Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Coco Mocha
People love to hate on Coachella, yet it still remains one of the most talked about and profitable festivals in the world. According to a report by NPR that came out this morning, Golden Voice, the company that puts on Coachella and Stagecoach, sells about 250000 tickets every single year. For comparison, one Taylor Swift Eras tour ticket sells sells for one night between 60,000 to 70,000 tickets, which is still great. People really do love to hate Whatever is popular Despite Coachella having so much negative sentiments online that go viral about it, it's still one of the most attended festivals in the world. Emma Chamberlain had one of her viral moments as a creator when she posted a video called Inaccurate Coachella vlog in 2019 that raked up 16 million views. The video is riddled with her talking about blisters and discomfort while at the festival, and you would think that when watching it that she had a miserable time and would never go back to the festival. And maybe she did. However, she continues to attend Coachella almost every single year, so is it really that bad? She's just one small example of many. If you search Coachella online, you might find videos of people complaining about how bad the lineup is every year, about how long the lines are, or justifying to their audience from their couch why they didn't go. My favorite variation is when people post videos about how much they hated Coachella as an influencer, but then they revealed that they never actually went into Coachella, just like the events around Coachella. And to me that's kind of like going to Knott's Berry Farm and then writing a scathing review about how much you hated it because you never saw Mickey Mouse. I am a staunch defender of festivals like Coachella because I think ultimately it is a celebration of music. People love to hate whatever is popular. And right now and for the past 10 plus years, Coachella has been the popular festival. And I think that there's a few reasons for that, which I'll get into later. How is Coachella able to maneuver through decades of hate and targeted attacks online and still remain the place to be? How can you, as a creator or brand or public figure, an artist, use this knowledge about Coachella that I'll tell you in this episode to really maneuver your own career, even in a moment of what feels like unjustified targeted attacks? So this is what today's episode of Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocha will be about, the brilliant branding of Coachella. In the first half of the episode, which is on Spotify and Apple, I'll talk about the specific marketing strategies that we can glean from Coachella. We will also talk about a Taylor effect and why so many brands do activations around the city during its first weekend. And then we will also talk about my theory on why so many trends spawned from Coachella weekend specifically, even though there's hundreds of other festivals now. And then in the full episode exclusively on my best selling sub stack@cocomoco.substack.com for $9 a month, I will talk about some of my favorite and least favorite sets to see in person that I saw at Coachella this year. Because yes, I'm a coward and some of their fandoms scare me and I'm leaving that for the paywall. The paywall baby, I'm scared. And then my overall experience of being at the festival this year, things that were different. As someone who's gone six times now, I think it is. And a few of the artists that were on the lineup this year who are kind of flying under the radar, but I think are maybe the next to break mainstream and have their chapel roan moment just kind of based on the rumblings of the people that were at the festival, the tastemakers, just the overall vibe of what was who was getting the most buzz that you might only really notice if you're at the festival. So thank you all so much for being a coconut and for supporting my creator Journey. As I mentioned earlier, these last two episodes, the last one was about White Lotus, this one's about Coachella. They came out later on Wednesday because I've been traveling. So thank you so much for your patience. I didn't have anyone like ending their subscription or unfollowing me on Substack. So I hope that means that I communicated it well to you guys. And for that I thank you much. I'm going to be back to my regularly scheduled programming of Monday, Coco Moco Mondays for this podcast starting back next week. So you can look out for that episode. And if you're wondering why I'm wearing sunglasses in this episode, it is because you might see my videos. But this morning, my small dog, Hayes, oh my God, it makes me sick to think about she went missing. I woke up at like 6:45 and she was not in the house anywhere. And then my dad comes in and he's like, is she in your room? And I'm like no. And she just went missing for three hours. We ran up and down the neighborhood. I posted to so many different ring app, camera app, whatever app I could think of. I was like In a blur. And she's little, so. And we live against this, like, water thing. So I thought maybe a coyote had gotten her because there's, like, coyotes around. And then I was just, like, literally meditating. I was freaking texting this woman who I know, who's, like, a pet psychic. I'm like, well, do you know where my dog is? I was so desperate. I was so desperate for anything. We were all crying, and then I was like, I need to just be productive. I have to get this episode out today for my coconuts. Like, I have to still do work. I can't just sit here and cry all day, even though that's what I want to do. Because I was so worried that she had been. Oh, my God, like, in pain or just eaten or. Oh, my God, I can't even think about it. And