (and presented at) REMIX Summit NYC, a two day conference which brought together innovators to explore the future of culture and the creative economy. Hosted in Brooklyn at A/D/O and the Intrepid Museum, there wasn’t necessarily one topic that REMIX centered on. Instead, the conference was an open-ended forum acting as a creative exchange from leaders in technology, creative, media, urban design, and the arts. Because of the open, cross-industry nature of REMIX, it stood out from the typical media conferences and provided insights in a perspective that worked towards a common goal of using technology to improve our lives, rather than infringe upon it.
Mindshare’s own Adam Gerhart, U.S. CEO gave a compelling talk on the future of voice called Can You Hear Me Now? The Age of Assistance. In his session Adam provided a provoking view of the future of voice and how brands need to reconcile with a voice-first world. With nearly 20% of Americans owning voice assistants as of February and the rate of adoption growing faster than the early days of smartphones, there is already a veritable shift in media consumptions behaviors. Adam honed in on the notion that the shift in media will, in the not-too-distant future, drive a shift from e-commerce to v-commerce where our loyalty to a brand may become incidental based on what Alexa tells us to buy. And, as Adam said, “the first product you buy may be the last” if you consistently reorder the same item from Amazon.
So how do brands need to prepare themselves as the adoption of voice shopping begins its slow, but steady, up swing? While it depends on numerous factors, most obviously the brand and/or product, Adam’s point of view is that brands should consider aspects like their sonic branding and potentially overinvesting in voice search (once the offering becomes available) to drive incidental loyalty.
Beyond Adam’s compelling session on the future of brands, media, and marketing in the onset of the era of voice, there was no shortage of compelling speakers. From Lucy Schwartz from Google’s Arts and Culture app and their partnership with MoMA using visual search to Georgia Frances King, Deputy Ideas Editor at Quartz and her argument for publishing stories that challenge what you believe are truths and her optimism for the future of technology.
A stand out talk came from Eric Nuzum, SVP of Original Content Development at Audible. Called The Audio Revolution, Nuzum focused on best practices in audio and podcasting (a word he hates, because he says that “most listeners won’t know what a podcast is…or care.”). Most notably during his session he showed a list of several dozen words he tells creators not to use when creating the one sentence pitch about why their audio content is distinguished (amazing, fascinating, incredible, thoughtful, tremendous to sample a few). This point of view on eloquent brevity in communicating what your brand is about could apply to numerous aspects to a brand, not just audio.
REMIX Summit was a series of stirring talks that provided a unique point of view from a diverse speaker set. From the future of voice to brevity in communications, the outlooks provided at REMIX will continue to drive provocation in the work we do at Mindshare.
