Organisers of the now notorious Fyre Festival are receiving a lot of heat for the failed event, but so too are those who were paid to promote the two-weekend long escape on their Instagrams.
The Bahamas-based festival, co-created by Ja Rule, reached out to 400 influencers (including the likes of Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, Kendall Jenner, and Emily Ratajkowski) to take part in an insta-girl style photo shoot, in the Caribbean, to build hype around the festival.
The photos were used on each of the girls’ Instagram, sharing the hashtag #FyreFestival and getting their followers talking.
Unfortunately, it is now known that #FyreFest – billed as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity for gig-goers to attend an ultra-exclusive Coachella alternative – was not the supermodel and celebrity filled escape it was initially sold to be. Attendees arrived to a dystopian-like festival site with no accommodation, no food and no musical acts. Fyre Festival was later cancelled after the first day.
In the wake of the failed event, people are turning on the influencers who promoted it, calling it out as an example of a failed paid campaign. Inevitably, the question that’s followed is: how responsible should influencers be held for what they’re selling?
CEO of Fohr Card, a company that connects influencers with brands, James Nord, believes that the responsibility falls on the influencer to do the due diligence on a brand and suggested project ahead of time. “The problem with large scale projects like [Pepsi] – obviously that was quite expensive – is that brands start walking down a road, and they get a certain distance and they feel like, ‘We’re already so far, we can’t turn around.
“And then they don’t have the right people around them, and they’re just a bunch of yes-men, and they convince themselves that it won’t be that bad, and it comes out and it is [that bad]. I think it takes a lot of courage to say no to things and to push back.”
Nord goes on to highlight that the problem with an Instagram post is likely the opposite: it’s low stakes. So if it goes bad, just delete it.
The issue is contentious, and Bella Hadid – one of the FyreFest promo girls – has since released a statement separating her involvement from the Festival in a half-apology posted to Twitter:
“Even though this was not my project what so ever, nor was I informed about the production or process of the festival in any shape or form, I do know that it has always been out of great intent and they truly wanted all of us to have the time of our lives. I initially trusted this would be an amazing & memorable experience for all of us, which is why I agreed to do one promotion…not knowing about the disaster that was to come…I feel so sorry and badly because this is something I couldn’t stand by, although of course if I would have known about the outcome, you would have all known too.”
In the US a new set of guidelines are being put in place to create a greater transparency around which posts on a person’s social media have been paid for (similar to the AANA guidelines we have in Australia), but as it stands there are no clear rules for what happens when a celebrity-endorsed product falsely advertises on social media.
