Under Armour’s AI Miss, The Pick of SXSW Activations, China’s Foreign Chip Ban and AI Reinforcements in the Battle Against Cancer

South By SouthWest Film Festival’s Leading Marketing Activations for 2024

March saw the film and music festival South by Southwest take place in Austin, Texas. The annual festival is a melting point for culture, education, and tech, inviting marketers to seize the opportunity for impactful brand activations. 

Catching our eye was Prime’s Fallout inspired apocalyptic bunker, which included immersive actors, interactive quests, and built-out areas to explore. Sharpie x Paper Mate drew in attendees with a draw-your-own cocktail bar to elevate their new Creative line. Pourri hosted their very own Funk Festival to activate their toilet fragrance sprays, which explored the possibilities of tech with NFC-enabled pocket sprayers that gifted rewards and festival perks, such as VIP toilets. Pourri doubled down on their exciting takeover with integrated fun activities – inflatable poo projection space anyone? 

From immersive gameplay to unique brand activations, the plethora of creative marketing strategies at SXSW serves as an inspirational look at marketing trends for the year ahead. It’s clear the future of marketing will always revolve around curating one of a kind immersive experiences.

China’s Foreign Chip Ban for Government Computers

This week, China announced a chip ban on Intel and AMD processors, and other foreign company database products, such as Microsoft. 

According to new guidelines, the Chinese government is hoping this will help create a more self-sufficient national industry, reinforcing a safer ecosystem of providers for Chinese government data. The approved list of domestic solutions includes Huawei and Phytium.

The decision to cut foreign hardware will help fuel China’s economic growth, maintaining its strong position as the largest exporter of high-tech goods. In 2023 the country turned over CN¥12.33 trillion in revenue from its technology industry.

This US chip ban could be seen as a retaliation to Washington’s export blacklist, which included both Chinese companies. Such a ban will have adverse effects on the US tech industry, with China accounting for over a quarter of American tech company Intel’s sales last year.

Tensions appear to be rising in the U.S.-China tech war, to which a Guardian-published think tank found China to be winning.

NHS AI is Detecting Cancer

Next up, a huge development in health care diagnostics with AI successfully detecting breast cancer in patients. The NHS AI tool, named Mia, has undergone testing to analyse over 10,000 mammograms and was able to correctly confirm clinician diagnosed breast cancer. 

The funding-backed artificial intelligence solution could also flag undetected signs of breast cancer that may have previously been overlooked by doctors. This has the potential to help breast cancer patients receive earlier diagnoses, which in turn means less invasive treatment and higher survival rates. 

By helping breakthroughs in health care diagnosis, we are seeing the benefits of AI in many settings, and with further development, we remain hopeful that further evolutions help humanity for good.

Outcry Over Under Armour’s AI Anthony Joshua

Named the “World’s first AI-powered sports commercial”, marketers and creatives across the internet have rebuked Under Armour’s recent AI-made commercial ‘Forever is Made Now’.

The dramatic black and white advert centres around an AI developed voice of Anthony Joshua, chopping heavily between artificial and analogue clips of the brand ambassador. The ad’s creators have been accused of plagiarising content from Under Armour’s 2022 campaign ‘Storm Through’, directed by Gustav Johannson and shot by André Chementof.

Johannson has already commented on the advert, saying, “It’s a slippery slope when you as a creative say it’s AI when humans were actually behind it”. It seems the moral integrity of AI is easily lost when it can only work with external sources, forgoing the internal inspiration that defines a creative’s authenticity.

Director Wes Walker has defended his work, claiming that the creative team were embracing the future of cinematic technology. Working with exciting new AI tools to push the limits of what has been previously possible, merging existing assets to experiment within the bounds of an incredibly tight three week deadline.

Embracing AI’s cinematic potential, or AI’s clear pitfall in plagiarism, it’s clear that the creative industries need more guidance in knowing how to progress.

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