Fyre Festival: A case study of waltzing the social media/viral marketing dance

Fyre festival sounded like a dream; a Coachella-like event on a tropical island in the Bahamas. Founded by entrepreneurs Billy McFarland and Ja Rule, the founders utilised their social network and access to what seemed to be an unlimited amount of investors cash to back the new festival. The festival engaged in viral marketing, defined as per Kaplan and Haenlein (2011) as electronic word-of-mouth whereby some form of marketing message related to a company, brand, or product is transmitted in an exponentially growing way—often through the use of social media applications.

Image: Netflix

Founders carefully crafted their message and employed market mavens and social hubs to promote the business digitally. Market mavens can be classified as individuals with access to a large amount of marketplace information who are proactively engaged in discussions with other consumers to promote and spread their information (Feick and Price, 1987). Once the message is transferred over to a social hub, a viral epidemic begins. Social hubs are defined as people with a huge number of social connections (Goldenberg, Han, Lehmann and Hong, 2009).

Image: SocialBook

Tapping into a specific target audience of high socio-economic, Instagram obsessed millennials, the founders leveraged the festival purely through influencer marketing. The Mavens were the founders of the festival, who also used their own social hubs to spread the news about it. They then engaged more social hubs in the form of up to 400 influencers, who were involved announce the festival at the same time, creating a social media epidemic and driving mass interest to the new festival.

Read further into the success of the influencer marketing of Fyre Festival here

Video: Youtube

Despite having no experience with ever having managed a festival, the initial success of the festival was purely based on their ability to increase their brand reach on Instagram through influencer marketing, a popular tool that combines old and new marketing tools to merge the idea of celebrity endorsement with a content-driven marketing effort.

Image: SeoSydney

The event was a huge disaster due to the inexperience of the founders and it became somewhat apocalyptic when visitors were left without adequate bedding, food, water or hygiene services. Guests were outraged; taking to social media to get their revenge, while founder Billy McFarland (founder) is now in jail for his participation in Fyre Festival.

So, what does the Fyre Festival show us?

Once a brand has developed its strategy and employed the right vehicles to transport its message, not much can stop them unless it becomes an apocalyptic, disaster like the Fyre Festival. Fyre Festival was able to create an unforgettable message, which was that it was a once in a lifetime festival for guests not to miss but didn't have the experience to back it up. Whilst it is an extreme example, it shows us how brands can create viral marketing campaigns through social mavens and social hubs, which allows them to waltz the social media/viral marketing dance.

Leave your perspective on the failures and successes of the integrated campaign in the comments.

References:

Feick, L. and Price, L., 1987. The Market Maven: A Diffuser of Marketplace Information. Journal of Marketing, 51(1), p.83.

Goldenberg, J., Han, S., Lehmann, D. and Hong, J., 2009. The Role of Hubs in the Adoption Process. Journal of Marketing, 73(2), pp.1-13.

Kaplan, A. and Haenlein, M., 2011. Two hearts in three-quarter time: How to waltz the social media/viral marketing dance. Business Horizons, 54(3), pp.253-263.

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