Fyre Festival – where high expectation (caused great marketing) met a horrendous reality. Despite the absolute mess, the team at Brandlective believe there are a few lessons to be learned from the whole debacle. Let’s dive in.
If you haven’t seen Netflix’s latest hit documentary ‘Fyre’ then what have you been doing with your life?! The film’s strapline, ‘The Greatest Party That Never Happened’ truly encapsulates the chaos of the festival. Amongst the mayhem, you can’t deny that Billy McFarland’s marketing campaign was one for the history books.
If you’ve been living under a rock and not heard about the absolute havoc that was Fyre Festival, we’ll try to give you a short summary. The event was advertised as a ‘luxury music festival’ that took place in the Bahamas, organised by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule in 2017. Tickets for the event ranged from $500 to $12,000, with numerous attendees spending thousands more for a truly luxurious, celebrity-fuelled weekend with some of the world’s biggest acts set to perform. It was billed as “the party of the decade” and a chance to party with the stars.
However, after attendees arrived on the “Island,” it wasn’t long before chaos ensued, and without access to basic necessities, it was a far cry from the high-end ‘festival to change all festivals’ they had been promised. After a tumultuous journey to the festival, individuals were presented with soaking wet mattresses and popup tents; hardly the Dorchester, was it darling?
So, amongst the absolute failure that the festival was, organisers wouldn’t have got the number of attendees to go, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars without their incredible influencer marketing campaign. Now, watch the video below.
It’s worth noting here that the Netflix documentary, Frye: The Greatest Party That Never Happened’s trailer was actually co-produced by Matte Projects and Jerry Media – the same team that worked on the official Fyre Festival promotional video.
So, what did Fyre Media do well? We believe that with any campaign there are some elements to consider, that will set you in good stead for ultimate success. Sales and Marketing (Get oversubscribed), Finance and Support (Unlock your resources) and Operations (Improve your net promoter score). Let’s dive into this, using Fyre Festival as an example, shall we?
Sales and Marketing
There’s no denying that this is where Fyre Festival excelled, their influencer marketing campaign certainly presented the illusion that festival goers would be partying with the world’s most famous supermodels, on white sandy beaches and crystal clear waters in the Bahamas.
It’s reported that organisers of the campaign spent an eye-watering amount on their marketing strategy – the influencers included were some of the world’s most famous supermodels. Kendall Jenner was reportedly paid $250,000 for her fleeting appearance in the promotional video and just one social media post – now deleted (that we may add fell short of the FTC regulations of including #ad for paid-for promotions).
It’s no surprise that the festival oversold tickets on their capacity for space – yet the promised VIP-configured Boeing 737 was a far cry from being delayed at the airport, flying economy and the arrival of luggage on a shipping container in the middle of the night. Where did that budget go?
Finance and Support
Alongside the operational activity of the event, the financial implications of Fyre Festival’s organisation were dismal. Investor, Carola Jain arranged a $4 million loan, most of which was used to rent out Manhattan offices for the Fyre Media team. They were then quoted a further $12 million to stage the festival in the short time period they had remaining – suffice to say this was an impossible feat.
*Spoiler Alert* Fyre Media founder, McFarland has now been sentenced to six years imprisonment and has been ordered to forfeit $26 million for wire fraud – we think he needs a few lessons in money management.
Operations
A brand’s Net Promoter Score is an index that rates a brand from -100 to 100 and is based on the willingness of customers to recommend their services or products to others. The NPS is directly calculated through overall customer satisfaction, and consumer loyalty – we’ll give you three guesses on how Fyre Festival ranked. Now we think this may have something to do with the advertised food from the Starr Catering Group – and what was delivered? That viral cheese sandwich image that’s been plastered in every article about the festival.
Now, you can say what you like about Fyre Festival’s execution, yet getting 5,000 people to buy tickets priced at $4,000 a piece is undoubtedly an achievement in itself.
There are neverending lessons to be learned from this whole escapade, and we don’t think anyone is going to be taking inspiration from their complete business model anytime soon, but a key takeaway is definitely how they sold to their target demographic with huge success.
End.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46995847
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/46945662
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival
