If you log onto any social media site around two weekends in April of every year, you’re bound to see a barrage of people’s posts from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. While music is still at the forefront of Coachella, it’s also become an enormous hub for influencer and social media marketing for various brands.
“A hive of celebrities and influencers, the reach of Coachella extends far beyond the festival grounds, it’s broadcast around the world in real-time through Instagram posts and Twitter feeds” (Pometsey, 2019). With the world watching every morsel of the festival, it’s no wonder why brands are so eager to take a piece of the pie that is Coachella. One brand that had a prominent presence at Coachella one year was Heineken, which not only provided beer to attendees but also had an individual stage at the festival, with performers including Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, and P Diddy (Pometsey, 2019). By simply being physically present at Coachella, a brand has already expanded its reach by who knows much when counting both attendees and those streaming the festival from anywhere in the world. Having big-name artists performing on a stage with your brand’s name tied to it is priceless and is certain to create waves to market your company.
Revolve is another brand that continues to have a sizable presence at Coachella. In 2018, it collaborated with 450 influencers who all wore its clothes at the festival and also hosted its own “Revolve Festival”, complete with a set of high-profile performers as well (Mau, 2018). The fact that a fashion company is hosting its own large-scale event within a large-scale event is incredible, and the results paid off. Revolve’s CEO, Robert Mente, said in terms of sales: “‘This was our best week ever: Monday [before Coachella] beat our Cyber Monday’” (Mau, 2018). The sheer volume of influencers who were invited by Revolve will inevitably share tons of content to their followers on social media about their activities and most importantly, their outfits, for everyone attending or everyone at home who wants to emulate this vibe or lifestyle. Attending Coachella has increasingly become a status symbol, and the more people want to feel part of the “in crowd”, the easier it is for brands involved with Coachella to leverage social media to draw people in to buy their products so they feel like they are a part of the Coachella narrative.
However, in 2022, Revolve was under fire by influencers it hosted for a disastrous Revolve Festival; it provided limited transportation, accommodations, and food for its invitees and left some stranded, so many influencers took to social media to complain about Revolve Festival, with some individual videos garnering over 3 million views each in a matter of days (Askinasi, 2022). While this was a catastrophe, an interesting conversation to be had is about the phrase “bad publicity is still good publicity”. The videos of influencer criticisms blew up and Revolve was circulating on social media, albeit not for good reasons, but it was still trending nonetheless.
Lineups for Coachella continue to become more star-studded each year, and that means that brands that want to boost sales will continue to flock to be partners with the festival. To the brands coming to Coachella this year, we’ll catch you in the desert.
References:
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/coachella-2019-influencers-business
https://fashionista.com/2018/04/revolve-clothing-influencers-festival-coachella-2018
https://www.insider.com/influencers-say-revolve-festival-coachella-event-chaos-tiktok-2022-4