then I went to a coffee shop and I had these sunglasses on, like a crazy person at 7am typing away on my laptop. And then I got a call from my mom, and she was like, look at the video I just sent. Look at the video I just sent. And she was crying. So I thought it was going to be a video of, like, a coyote on a ring camera. And no, it was a video of Hazel in the hallway. And I was so relieved. I packed up, I ran home. And she's not in the room right now while I'm filming. But as soon as I'm done filming, I'm going to hang out with her and just. I feel, like, bad because for. You know how dogs imprint on, like, one person? For some reason, Hazel imprinted on me. She just became obsessed with me, and we don't know why. And I'm very grateful. And I even remember last night, I was laying in bed with her and I was like, hazel, like, thank you so much for always wanting to be next to me and just making me feel wanted and keeping me company. Because I've been traveling for, like, two weeks straight, and I've just been sleeping in my own bed in hotels and stuff for, like, two weeks by myself. And just I missed having her there. And so I was telling her that because it was like, one of my first nights back. And I was just like, thank you so much, Hazel. And then I woke up and she was gone. And my mom was home in the house. And she said that she had the backyard door open, but we looked in the backyard. We even, like, hosed it down with a water hose thingy. She'd come out, but then she. My mom said that she heard her footsteps and she thought she was hallucinating, and then she saw a little fur ball run across the room. And she looked over and it was Hazel running down towards the hallway. So it was a rough morning. It was such a bad morning. It was like I was just sick. I was just thinking that I didn't want to get my hopes up that she'd be found because I didn't want to then be let down. So I was telling myself that she was gone, that she had a quick death. I kept saying, I hope it was quick. I hope it was quick. God. But we found her. And I feel bad for people that don't ever get closure find their pets. But, yeah, we found her. So I've been crying all morning, so my eyes are a little bit swollen. If you're watching it on Substack on the video, you might see my eyes through my sunglasses. I don't think you can, but I'm kind of hiding right now. These are my shield. But we found her, so that's really, really good. So thank you guys for understanding. Just getting the episodes up a little bit later these past two weeks. I'm glad I communicated it and I didn't lose any follows or anything. So I really appreciate you guys. And now for the episode, the brilliant branding of Coachella. So again, like I said, this part is going to be about the branding. The first half, more marketing lingo, and then the second half of the podcast, the full one that's exclusively on substack for $9 a month, is going to be about my own personal experience and some things that I'm afraid to say on a more public forum that I feel safer saying there. So if you want to listen to the full episode, once you get to the end of this half, you know where to find it. Okay, boom. Okay, boom. I've been saying that so much lately. Okay, boom. So a new cocoism that you can write down is you can't spell popular without a P, O, L, A and an R. You must be polar to be popular. No one person or event becomes famous by walking the middle of the road or doing whatever is acceptable or trendy. And I'm not saying that you have to purposely be mean or contrarian at all. This often happens on accident. You must be so true in your own ways. And you must work in silence to become an extreme version of your authentic self instead of chasing trends, because that is how you become noticeable. Without realizing it, you will create your own gravitational pull towards you instead of chasing whatever is big at the moment, there's A saying that goes, the winner of the race doesn't even know that they are in a race. They just love running. And I also remember one time Oprah saying, if you're running in a race, you can't look sideways or backwards at your competition to see where they are, or else you'll slow down or you'll fall. Instead, the winners just focus with the blinders on. They just look at the finish line. They don't even know what anyone else is doing. So that is how you become popular. You have to be polar, and you become polar by focusing inward on yourself and creating the most extreme version of yourself that you can. And it can't be a copy of anyone else. And when you feel yourself evolving, because we're not always going to be the same person, you have to give yourself permission to always kind of ditch that old version of yourself, maybe take the best parts with you and trust yourself to evolve. The most popular people know how to enhance their true selves at every moment. And when that's kind of something that they feel like they've told the full version of that story, they know how to go quiet for a little bit, and then, boom, they pop out and they evolve. Think about the biggest actors, think about the biggest creators. They're constantly kind of changing and keeping people on their toes, not because they're changing to chase trends, but because they know how to become an extreme version of whatever they themselves are in that moment. And they still keep their values. And you know what they are known for, but they can still become extreme versions. Naturally, your own light will force other people, including yourself, to be ready to see your shadows. Right? You don't see a shadow unless someone turns a light on. So you have to be okay with that. The moments that you're growing the most, the moments that you're getting the most attention, you're also maybe gonna hate yourself at