5 Marketing Takeaways from Fast Company’s Innovation Festival
Fast Company has been in my rotation for decades, since I lived in NYC and worked in advertising. It came faithfully each month, and before it, when on a more meager budget, I’d hunt it down at work, as the studio always had a copy to snag. I consume it like a delicious quality meal (I couldn't at that time afford either) and it nourished me like other “pubs” (as we elders in the biz would say) never could.
Fast forward to 2026. RED VELVET has activated for clients (Texas A&M University and National Cryptocurrency Association) at Fast Company Grill at Cedar Door in Austin, TX for the last two years during SXSW and we hope to do so for years to come. Besides how brands are showing up in the space, the programming is fresh, topical and at times, daring and provocative. This company does not play it safe, and I’m here for it.
Fast Company Grill Panel During SXSW 2026
Turns out Fast Company puts on a handful of events each year, and I wanted to experience one from the audience side. So amidst perhaps our busiest “peak season” yet, I committed the week to learning, meeting and processing all I could at Fast Company Innovation Festival in NYC.
The world of experiential marketing has conditioned me to expect certain conventions at a Festival (read: Conference) and I walked in through that lens. It took me a while to drop the lens - to just be in the moment and surrender to what this experience was actually designed to be. Which was a bubble. A large salon, with carefully curated talks, honest conversations about what we are all facing as business leaders (injected with much more hope than I’d expected, to be honest) and conversations were, dare I say, confident.
My key takeaways:
Anxiety is the strategy. The news is intentionally whipping us up (mostly as it relates to AI and politics). Ironic perhaps coming from a media company (Manseuto owns Fast Company among other publications). [Aside: I don’t know why we humans need to hear again and again that the news in this day and age is literally DESIGNED to agitate, but we do (we are all in marketing so this should go without saying).] Social media algorithms own us unless we remain vigilant and make consistent deliberate decisions to weed, prune and counter-engage. Reader, I am saying nothing new here. But we mere mortals forget this often because it is hard to remember.
AI will begin to (more) seamlessly mesh into our lives. In a year it will look completely different. The only thing that is certain in all this uncertainty is that, so please try to calm down. We are all learning how to figure out what that integration looks like. STAY in the conversation and do not turn away just because it’s tough. It IS tough. It’s your job as a business leader and your team, your peers and your industry is counting on you. Buck up, lean in, and lead. And if you can’t lead, at least participate. But truly, figure out a way to make peace with this change that is upon us all, ASAP.
Creativity, humanness and all the things that give us feeling and emotion will be the differentiator. If the last 30 years was about humans becoming more machine-like (productivity- and efficiency- geared), the next frontier will be through a very human/emotional lens. Essentially, what is DIFFERENT from AI will be prized. Our emotions, our human connections will never be replaced by machines. Creativity is how you future-proof. Adjacent to this, taste was a big topic within creativity conversations. AI does not understand taste or the nuances within it. I personally hope it never will, but there’s no way I’m going to predict if it will or can in the future; that’s totally up to us as to whether or not we teach it to.
Hand skills are critical. Learn how to do the damn thing. Shortcuts are tempting and right at our fingertips now, for just about everything we do. But what are we racing to get to? More time? More money? To what end? What about the human experience have you forgotten to try for? The literal feel of accomplishment can never be replaced by a machine. AI will never run a marathon, but you might. Go low tech when you can, and use your hands (and your brain).
Gen Z is “Generation Overwhelm” and they want you to know some things. As a Xennial, I will absorb as much IRL generational discourse as I possibly can. A memo to us all from Gen Z: “The future might be scary but we refuse to go where you’re taking us, and we refuse to be victims. We can smell BS; we want authentic. Be real w/ us. Tell us what is going on. We can handle it. Don’t sugar coat it because you think you know better.” So, to us business leaders, how we can meet them? They’re saying: “Ground me. Be present with me. The world will wait. THIS is the moment, and that’s all that matters”. Gen Z is onto something and they are not as lost as we've been made to believe. This generation has agency.
At RED VELVET we choose a word of the year and rally around it from January ’til December. The last few years have been about growth and momentum - we’re talking full throttle verbiage. This year, though, we made the conscious and sober decision to stay put, and selected “beacon,” which is about staying in the moment while the world around us swirls. Essentially, it boils down to this: “be the light that shines on others, for others. Stay steady.” We knew going into this year that anything could happen. And a lot of things did, and still are happening.
So at the end of this passage (and if you’re still reading), Fast Company, you cracked me open and poured a little more light into me that I might now pour into others. I’m so very grateful.
Now, go be your best self. Be a beacon to others. And for the love of all humanity, please vote.