Our ideas

Key insights from #SXSW2025 and how we’re applying them for our clients

Thousands of people descended upon Austin, TX earlier this month to participate in South by Southwest, the city’s annual tech, music, and cinema festival. Among them were NJA’s own Account Director, Stephanie Brynes and Sales Representative, Aidan Kane. Between breakfast tacos and brisket, they attended panels addressing developments in emergency management, healthcare, infrastructure, and technology. Here are some of the highlights and how we at NJA are applying this insight to best serve our clients.

1. Climate resilience demands collaboration.
   At talks on bioremediation (as presented by EarthRM) and water preservation and reuse (via Austin Water), one message rang out loud and clear: we need people from all backgrounds, cultures, and industries to join the conversation around climate resilience. We are more successful in mitigating the damage caused by natural disasters like wildfires, floods, and droughts when we prepare and respond to them together.
   This collaboration can take many forms. Some of the strategies discussed included joint funding models that incentivize resilient tech, dividing the investment between public and private entities. Outreach to local experts to ensure relief efforts are tailored to the environment and communities they serve is another way to bridge response gaps. Finally, there are opportunities for small, personal acts like learning where your water comes from and where it is treated. At Niki Jones Agency, we’re incorporating these insights by assessing our crisis communications for new ways to engage local experts.
2. We need to secure our energy infrastructure.
   In our team’s top presentation of the week, CEO Robert Lee of Dragos, Inc. presented on threats facing American utility providers. Hacks into operational technology have become more common as utilities automate their previously manual systems. With digital infrastructure controlling most of our water and power supply operations, it’s now essential for utilities to prepare for breaches in operational tech. What’s more, foreign entities are disproportionately targeting municipal utilities serving populations under a thousand.
   Our team is adapting its infrastructure and utilities marketing procedures to educate our government clients about threats. We’re also adapting our crisis communications strategies to include new contingency plans that address this rapidly growing threat. As marketing increasingly requires real-time responses to real-world events, savvy agencies will learn to double as crisis communications firms.
3. Artificial intelligence for digital marketing isn’t on the horizon – it’s here.
   Artificial intelligence was one of the most talked about subjects across South by Southwest, dominating panels and roundtables. From AI in digital marketing and market research to AI ethics/governance, business planning and reimagining creative production using AI tools, how we can, do, and should use this technology was at the heart of the conference. While panelists had different ideas on its current opportunities and limitations, everyone agreed on the fact that AI is here to stay.
   A presentation on AI representation of disabled people by international marketing firm, VML, was particularly informative. Many generative AI tools display inadvertent bias, meaning they fail to capture the full spectrum of human experience. Disabled people in particular are underrepresented and inaccurately represented. If they are not fed healthy data sets, these generative tools can’t and don’t succeed in representing disabled people – even though they’re not designed to discriminate. Here at Niki Jones Agency, we’ll be working to build our network of data providers so that we can offer trustworthy data sets to our clients.

The takeaway

From the environment to infrastructure and artificial intelligence marketing, our society’s most pressing topics are intertwined. The modern integrated marketing agency must perpetually explore, learn, and experiment to stay vital and continue meeting clients’ needs. We at Niki Jones Agency, Inc. do just that.