Curing Fyre FOMO

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

This past week, I caved to the hype around Fyre and watched the Netflix documentary "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened." You've likely heard of Fyre, if only because Ja Rule is making quite the comeback -- just when we were wondering where he disappeared off to. You may have also realized that Hulu launched a competing documentary in the same week, and that while both focus on the deep fraud that is the Fyre festival, they present strongly different undertones. In a nutshell, Fyre represents the failed attempt to throw a luxury music festival on a private island in the Bahamas, and was initially created by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The reality ended up far from promises made.

Today’s post makes connections to our Digital Marketing class around the topic of search engine marketing and influencer marketing. Ifluencer marketing, which is heavily social media fueled, is incredibly powerful. In the case of Fyre, most influencers who promoted the festival were paid substantial sums and promised luxury accommodations (i.e. beachside cabana rooms). Background research indicated that over 300 million impressions were made in less than a day from the influencers involved with Fyre. 300 million impressions! Although those didn’t necessarily translate to ticket sales, this is a stunning example of the extent of which influencer marketing can impact ‘online society’ at both the micro and macro levels.