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Thoughts from a SXSW Newbie: Tony Sharpe

Draftfcb’s Tony Sharpe, SVP Group Creative Director shares his hopes for a collaborative SXSW experience.

Expectations for SXSW

I think there will be a lot of opportunities for collaboration between different folks that will help us further understand the art of branding within the digital space. It’s getting better, but there’s still a bit of a disconnect and I think we’ve got to continue to work towards bridging that gap so we can build the best creative solutions.

We want to move away from that “writer and art director” model. What I mean by this is that sometimes there can still be this “I do words, you do pictures” mentality, where specialists work together, but only perform one function. This makes the whole process a discipline-specific thing and limits our ability to maximize the cross functionality of the medium.

The consequence here for digital is that you’ll be developing brand strategy and not talking to the digital guy until later. Or you’re going to build digital platforms and have no idea how it’s going to work for the brand. That’s what you’ve got to avoid. So if we’re all there together, then we can collaborate and figure out how to make it work.

I think that people have to sort of merge some their thinking together and collaborate in real time so that everybody will be on the same page. The walls will come down and we’ll truly be working together. SXSW offers a great opportunity for us to continue working towards this goal.

Preparation for SXSW?

I’ll be hydrating!