Summer festivals are a holiday staple for many young Kiwis, and though those festivalgoers have clocked off for another year, some brands are utilising this time to clock on.
For many a young New Zealander, Rhythm & Vines is the highlight of the Kiwi summer. The three-day musical extravaganza held in a Gisborne vineyard attracts around 88,000 attendees each year.
Unlike its contemporaries, Rhythm & Vines is seen as something of an It-festival, with many past attendees considering their experience unforgettable. Naturally, brands up and down the country flock to be associated with it. This involves more than just slapping a logo on the side of the stage and calling it a day, though – it’s about creating an experience that aligns with attendees through brand activations. But how effective are these activations exactly?
Head of Marketing at Live Nation Entertainment and Rhythm & Vines, Kyle Bell, says what makes this festival unique is the time frame. “It’s a four-day camping experience versus that one-day concert model.”
And it’s not just constrained to the four-day New Year period – Bell says it’s considered a “year-round festival”. Throughout the year, Rhythm & Vines builds up excitement and hype by keeping people talking through special events such as pre-sales, line-up announcements, a consistent social media presence and more.
Rhythm & Vines 2023 featured 10 activation partners – drinks, footwear, radio and telecommunications brands and then some. Following the build-up, when the actual event rolled around, they were on the minds of festivalgoers for four solid days, giving them a significant number of opportunities to build relationships with their desired audiences.
Brands stand to greatly benefit from the extended coverage on offer at Rhythm & Vines. With the audience predominantly between the ages of 18 and 25, the festival allows for brands to connect with a hard-to-reach group, and through this, they’re likely to gain from organic and viral social media coverage and engagement.
A standout from the 2023 event was the One NZ activation, which allowed existing customers of the telco access to the side stage, a social-post-worthy experience that can’t be beaten for that kind of coverage. “What they do really well is reward One NZ customers and create those real FOMO moments,” says Bell.
Rhythm & Vines is a social media giant in itself, with upwards of 2o million views on its hashtag on TikTok and almost 80,000 (and counting) followers on Instagram alone. Looking back over its long history, Bell recalls Panasonic’s activation of a decade ago that involved them handing out orange and yellow sweatbands to attendees. “Every photo that year was just all these [bright] Panasonic sweatbands!”
During their second year at the festival, RTD brand Pals had a prominent activation on top of the hill. What used to be considered a not-so-popular location on the site quickly switched to become the prime one. Bell says the 2023 gig was yet another successful one for the brand, with their activation the highest-volume bar during the festival, despite having shorter operating times.
Pals co-founder Mat Croad says measuring the success of a brand’s performance at an event can be quantified by brand elements, awareness and alignment, but there’s also a commercial element, and having their bar seen as the highest volume during Rhythm & Vines contributes to their overall positive result.
Bell adds that Pals was able to crack the code in creating the perfect activation, and that’s because of both their popularity and their work in attracting people to the bar with new products and a fun and sociable space.
“The consistent goal is always to make sure that whatever brand element we’re building, we integrate it into the festival,” says Croad. “An overall goal is generally to create a better experience for all attendees, but it still needs to be aligned with what the festival’s delivering.”
Pals aims to be seen as the go-to summer drink, so it’s a no-brainer for them to seek to be prominent at festivals and events associated with the celebratory season. Thanks to the experience they’ve been bringing to Rhythm & Vines, the hill has even been dubbed the Pals Hill.
“There are so many different avenues you can go down with Rhythm & Vines,” says Croad. “It’s such a grand site, with major stages with all sorts of different thoroughfares, so there are all sorts of ways brands can utilise that space. We were pretty sold on the hill from day one. A lot of our own memories are from time spent at the top of that hill.”
Croad says that by taking a location that embodies an experience and elevating it by placing a brand activation there, they’re leaving attendees with a positive memory of the festival and their brand.
Whiskey brand Jameson was another related activation that saw good success with its association with the festival. Considered a drink for an older demographic, it picked Rhythm & Vines as an ideal chance to introduce themselves to a younger audience. “There’s some good proof there that that kind of bar brand- activation space is a way to get your product in hand,” says Bell.
Rhythm & Vines has just celebrated its 21st birthday, making it the same age as many of its attendees. So how does the iconic event intend to remain the place to be for brands? Key to its success is working alongside its brand activation partners to create an experience that allows for people to come back year after year, making
it their summer tradition. Rhythm & Vines certainly seems to have cracked the code to creating something people will never forget.
This was first published in our March/April 2024 issue.
