The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival recently announced their newest collection: Coachella Collectibles! These non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will be available as a lifetime pass to the festival.
While Coachella is a large brand, there is something to be said for its marketing approach that extends beyond company size. Businesses of all sizes could duplicate the opportunities they’re providing to their fans. Small companies could learn something new about engaging with their target audiences by watching how Coachella utilizes their new NFTs.
Let’s take a closer look at how these NFTs work, why they are such an important innovation for businesses today, and three things small businesses can learn from Coachella’s marketing strategy.
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Understanding The Opportunity
NFTs are a new type of digital asset that are becoming an increasingly popular tool for brands to use to engage with audiences. As we’re seeing with Coachella, these tokens can create a one of a kind experience for customers.
With these new collectibles in particular, they can be used to unlock unique experiences such as:
- Exclusive merch
- Never-before-heard music
- Historic photos from past festivals
- Other digital items
Photo Courtesy: VolvoxLabs
As a 6 day long annual music and arts festival, Coachella targets a very specific kind of audience. They’re young, music enthusiasts at their core. But a large number of them are increasingly becoming focused on the “fandom” of Coachella rather than the music performances they offer. They’ve formed a fan culture centered around not only the musicians that play live each year but also the art and experiences associated with the brand.
With an estimated 99,000 attendees each day, Coachella’s target audience is full of young millennials that want to stand out from the crowd. Non-fungible tokens are, by design, unique and unable to be replicated. This makes them the perfect ticket into the hearts of an audience who wants to feel unique and special while they digitize every aspect of their lives.
Coachella also prioritizes its online presence by being active on several different social media platforms and encouraging fans to engage with them online. In offering NFTs as another way for fans to connect with their brand digitally, they are fueling this “participatory culture” where fans collaborate during the 359 days they aren’t at the festival.
In this way, Coachella has successfully figured out how to target millennials. If your small business is also focused on targeting this demographic, it could be useful to take note of how you can apply their approach to your own business. Providing young fans with exclusive merchandise and ways to engage on social media gives them a way to experience brands in a way that is relevant to them.
Adapting In-person Events in a Digital World
As an in-person event, Coachella runs the risk of losing revenue during a pandemic. By implementing NFTs into their marketing strategy, they’ve accomplished two things:
- They’ve provided themselves with some risk management. NFTs give fans a way to stay involved even if they can’t physically attend the festival.
- They’ve opened up a new avenue of digital marketing opportunities for themselves in the future.
Digital experiences and merchandise already act as a slight buffer to the pandemic. In particular with the Coachella Collectibles, they allow people to experience downloadable content after they purchase the token.
This concept is location-detached. It isn’t tied to music performances during the festival. In light of the recent pandemic and travel restrictions, concert go-ers have extra incentive to pursue opportunities like this that preserve their safety whilst allowing them to enjoy the same activities they loved pre-pandemic.
Although they haven’t pursued this yet, Coachella could use NFTs to create virtual worlds that resemble the 6 day festival. With digital communities like Decentraland popping up, this could be especially useful and innovative. With a platform like this in place, Coachella has unlimited possibilities to interact with fans throughout the entire year.
Having said all that, small businesses could learn a few things from Coachella about customer retention. This model of encouraging fans to step into the digital culture they’ve created allows them to keep them engaged year-round. Plus it builds excitement for the festival and the brand as a whole.
Coachella’s NFT sale is a great example of how to leverage current tools to reach people in a way that is digitally relevant. Consider this model of community building if your audience is similar.
Missed Opportunities
By using NFTs, Coachella is putting themselves ahead of the competition. Lifetime passes are a thing with other companies, but the vast majority of them aren’t jumping head first into leveraging NFTs.
Take Olive Garden for example. In 2021 they launched a series of lifetime pasta passes where people could purchase a single pass for $500 each and enjoy unlimited pasta. They could have made this into an even timelier opportunity had they incorporated NFTs into the mix.
By opting for non-fungible tokens, companies can experience a few benefits:
- Ownership – they can provide digital proof of ownership (guaranteeing they can’t be distributed among multiple owners)
- Scarcity – their unique nature makes each NFT its own entity. This scarcity could increase demand and build hype among fans who are interested in purchasing passes
- Revenue and Royalties – NFTs can be designed to collect royalties each time they’re traded. For Olive garden, this means their tokens could be a long term investment they profit from each time a token is bought or sold
The Coachella brand is on the leading edge of innovation by including NFTs in their marketing strategy. The use of these tokens helps to engage customers and make them feel like they’re part of a bigger trend, all while staying up-to-date with what’s new in modern, digital culture!
The Small Business Takeaway
By understanding the new opportunities Coachella is creating for its fans, small companies can learn new ways to engage with similar audiences. Whether that includes millennials looking for a flashy digital token to signify their individuality, event go-ers who want to build excitement around an in-person or digital event, or a person whose interest is in the latest modern trend. These tokens could be extremely useful in engaging these kinds of audiences.
If your business targets a similar audience, consider adopting some of the above strategies. The companies that have started taking advantage of NFTs and incorporating them into their business strategies will put themselves ahead of the competition, especially as our world continues to change every day at a staggering pace.
At Sweet Rose Studios, we’re always on the lookout for new trends in digital marketing. That’s why you can count on us for learning about the latest insights and industry changes. Contact us today and see how our experts can help you improve your current marketing strategy!