points because you' seeing shadows that you didn't know were there until you turned the light on. And other people are going to see their own shadows when your light is shining. So that's why sometimes you're going to feel like you're getting unwarranted attacks and stuff. For me, I feel like Coachella is that in a way, it's a festival that so many people love to hate on, yet most of the people who attend and complain about it are the ones that are buying tickets every single year. And the ones who are complaining from their bedrooms are the ones that would go in a heartbeat if they got invited. Yes, Coachella has problems. And I'm going to get into specifically the problems that were very pointed this year. There were certain problems that I was like, damn, this is actually kind of crazy that this is happening. That happened this year that hadn't happened any other year. So again, I'll get to that. Like every other event, it's gonna. Anytime you get people into a room together, like I always say, like creators that do meet and greets or like live shows, that's so hard because you're literally like. It's so hard to figure out how to get. It's easy to go viral. No one cares. Going viral. Want, you know, whatever. It's like, that's a dime a dozen. But getting people to show up for you to show up to a venue, to find parking, to find food, to get a restroom. People have to go on a whim to trust you to show up in person, that is so difficult to do. And I respect anyone who does it. It's easy to complain from your bedroom. It's one thing to put on an event. So with Coachella, at least it exists. Imagine we lived in a world with no live music or art or reasons to bring people together. To me, Golden Voice, I feel like, is one of those few organizations that is still trying to bring people together to even just like, forget the pain of the world for 72 hours. Like, when you're at Coachella, it's like you're in a little bubble. And I know that that's a privilege. I know that that's a privilege. I. I can 100 understand that I'm privileged that I get to be in that bubble for 72 hours every year when I go. Well, I don't know if I'm gonna go next year because I'm getting tired, but I'm just happy that it exists and I wish everyone could experiencing it. I also think that a lot of the dialogue around Coachella's people like making fun of influencers outfits. I think that that's mean. I think that's really mean. Especially when they pick on young influencers who aren't even like 25 yet. And I know people like to make fun of influencers in the wild at Coachella, but this still is a job for most of them. If they are there, they are working. Like, I know for me that I have made most of my money during this last quarter and with a lot of it revolving around live music events, then I even made during the holidays last year. So, like, this is like, we are co locked in, baby. We are working we are working. I know it's a great office. It's a cool job, but like you, these influencers are still working. This is a job to them. They can't just say no to money if it's like the way that they are putting, you know, food on their table. People mad at influencers for going to Coachella and posting about it is similar to how I felt about people who were mad at Tarte for sending influencers on a brand trip. In January, I made a whole podcast about this. You guys know how I feel. People were saying that it was out of touch for Tarte to go on a brand trip during the LA fires. Number one, they would have booked this brand trip six months, if not more prior. They didn't, like, light a freaking match in set la. They didn't know it was gonna happen. If anything, I was happy. It was just 10 more influencers who, like Honda Civics, were off the freeway while people were fleeing. And as someone who was boots on the ground, who knew people, who lost homes, who stood in homes with people I love that no longer exist even to this day, and volunteering multiple days a week. Okay, Any day I had off, I was at local YMCAs trying to help, doing what I can, running food around, volunteering, organizing, helping families get their things that they need right, raising money. I was lucky enough to raise a hundred thousand dollars for over three families affected by the fires. And I can promise you, as someone who's boots on the ground, no one affected by the fires that I spoke to, maybe someone can say something different, but someone, no one that I spoke to at no point looked me in the eyes and said, I hope Tarte doesn't go to Bora Bora today. No one said that. No one affected by the fires even knew that Tarte was on a brand trip. And to me, I was getting mad seeing videos of people complaining about the Tarte brand trip, because I was like, it is an insult to the intelligence of people actually affected by the fires or actually helping people affected by the fires to think that our biggest concern is Tarte's brand trip right now. Let's refocus the attention. Okay, baby. Let's take your views on the for you page that you just cashed out in the creator fund complaining about Tarte. And let's re pivot. Let's put that towards people's gofundmes. Let's put that towards money to help people. That's what I did. Anything I was doing during the LA fires, I was trying to pivot that to get it towards any money I could for GoFundMes. And I was able to raise over a hundred thousand dollars as a result. So it'd be interesting to know if the people complaining about tarte, did they donate their money to the fire victims? Huh? That's actually a good question. I'd love to know, but we probably will never know. Anyways, same with people who were mad at Poppy for sending out a rented vending machine to middle class influencers during the Super Bowl. There were videos with a million plus views of