Coachella: Where Music Meets Marketing and Digital Media
Every year around the middle of April, there is one word that is constantly looming over social media: Coachella. The internet is bombarded with countless posts of festival-goers wearing bold outfits made for the California heat. We see the iconic ferris wheel, the palm trees, the concert videos, and everything in between. The musical performances are live streamed on YouTube and make headlines for days.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is an annual music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It spans over two weekends, usually in April, with three days per weekend to last a total of six days. The second weekend is a repeat of Weekend 1, with the same lineup each day. As one of the biggest music festivals in the U.S., hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world attend the festival every year, including influencers and celebrities. Musical artists from all different genres come to perform for two weekends. Huge sculptures and installations are scattered throughout the festival grounds, adding pops of color and plenty of cool photo opportunities. Just last year, Coachella brought in $704 million of total economic activity (Mulqueen). However, it wasn’t always this highly publicized and profitable event that we see today. So, how did we get here?
A Look Back In Time
It’s 1993 and American rock band, Pearl Jam, had just played a show at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. This location seemed unusual to some, as it was a polo field in the middle of a desert. However, that night, Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen of the concert promotion company, Goldenvoice, saw the potential for Empire Polo Club to host a broad-based, multi-act music festival. They pictured an outdoor festival with a big lineup of musical artists from different genres, attracting a wide range of audiences.
Goldenvoice was a small company then, but they had firm roots in the punk rock and alternative rock scene in California. They struggled financially in the early 1990s, since the shows that they were promoting were not making money.
Tollett began taking interest in the rave scene, which was underground at the time, and even attended some European festivals in the summer. Inspired by these festivals, he soon started developing the idea for an outdoor music festival in southern California called Coachella, which would have a big lineup combining rock, hip hop, and dance music.
At the time, this type of model for music festivals was more common in Europe. In the United States, people seemed to prefer indoor concerts with typically two to four acts. Tollett’s idea was bold, with a lot of uncertainty as to whether people would be willing to attend such an event. Music festivals did not have a good reputation, especially after Woodstock ’99 in New York, which ended with reports of violence, looting, and fires. Coachella was announced the Monday after Woodstock had happened, and people were very skeptical about the event being a success.
Against all odds, Coachella was born on the scorching hot weekend of October 9th and 10th, 1999. Tickets were $50 each day, and about 35,000 to 40,000 people attended over the two days. Artists who performed included Beck, Morissey, and Rage Against The Machine. From the outside, Coachella looked like a success. The Empire Polo Club turned out to be a great location, the attendees were happy, and the festival provided a place for these different genres of music to come together.
In reality, Goldenvoice lost about $850,000 from putting on this event. After AEG, a sports and live entertainment company, was looking to get in the concert business, they bought Goldenvoice in order to book shows at Staples Center, their newly built venue. As Goldenvoice tried to recover from their financial loss from the first Coachella, they did not organize another Coachella in 2000. However, AEG encouraged Tollett to put on Coachella again, and he did.
Coachella returned in 2001, and Goldenvoice started adding indie artists to their lineups as well. They were never certain of Coachella’s success, thinking that each one they put on would be their last. Goldenvoice still remained a small company as the years went on and they did not make a profit from Coachella until 2004. With Radiohead, The Pixies, and Kraftwerk as headliners that year, a lot of people wanted to buy tickets. 2004 was the turning point, as Goldenvoice realized how big Coachella could be.
When organizing Coachella, Goldenvoice often made bold decisions that were never really done by anyone else. They were not afraid to bring in non-mainstream genres of music or give the spotlight to newer, lesser-known artists. In the early 2000s, raves and electronic dance music were looked down upon due to the drugs and crime associated with these events. Venues were no longer willing to host raves or EDM concerts, and some producers didn’t even want to make music anymore as a result. However, Coachella consistently brought dance music to their festival, and they did it in a safe and healthy way that celebrated the music and made it an enjoyable experience for attendees. Their decision to put Tiësto on the main stage at Coachella in 2010 legitimized and pushed forward DJ culture. No other multi-genre music festival at the time had put a dance act in front of such a large crowd of people like Coachella did (Perkel).
The festival was a hub for music lovers to discover new music. Attendees would walk around, hear an artist performing in a tent or on another stage, and get drawn into the crowd. Coachella would bring newer artists that not many people knew about, but attendees would end up loving them. It was never about one genre of music or one type of crowd. Instead, Coachella was a place for people with different music tastes to come together and just enjoy good music.
