Unleashing Passive Advocacy at SX’18

SXSW came and went with a flurry of crazy activations (real life Westworld and Spielberg’s first trip to Austin for Ready Player One being the buzziest), celebrity speakers and meaningful visitors. The last part of this is what keeps me excited for this 10 day marathon every year. This year and unlikely winner in the mindshare clubhouse came from an activation done by the fine folks at Wisconsin Cheese. If you had asked me a few weeks ago whether or not the “World’s Longest Cheese Board” would appeal to a techie/influence crowd looking for breakthrough tech and (perpetually) Elon Musk, I would have given you a lukewarm response at best. Turns out, I had no idea how much people like cheese – they just needed a reason to express it.

Loving you isn’t enough. Advocates need conversational capital and a reason to share their stories.

It is worth noting that this fantastic execution was a production of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board in conjunction with Brains on Fire. The individuals involved are the ones who gave me the opportunity to work on the Fiskateers many moons ago and have been collaborators in the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (now part of ANA) ever since. With the core idea of creating the World’s Longest Cheeseboard, they executed to inspire the most sharing:

• They transformed a “normal” conference room in a Marriott into a visually compelling barn complete with silo and lit up “CHEESE” sign that begged for photography
• They filled the board with more than 100 tasty cheeses divided into categories with intentionally accessible, non-snobby names like “Party in the Pasture” or “Curdlandia”
• The record itself is conversational capital (70ft vs. previous record of 60ft)
• Super cute swag for days including a tiny backpack of Wisconsin cheese to go, cool laptop stickers and the world’s best button reading #CheesyAF.

This activation performed remarkably well, commanding a line for entrance for almost the entire time it was up, sparking sharing on social and making a shocking number of SX wrapup pieces. So in a world of voice control, privacy concerns and VR/AR obsession, why did cheese rise above the clutter? It was real, it was homey, it was nice (without feeling overly produced), it had oh-s0-many AWESOME shots for social baked into the activation – all great.

Most importantly, it gave people a reason to share their largely passive love of cheese. I consume a heavy meat & cheese diet, but don’t really post about or even discuss it very much. There’s no way to digitally ID me. The fine folks in Wisconsin would have no idea that I was a thirsty sponge crying out for a little mixed melt education or a new #SXSWisconsin experience. It took the presence of a compelling stimulus to give me something to learn, experiences and a reason to share. I reveled in seeing how many of my friends are also cheese-driven beings – many of whom came out to see the cheese board! Perhaps the gratest (sic) gift was giving me something to think about afterwards. Check out this video from Pete Blackshaw if you’d like to hear more straight from Suzanne! Bon Appecheese….