people yelling at Poppy for being so out of touch. Yet those same creators making those videos, conveniently none of them brought up the fact that Dunkin Donuts publicly. It's out there. They paid Ben Affleck $10 million for a 30 second commercial the year prior, and then the commercial he was in this year was 60 seconds. So imagine how much money he got for that. Is that out of touch? Is it out of touch to pay one literal human being $10 million for 30 seconds? Is that out of touch? Oh, wait, it's only out of touch when it's a female owned brand working with mainly female influencers. Got it. Also, none of those people complaining about Poppy's vending machines, none of them made videos calling out Kanye west for literally running an advertisement where he was promoting his website that the one product he was selling was a white T shirt with a swastika on it. A hate symbol against a group that, like, I'm not even Jewish, but like, I can. I feel that I have to speak up for things. Especially because unfortunately, the people doing the most damage most of the times will only listen if it's coming from someone who looks like them, who doesn't have a horse in the race. Not a lot of people spoke up against Kanye west in his commercial. But the people that were mad at Poppy over a vending machine, were they mad about a hate symbol being promoted during the super bowl or no. Is it because that's a man? It's only because it was a female owned brand that they were really mad. You know, that's how I feel. So the people that are mad at influencers for going to Coachella, I think often is because it's mainly women or people that are part of the lgbtq and to them they're punching down. They're an easy target. They're not mad at the men going to the NBA Finals every year and posting about it? No, they are not mad about F1 racing? No. They are mad because it's a female or LGBTQ community that is going to these events and they don't think that those people deserve to have fun. They don't think that those people deserve to make money in a fun way. That is what I think in that I said it. My opinion can change in the future. That is how I feel right now. So that leads me to just Coachella in general. Always kind of being polarizing and you have to be polar to be popular. Okay, so Coachella started out as a protested Ticketmaster in 1999 and it took Golden Voice years before they turned to profit and they almost went bankrupt. They were trying to pull something off that no one had done before. And there was really no blueprint or path to follow. If you really want to be a creator who breaks out of your niche and stands out for moving the needle and doing something entirely different, then you must be okay with feeling lost and failing multiple times. When there is no blueprint or a path for you to follow, it's going to be scary. But trust your instinct and use that fear as a way to know that you are on the right path. I remember when I did All Star cheer one time, one of our coaches said to us backstage, if you feel nervous, that's a good thing because it means that you care and you can use that fear and that energy to hyper focus on the the tasks that you need to do. And you should actually be afraid when you're not nervous anymore, cuz it means you don't care. So if you're putting out a new video and you feel nervous for how it's going to do, even if it fails, use that nervousness as a sign that you should keep pursuing it because it means that you care about what you're doing. Coachella specifically started breaking mainstream in the early 2000s, with Gen X and millennials leading the charge. Celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens attending In the early 2010s really then put them at put the festival on the map of pop culture. And when it came to like photos and celebrities, not just of performers, but just people walking around the grounds. And now it's become one of the most talked about celebrity spotting events outside of maybe the Met Gala and like award show season. Even outside of movie premieres. Because yes, movie premieres are talked about, but you only have maybe a dozen celebrities at any movie premiere, whereas at Coachella you have hundreds of celebrities in like, like standing in front of one pretzel machine. You're not really always going to see that out in the wild. So here's a few Reasons why I think Coachella is so coveted for moving the needle of trends and culture in the following year despite there being so many festivals now. And I wrote about this in a substack article two weeks ago. Number one is timing. Coachella is one of the first festivals of the year in early April and I believe it's the first music festival in North America. This lets them set the tone for all other festivals. People who are attending other festivals like Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Govball, they then look to Coachella for what new performers might be having a moment right now, like Chapel, Roan, and also what fashion trends to follow. I predicted in that substack that I felt like we would see a lot of jerseys and specifically tights. I thought tights were going to make a comeback and both of which I saw a lot. For example, Tyler Tyla was in tights. Another one is proximity. Coachella is one of the few festivals closest to Los Angeles. And so while LA has faced major setbacks like the fires and the writers and actors strike last year, it still remains the beating heart of the entertainment industry. I think this is in part due to its year round weather. So there's really no other music festival that I can think of that's within driving distance of so many creators, artists and celebrities and fans. And then lastly is just legacy. No other festival, except maybe if they brought back like Woodstock, but