Rick's Ad Travels Episode 3: Coachella
Rick Webb
Co-founder, COO : New York
topics: Barbarian, Social Media, Installations, Measurement and Analytics, and Automotive
filed under: Installations and Brands
http://tbg.cm/fCt5m8
Next up in Rick’s ad travels we have Coachella!
So: this is an interesting one. I wrote about sponsorship opportunities at SXSW this year, and we did a partnership with the gang at C3 Presents and Lollapalooza last year for Adobe (I’ll be writing more about Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and other festivals as they get closer). But Coachella, one does not really think of as an advertising venue. Unlike the other major festivals, Coachella is not “sponsored by” or “powered by” anyone, and the stages have names like “Gobi,” “Mojave” and “Sahara” rather than “intel” or “AT&T.” AEG/Goldenvoice also puts on a bunch of other festivals, and the sponsorship opportunities are notably less in-your-face at Coachella than, say Stagecoach (powered by Toyota, also sponsored by ABC, Bud, Sony, Home Depot and BootBarn) or Bumbershoot (Powered by Samsung). This article from the Creator’s Syndicate sums it up nicely:
Still, the corporate presence at Coachella is more low-key than at Stagecoach and at other AEG-produced rock festivals, such as Seattle’s Bumbershoot, which last year was presented by Samsung.“You’ll never see a presenting title sponsor or overt (corporate) signage at Coachella,” said Andrew Klein, AEG’s executive senior vice president of global partnerships. He is also the head of AEG’s new festival network, yourbrandsourfans.com, which was created to maximize sponsorship opportunities at all of AEG’s festivals.
It’s this low-key nature of the sponsorships at Coachella, though, that I think give them some interesting potential. State Farm had a very well-received DJ/Mixing booth (air conditioning, of course, helps), and Sony’s Playstation tent was very well-attended. The sponsorship opportunities @ Coachella invite more hands-on participation.
Another factor, I think, that really adds to it is the installation artwork all around Coachella. This is one of Coachella’s unheralded benefits – and they’ve really expanded and enhanced the art in the five years I’ve been going there. There’s an amazing array of ten to twenty mammoth digital, interactive, mechanical and fire-based pieces of art there.
These two factors, I think, give Coachella some potential that no one’s really exploited yet. As I walked around the festival, occasionally my interactive agency guy would come out and I’d envision that no sponsor has really nailed doing something truly awesome at Coachella yet. Maybe not in a tent. Maybe sponsor something awesome – like commission some amazing piece of interactive art. The crowd here is notoriously brand-cynical, of course, but I think taking this approach could be analagous to Benjamin and Johnny’s Branded Utility theory – a brand being a good citizen in the whole enterprise, sponsoring some amazing art that no one else could afford.
The potential, I think, is pretty great. Something like about 150,000 people attend Coachella, and they are almost all in the 18-24 range, disposable cash (otherwise how are they paying $300 a pop for a ticket + camping, etc), and trendy, etc (many of the bands on during the day at Coachella go on to be huge). I don’t know the sponsorship feels of Coachella, though I imagine they’re comparable to the equally-great-potential Lollapalooza. But I’ll bet a financial case can be made.
There’s probably a lot of politicking and cajoling and whatnot that would have to go on to get some truly great brand thing not in a tent on the side, but with the right art, the right client, and the right execution, I would think it’s doable. I think it could be really great, and I’m going to be keeping an eye out for a partner for it. Any volunteers?
3 comments
But...would that be a worse place than where we are now? Nope, we'd be the better for it: it’s still more of a shot at spreading culture than prefacing the event name with a client.