2011 was the first year the Coachella live streamed their festival on YouTube, which brought the festival more recognition around the world. The following year in 2012, Coachella expanded to two weekends instead of one, so that more people could have a chance to attend.
In their recent years, their headliners have been younger artists, but they continue to bring older bands to the lineup so that there can be something for everyone. They have also made efforts to have their lineups reflect the diversity of the music industry, bringing in artists like Bad Bunny, Rosalía, and BLACKPINK.
20 Years Later
Coachella has quickly grown into an event that music lovers dream of attending and musical artists dream of playing at. As of 2020 on Coachella’s website, general admission passes for one weekend cost $429 and VIP passes cost $999. The passes went on sale on January 6, 2020 and they were all already sold out by the next day.
In addition to their music, Coachella has become known for the ever-growing presence of influencers and brand activations at their festival. To a lot of brands, Coachella’s popularity and audience make it the perfect event to promote their products and brand values at. Influencers are sent to Coachella with all expenses paid and the festival grounds are sprinkled with sponsored tents and brand activations. More and more, brands are cashing in to be a part of this cultural event.
Coachella has always stood out to me because of how intertwined it has become with digital media and branding. While other similar music festivals, such as Glastonbury, also bring in about the same amount of people, they do not welcome sponsorships as willingly as Coachella does (Pometsey). Through the years, brands are constantly finding ways to incorporate Coachella and their values into their marketing. This is a festival that has embraced the use of digital media from brands as a way to help promote and also enhance the overall experience.
The Value of Influencers
It’s not difficult to see how an event like Coachella is valuable from a marketing perspective. They draw in an appealing audience: people who are passionate about music, art, fashion, technology, and everything in between. Along with the use of social media, the Coachella experience is no longer only confined to festival grounds, but shared with the world (Pometsey).
The presence of influencers have become a huge part of Coachella, as many of them are sent by brands to promote their products. Brands are also able to reach the people at home who aren’t at Coachella, as influencers share their experience through social media to their thousands or even millions of followers. Promotions made by influencers are seen as much more effective in comparison to celebrity endorsements, since influencers come off as everyday, ordinary people. In ‘Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness,’ Crystal Abidin explains: “The allure of influencers is premised on the ways they engage with their followers to give the impression of exclusive, “intimate” exchange through digital and physical space interactions, where “intimacy” is emically understood to be how familiar and close followers feel to an Influencer” (Abidin). This impression of a deeper connection with their followers make influencers seem more trustworthy and convincing when promoting products.
Brands have often valued influencers with more followers when it comes to promotions, since they have a wider reach. This is reflected in their monetary compensation, where larger influencers are paid more per post than microinfluencers — influencers with less than 100,000 followers. Jarry Lee’s ‘What Does It Cost To Be Big On Instagram?’ for Buzzfeed says, “…microinfluencers typically could make anywhere from $500 to $2,500 per sponsored post, whereas those with between 100,000 and 500,000 followers could make between $2,500 and $5,000” (Lee).
In 2019, however, brands have been taking a different approach when it comes to the kinds of influencers that they choose to work with. According to Tina Mulqueen’s article ‘Brands Paid Hefty Prices To Send Micro-Influencers Dancing In The Desert At Coachella,’ many brands have pursued multiple partnerships with microinfluencers rather than single partnerships with big name influencers for Coachella. This shift comes from the public’s growing indifference towards promotions from big name influencers. A study done by Mediahub on social media engagement lifts prompted by brand activations found that microinfluencers with 1,000 followers were 85% more effective in generating engagement lifts in comparison to influencers with 100,000 followers. Additionally, Instagram accounts with more followers tend to have more bot followers, making microinfluencers a more preferable choice (Mulqueen).
Microinfluencers might not reach as many people, but their reach is far more effective, and that is what seems to matter most for these brands. By having a smaller number of followers, microinfluencers are perceived to be more genuine since they are able to have a more intimate relationship with their followers. In forming these close relationships, their followers are more likely to trust them when they promote a product.
Experiential Marketing
As the years of Coachella have gone on, most people have already grown used to the marketing tactics involving social media. We can sense when a brand is trying to force a connection with us. Bryony Thomas, author of Watertight Marketing, explains in a GQ article: “These are people who have grown up surrounded by sophisticated marketing. They know influencers are being paid. They know the show is being staged for the hashtag. They know they’re expected to share the selfie” (Pometsey).
