This is a smart move on Coke’s end. Everyone knows that Coke mainly targets teens, and what if instead of marketing to teens, you get teens come to you, promote you, share, chat, and advocate your brand? Dream came true …

Coke organized this experimental amazing hangout villa they called The Coca Cola Village. They’ve been doing it for a few years, or at least I found videos from 2008 and 2009.

This year’s was a little different though, an Israeli agency called E-dologic — part of Publicis, extended the event in effort to bring the Facebook “Like” to the real world. Not only they invited thousands of teens who talk about this through traditional word-of-mouth, but they used the Facebook Presence-like concept where they distribute teens a wristband, they link it to their Facebook account, and the village automatically digitalize, archive, organize, and share their experience. It makes it easy to re-live the fun, read the comments, see their friends, share activities, and for Coke? instant-massive-ultra-influencing system that leverages teens to promote Coke’s brand among their circles.

Really nicely done. As expected, Facebook will keep penetrating the real-world. Next efforts will probably use the open graph to describe more precise locations and describe relationships among people, places, and objects.

It always amazed me how SXSW calls for speakers about 11 months in advanced and has to lock down all sessions 6 months in advanced. Of course there could be some timeless sessions that will always make sense, but it’s hard to know how topics will be relevant 9 months from now … With that said, SapientNitro submitted 19 visionary topics that I think will make great sessions; some returning speakers (including Freddie and myself) and some great new speakers.

It’s great to see so much variety of expertise: creative, strategic, business, technology … from SapientNitro, Government Services, Financial Services, and from so many different people like our CCO, Business Lead, Creative Directors, Technology Directors, developers, and even recruiting. Tells a lot about the diversity, multifariousness, mixture of SapientNitro‘s capabilities and expertise.

Please read below and provide feedback or questions on these topics … what else would you like to see us cover? If you like a topic please take the time to follow the link and vote for it to make sure we have the opportunity to share it with you.

Bringing the Love Back to Brands by Gaston Legorburu

Technology has liberated the dialog between brands and customers, sating consumers’ love of sharing, connecting, raving, venting… But in many ways, it’s also driven isolation as we press “skip intro” to proceed to our desired action. In this discussion, Gaston Legorburu, SapientNitro’s worldwide chief creative officer, will explore the unique paradox that technology has introduced to the consumer/brand relationship. From isolation to sharing, technology is driving a massive social revolution. Learn the art of combining design and engineering to create relevant experiences, experiences that transform barely personable brands into “builders of moments.”

Location-Based-Services is so 2010 – Behold Context-Based-Services by Rob Gonda

Defined as using large mashup of data services to enable amazing experiences through mobile devices. What’s not digital nowadays?! Mobile is replacing the pc and becoming that unique personal technology gadget that no one lives without — and with it, comes connectivity, content, productivity, and entertainment. The magic is that mobile links the gap between digital and real world, extending experiences, and more importantly, making is easy, simple, and intuitive. Foursquare and Gowalla gaining momentum, Twitter added Places, Facebook launched their location based service and integrate with the Open Graph, Google “Me” relies on Latitude, location-location-location. But checking-in requires too much effort… Location will evolve from a reactive engagement to a proactive engagement … background services will be always-location aware. Apps will automatically react to actual location, history, friends, places, and a new set of data source mashups such as weather, humidity, light sensitivity, noise ambiance, and more. If you want to get inspired by innovations galore, this is a session you can’t miss.

Found the Crystal Ball – Unveil the Future by Freddie Laker

The world is evolving at an amazing pace and if companies want to keep up they need to evolve too; but evolution is not a simple concept; what are the right choices? where should you invest? what do your customers want, and what are your competitors doing about it? The best VC firms in the world cannot predict the future, but a good understanding for trends, culture and behavioral shifts, technology advancements, brand evolution, micro and macro economics, and having insights on R&D and new product launches. The best brands in the world excel in designing amazing experiences. Loyalty driven through rewards, direct response advertising, and frequency / reach is a concept of the past. Loyalty is a consequence of providing great experiences across any touchpoint with the brand. What if you had a crystal ball that hint you on upcoming trends that will drive and set customer expectations? Good news, we found it!

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It’s that time of year again and I’ll be heading out to another interesting week in the south of France checking out some of the best work in the world, meeting with the media, and trying my best to get myself and the SapientNitro crew into the most fun parties. This year has a new unusual twist for me on a personal level. I’ve quit drinking so that I can successfully quit smoking. No smoking for one month as of tomorrow. If I can make it through the Lions without drinking or smoking I’ll be feeling more confident that I’ve finally kicked the world’s worst habit…

On the work front I’ll be running a workshop with Nathaniel Perez, SapientNitro’s social media whiz, focusing on location based marketing called “How To Create Location-Based Mobile Marketing (Shhhh … Without An Expert)” on Friday morning. If you’re in town I encourage you to check it out. Also Laura McFarlane will be leading a discussion with Ian Maskel from Unilever featuring our next generation vending machine that utilizes facial recognition technology for a very unique customer experience.

We’ve also got a very unique location based game that works in the spirit of the childhood favorite game Marco Polo. Rob and I will tell you more in an upcoming post that will really break the details down.

In the mean time enjoy this wonderful comic from WordsAndPictures. If you don’t read them already visit their site and subscribe to their content. It’s fantastic.

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I’ve handled two keynotes in the last couple months for both the Figaro Social Media Conference and the Social Media World Forum, both in London, in the last five  months that I really enjoyed working on. The first of those two presentations is called Social Media 2012 and thanks to some persistent poking I’ve been encouraged to put them up on SlideShare including a full audio voice over.

Social Media 2012 focuses on new innovations in social media that are just starting to appear in production or experimental forms and that I believe will be future trends to watch as marketers. Regardless of your knowledge level with social media you will find content in here that you have not heard or seen before and I hope you find it as inspiring to listen to as I found it to research and develop for this presentation.