no other festival really has the same history and legacy as Coachella. It's one of the first music festivals in modern history that is still running. And that history and legacy of performers attendees is something that no other festival can buy with money. Maybe they'll get there eventually, but time is not something that you can buy or fake. And it's the one thing that Coachella has that other North American festivals do not have. And this leads me to the last point here, which is the halo effect. This is a term in marketing where if you can associate yourself with something already popular or talked about, then you will get some of that layover attention as well. When I launched my show Middle Road with Kokomoko, there was a multitude of reasons as to why I chose a movie theater. But one of those being that I knew most Americans and just people worldwide have a positive connotation with movie theaters. It's where you go to escape. It's nostalgic. It's where you go with friends and family and on dates. It's where you eat your favorite candy while seeing your favorite celebrities faces on screen. It's really cathartic yet positive for many. If I could launch a show in a movie theater and eventually have new fans associate me with a movie theater, then I would get some of that Halo effect for those positive feelings around it. And Coachella has become so massive that it now has its own Halo effect. Brands don't even pay to do activations inside Coachella on the actual grounds. Instead they just have their own festivals and events around the city. Revolve Fest has become a huge event the same weekend as weekend one of Coachella and I wrote about it in Substack. But according to News Statesman, Revolve profits for quarter two of 2018 doubled what they made in quarter one of 2018. And festival season has become more profitable to some fashion brands that advertise to Millennial and Gen Z women than even Black Friday or the holidays. Revolve Fest is invite only. I've not been invited so I cannot say like I've been there and what my experience was. I just know a lot of my friends go and like what it is. Which honestly it being invite only makes it even more likely that creators will post if they can make it inside these pearly gates of the Revolve Fest. And I always say that if you're gonna throw a party and you're afraid that no one's gonna show up, act like it's so exclusive and say that no one can bring a plus one unless they ask way in advance because there's it's so like hush hush. I guarantee you that will make people show up. Guess is another brand that is trying to use the Coachella Halo effect to capture a new younger market for Gen Z. They've begun renting a house weekend one called the Guess Compound and they send influencers to post about it. They even hosted Charli XCX's After Party this year on Saturday. And then lastly, Celsius is a brand that threw a huge day party last year before day one of Coachella, which I went to, but I believe they maybe didn't have it again this year, or at least I didn't hear about it or see anything online. So these activations are not always profitable for these brands, but instead it buys them what is known in marketing and also they use it in politics. But it's called soft power and it's really up to the brands ultimately to decide if it's worth it for them to keep doing activations around Coachella and sometimes it's not. So you have Revolve that keeps doing it. You also have an example of Celsius that seems to have stopped. Let me know in the comments on Substack if you think it's worth it for brands or not. And before we get into the last half of this episode, the lesson that we can learn from Coachella is that you have to be polar to be popular. And oftentimes that happens on accident. It happens when you put your head down and you focus on creating something that is exclusive and unique to you. You build so much momentum without even realizing it that you start your own gravitational pull. And the ones who don't want you to take attention away from the status quo will go down kicking and screaming. Or the ones who can't get any attention in their own lives from their boss or their crush or their friends. They will see what you are doing and that it's something that's getting attention and they will hitch their wagon onto you by way of mean comments or commentary. And what we can learn from Coachella is that if you are in the attention economy, you should actually be more worried if you're not being talked about because that means that you are in line with the status quo and you are in line to be quickly forgotten. Coachella has remained the most talked about festival because they push boundaries and they're quite unpredictable when it comes to their lineups. Now for the full episode on Substack for the Paying Coconuts, I'm going to dive into my own personal stories from Coachella, from the good to the bad that happened this year, including ways in which I do think it was kind of a nightmare and I don't know if I'm going to go back next year and I will talk about some of the acts that I saw that I loved and also the ones that I didn't really love. And then I'll say what artists I think might have a Chapel roan moment based off being there in person. So you can listen to the full episode@kokomoco.substack.com for $9 a month. But if not, thank you so much for even making it this far. I hope this episode provided valuable information for you even if you only heard this first half. And if you have a moment, if you send this to a friend who loves marketing and pop culture as much as we do and you can leave a review on Apple and Spotify to keep pushing the show out to more like minded people and keep growing our community. Thank you so much. Coconuts and Paying Coconuts. I'll see you on.