Companies are instead latching onto the social and cultural meanings of Coachella as a way to brand themselves. As described in ‘Branding The Authentic’ by Sarah Banet-Weiser, “brands become the setting around which individuals weave their own stories, where individuals position themselves as the central character in the narrative of the brand” (Banet-Weiser 4). Big brands at Coachella have shifted to experiential marketing, which is essentially branding an experience. It is also perceived to be more authentic, since the brands are less “in-your-face.” When brands are part of people’s memories, they leave a lasting and more meaningful impact on someone, leading to deeper connections and loyalty. Many brands accomplish this by hosting their own sponsored events and activities.
In 2019, technology brand HP hosted the very first branded event that took place on Coachella grounds prior to the opening day of the festival. On the night before the start of Weekend 1, HP transported a group of VIPs and press to have an immersive experience with their technology in the world’s largest temporary dome: an 11,000-square-foot geodesic projection dome called the Antarctic Projection Dome (Hoffman).
They partnered with the Australian EDM group who was also performing at Coachella, Rüfüs Du Sol, to play a DJ set and premiere their 360-degree music video for their song “Underwater” over the heads of the attendees. An abstract short film created with an HP ZBook Workstation was shown at the event and during the festival as well. In the true fashion of marketing at Coachella, posting about it on social media was encouraged (Hoffman). This event already seemed grand enough, but HP was just getting started.
During the festival, people could come into the air-conditioned dome to watch the short film, which played every 15 minutes. Their colorful ‘Dreamland’ lounge allowed festival-goers to relax and customize their own sustainable backpack using HP laptops. And of course, no activation at Coachella would be complete without photo opportunities to encourage sharing on social media. Their ‘Lucid Dreaming’ experience and ‘Affirmation Wall’ allowed people to manipulate the background as they moved. Even the people who weren’t at Coachella could send in positive affirmations through an HP app, which would then pop up on the ‘Affirmation Wall’ for the people at the festival to see in real time.
Coachella’s decision to allow a branded event on their grounds before the actual festival speaks volumes to how much brands have become entangled in the Coachella experience. I imagine that this is only the start for the future of branding at Coachella, where more brand activations might take place before the festival. The VIP event in the dome enhanced the experience of listening to music, making people feel an intimate and emotional connection with music with the projection of 360-degree visuals. HP’s approach to marketing at Coachella was less about bombarding attendees with their products or logo, but instead, allowing attendees to create their own stories in these environments and through the use of their technology. Through these experiences, people are able to form a relationship with the brand, where HP’s technology provides the stepping stone for them to connect with music, creatively express themselves, or spread positivity.
Another example of experiential marketing at Coachella comes from their long-time sponsor, Heineken. They started off as a sponsor for Coachella by only providing beer at the festival, but have since grown to create the Heineken House, where they organize their own performances. Each year, they partner with musical artists to perform on their stage and have an intimate concert for people to enjoy.
In 2018, one of the headliners at the Heineken House American rapper Busta Rhymes. During his set, Warren G, Spliff Star, Mase, P Diddy, and Snoop Dogg came out for surprise performances, which created an unexpected but special moment for the crowd (Pometsey).
Not only does a surprise like this prompt attendees to post about this mind-blowing experience on social media, but it also interlaces the brand within their memories. The story of seeing these artists unexpectedly come onstage in the Heineken House is now forever a part of their lives. Even when people who aren’t at Coachella see posts about this event from the outside, they are exposed to an experience created by the brand, instead of just another picture of their product. This kind of marketing creates an authentic connection with the brand and is more effective in generating brand loyalty, as people become emotionally attached to an experience.
Both of these examples embody the ways in which companies use experiential marketing to create memorable experiences for consumers to attach to the brand. Their activations centered on individuals creating their own narratives while also utilizing social media in a way that seems more authentic.
Are The Sponsorships Louder Than The Music?
Amid the influencer culture and marketing that has risen out of Coachella, many people online have begun to refer to Coachella as the “Influencer Olympics” or the “Super Bowl” of marketing activations. These nicknames refer to the idea that the event has turned into a competition for influencers and brands to promote themselves, where they constantly try to outdo each other with social media posts and are more focused on making profits instead of celebrating the music. This prompts the question: Has the growing presence of influencers and brand activations at Coachella taken the focus away from the music?
To me, Coachella is still very much about the music, and they have simply been embracing the utilization of digital and social media to their advantage. Social media platforms have grown prominent over the years, seeping into different aspects of our lives. ‘The Inescapable Town Square’ by L.M. Sacasas examines how social media have affected society and the ways in which we communicate, saying, “The marketplace and the assembly hall now surround us, and spill out indefinitely into the future with no prospect of closure” (Sacasas). Social media have pretty much become a part of many people’s everyday lives, and we cannot fully step away from it all, especially as we continue to become more digital.
