SXSW – Shoreditch hosts culture and tech and everything in between
June 6, 2025
The queues, the neon lanyards, the cool crowd and the sound of sweet tunes gently wafting through the air as people hurried down Shoreditch’s graffiti clad streets could mean only one thing: SXSW London was here.
Transported from Austin, Texas, the hippest of conferences come cultural events made its European debut this week. While London hosted, the clientele was very much European, attracted by the eclectic mix that SXSW is famous for. Despite the widespread grumbling about the queues, there were some standout sessions.
Here is Pumpkin’s on-the-ground team’s round-up of the best of (the first three days) of the festival – including our clients’ sessions.
Breaking the mould in chocolate and in business
Many of us know Tony’s Chocolonely for its mission to end exploitation within the chocolate industry, but what about its taste?
After recognising that the brand needed to be better at talking about its chocolate, it set about finding its culinary identity in a unique way. It looked at how people eat their chocolate – ripping open the packet, snapping off the corner and scoffing it before anyone else has chance – and it called them Neil.
Neil is the brand’s ambassador. Breaking the chocolate into pieces makes it edible. It makes Tony’s more delicious and shows the crunch of the product, and this is consistent throughout its marketing. Brands don’t always have to make big moves to be noticed. Sometimes the simplest of things can be the most powerful.
Building brand love with localised social storytelling
As Head of Social at Disney, Lucy Amos has one of the best jobs. In a brilliant session with Melissa Chapman and Sedge Beswick of Jungle Creations (standing room only), we heard how to create global brand love with localised social storytelling.
As a brand loved by many for generations, Disney has fans across age groups, backgrounds and interests – so how can one brand entertain such a variety of groups? Jungle and Disney approach community management by imagining how each community is in real life and making sure each feels seen via the power of social media. From passionate fans to first-time commenters, each group needs to feel a piece of Disney magic.
On the topic of Disney magic, we heard how Jungle worked with Disney to launch the TikTok channel for Disney Store UK, with the magic a consistent part of the channel. On paper, Instagram and TikTok may seem like similar platforms, however we heard how the approach was completely different. By making sure content was employee-led, the Disney magic was brought to life and even created a viral moment by showing the world the Disney Store opening ceremony.
And the closing question is a brilliant office debate: if all Disney characters became influencers, who would you follow and why?
The power of arena thinking for innovators
Not only did this panel of illustrious brands (Samsung, Essity, Uber and Mars Wrigley), moderated by Emma Ellis, President at Interbrand London, share with us how Samsung first started out by trading noodles, we also learned that brands must exist in categories that actually matter to people’s lives.
For Samsung, this means moving into spaces that people need, such as doubling down in healthcare. It’s no longer a technology innovator; it’s a lifestyle innovator, opening the potential for the brand’s next iconic move.
For Essity, the brand doesn’t just sell period care products, it focuses on complete cycle care. It understands women’s cycles to connect with women every day of the month, not just during their period. It’s also committed to closing the menstrual health gap by providing access to resources to help women and create inclusive menstrual health information.
As human needs evolve, brands can find solutions for everyday problems, meaning there will always be new arenas to address. For Uber, its success lies in solving everyday problems; by being the one-stop life assistant for everyday, step by step, the brand is building super relevance for its customers.
Challenging Luxury Brands’ Hype Cycle
Stop chasing what is viral and start investing in what is valuable was the sage advice from Imagination Group CEO, Patrick Reid and Global Brand Communications Director at Jaguar Land Rover, Blane Chapman.
Afterall, if you are chasing the meme, you’re already too late, according to Reid, which is why Imagination has a deliberate policy of hiring tastemakers and people embedded in culture.
Culture moves fast and you must move with it, not chase it. There is a loneliness epidemic and the answer isn’t to create another character online to interact with. Brands need to be investing in a sense of community, creating ways to belong.
But how do you infiltrate the scroll? Reid says you have to go where the algorithm can’t follow. He personally goes to Premier League football matches. The view and the commentary is better on TV, but the visceral IRL experience is the magic.
Chapman cautioned brands not to confuse influence with influencer; discerning audiences know the difference. By marrying intent and authenticity – through a clear understanding of who and what you are – brands can keep ahead of the curve. And by continuing to be true to your brand’s values, the curve becomes irrelevant. No luxury brand should chase vanity metrics.
As Reid said: “Risk is scary, but irrelevance is worse.”
Future Ready Consumers
With one billion new consumers expected by 2030, Phil Rowley, Head of Futures at Omnicom Media Group UK, set the scene for how brands can thrive, adapt and innovate in a future shaped by disruptive forces and evolving consumer expectations.
He painted a picture of how consumers will become future ready, be that through increased Gen Alpha cognitive development, through to evolving new cultural sensitivities or a turbocharged workforce powered by AI.
And in tandem, brands, creators and technologist, are facing a “triple threat era” of demographic disruption, the cognification of everything and sustainability being standard.
While Rowley looked to the future, he was joined onstage by Global Director of Brand for Porsche, Deniz Keskin, who detailed how it is structuring a response to those threats – across audiences, brand and product.
Both speakers’ closing points chimed in synchronicity.
Keskin closed his session with a Porsche mantra: “You can only act flexibly in the short term when you have a solid long term plan.”
For Riley, the takeout was clear: “Think in generations. Plan long term.”
Securing a safe digital future for all
AI was an inevitable reoccurring theme throughout SXSW, whether in dedicated sessions on the topic or beyond. But Bruce Reed, head of AI at Common Sense Media, and a former deputy chief of staff to former President Joe Biden took a unique, and often rye, approach to the subject – with a few sideswipes at Trump along the way.
He cautioned that AI must win people’s trust and that if governments sit on the sidelines and don’t introduce guardrails, it will be very hard to win over customers regardless of how fast companies move.
So, while most people who work in AI want to do the right thing, he argued that if engineers are concerned, there must be ways they can raise those concerns so AI is delivered safely.
“This is a new and fragile industry. If there’s a massive safety malfunction all that investment could go up in smoke,” he said.
Reed was particularly worried about AI companions for young people – saying there was an unacceptable risk for young people as they can escalate illegal and unethical behaviour. “We have to be extra careful teens aren’t alone with something not designed for them.”