Spark & Riot Founder Ana de Diego on Being Intentional with Brand Presence at SXSW

Every March, the creative industry descends on Austin with the best of intentions and a whole lot of branded tote bags. The panels get booked. The parties are planned. The Instagram grids get curated. And then, somewhere between the breakfast tacos and the badge-scanning, a familiar question resurfaces in the group chats and Slack threads: Was it worth it?

I've been asking myself a version of that question since building a company. But somewhere along the way, I started asking it differently. Not "Was it worth the spend?" but "What did we actually contribute?"

For other company owners heading to Austin — or any industry gathering — it might be worth asking the same question. Not just where you'll show up, but what you'll contribute while you're there. It can change how you approach a huge festival like SXSW, and how you define whether it was “worth it.”

For me, the shift came from building Spark & Riot around something I already believed: that doing good isn't a reward you unlock after you've made it. It's something you practice from day one, even when no one's watching. Over time, that mindset shaped the kinds of moments we chose to create at SXSW and beyond.

Read her full article on Campaign!