It has almost become second nature for many people to share their life on social media. When people go to an event such as Coachella, where they are dressed up with their friends, in the presence of amazing musical artists, and have opportunities to take cool photos, of course they’re going to want to post about it. And if people are going to post about their experiences at Coachella on social media, it makes sense for Coachella and their sponsors to try to use that in order to promote themselves.
For people like me who have never been to Coachella and mostly experience it through social media, the amount of advertisements may seem overwhelming. However, when observing the entire festival as a whole, it is clear that music is still at the heart of the festival. The brand activations of HP and Heineken also demonstrate how Coachella’s values towards music are still a big aspect of their branding strategies. Rather than taking away from these values, they created more ways to experience music at the festival.
Goldenvoice created Coachella as a place to bring together different genres of music and for people to discover new music, and they still continue to preserve these values. Goldenvoice has always had the ability to bring amazing performances to their festival, from the numerous band reunions that took place on Coachella grounds to Tupac’s iconic hologram to Beyoncé’s legendary headline performance. Their lineups continue to attract people to the desert, with the most recent examples including the reunions of Rage Against The Machine and K-Pop group BIGBANG, as well as a much anticipated-performance by Frank Ocean for their 2020 lineup. Thousands of people who are not at Coachella still turn to the festival’s live stream to watch the performances. Most notably, Beyoncé’s Coachella performance in 2018 became the most live streamed performance in history.
The Desert Oasis
What started off as a small and unprofitable music festival ultimately grew to become the highly publicized cultural event that is Coachella. The festival’s large audience and values towards music, art, and expression are lucrative for some brands, who use Coachella as a way to market themselves.
Influencers are valuable to many brands due to their perceived intimacy with their followers, making their promotions seem more trustworthy in comparison to celebrities. Recently, microinfluencers have been seen as more valuable partners for brands at Coachella due to their closeness with their followers, which makes them more effective in generating engagement lifts from their posts. Additionally, brand activations are using experiential marketing as a way to form relationships with consumers and build brand loyalty.
Some have said that Coachella has lost its focus on music based on the large presence of influencers and brand activations at the festival. However, Coachella’s lineups and quality of performances continue to draw people to the festival and to their live stream on YouTube. As social media have become a part of many people’s everyday lives, posting about Coachella online is practically inevitable. The festival has been adapting to the usage of social media by welcoming these brand activations and influencers, but this does not take away from their music.
Coachella offers an interesting look at how a cultural event can be used as a tool for companies to market their products to consumers and promote their brand values. By examining the marketing strategies of brands at Coachella, we see the ways in which brands are able to weave themselves into a cultural experience. Combined with the use of digital media, everything that happens at the festival is shared with the rest of the world. All of these elements come together to illustrate the intersection of branding, digital media, and society at Coachella.
Notes
Abidin, Crystal. “Communicative ❤ Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness.” Ada New Media, 28 Feb. 2018, adanewmedia.org/2015/11/issue8-abidin/.
Appleford, Steve. “Coachella at 20: Looking Back at Every Festival.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2019, www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-coachella-timeline-20190409-story.html.
Banet-Weiser, Sarah. “Branding The Authentic.” Authentic: The Politics and Ambivalence in a Brand Culture, New York University Press, 2012, pp. 1–14.
Hoffman, Claire. “How HP Created the Coolest Spot at Coachella.” BizBash, 7 May 2019, www.bizbash.com/production-strategy/event-management-tech-tools/article/21065618/inside-hp-and-rfs-du-sols-coachella-teamup.
Lee, Jarry. “What Does It Cost To Be Big On Instagram?” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 3 Mar. 2018, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jarrylee/what-does-it-cost-to-be-big-on-instagram.
Lewis, Randy, and Randall Roberts. “How the First Coachella Upended the Festival Business.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2019, www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-coachella-history-festival-growth-concerts-20190411-story.html.
Mulqueen, Tina. “Brands Paid Hefty Prices To Send Micro-Influencers Dancing In The Desert At Coachella.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 16 Apr. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/tinamulqueen/2019/04/16/brands-paid-hefty-prices-to-send-micro-influencers-dancing-in-the-desert-at-coachella/#68c479f12bf3.
Perkel, Chris, director. Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert. YouTube, 10 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjwilAja7Lc.
Pometsey, Olive. “How Sponsorship Swallowed Coachella.” GQ, 11 Apr. 2019, www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/coachella-2019-influencers-business.
Sacasas, L. M. “The Inescapable Town Square.” The New Atlantis, 2019, www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-inescapable-town-square.
