Influence vs. activation: How brands showed up at Coachella
Is there a bigger gathering of influencers in the world than Coachella?
Coachella might be the event with the most influencers per capita, with the music festival now almost as synonymous with the outfits, the food, the houses and the beauty trends as the music itself. And all of these influencers have brand deals, from the biggest names to microinfluencers that hold sway over niche communities.
That presents a dilemma for brands. They can’t hand over the whole festival to influencers. So how do brands effectively show up on social for their audience in a conversation that’s dominated by loud creator voices?
There’s been an interesting divergence between what has brought brand accounts success compared to influencers, which presents a lesson for brands of all kinds. We rounded up a few of the best influencer and brand activations from weekend one, and dug deeper to understand how brands should show up in corners of the internet increasingly crowded with creators.
Influencers are there to drive awareness
What does a festival weekend look like for influencers?
As the weekend kicked off, anyone who spent any time on social was treated to a smorgasbord of behind the scenes content, from get ready with me videos to outfits of the day to meals at brand houses.
Here’s some of what cut through.
Tianna Robillard is a creator that partnered with Lola Blankets for the festival, and showed her followers a glimpse of what life is like at Casa Lola. Not all of her festival content was sponsored by the brand, with only roughly a quarter of her two dozen posts from the weekend explicitly mentioning or tagging Lola. Prominent examples include her revealing her room at the brand house, giving a tour of the house and showcasing the chef-crafted brunch.
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This brunch reveal was the biggest piece of partner content for Robillard, and drove almost 100,000 engagements. Crucially, engagement levels on her sponsored content were not significantly different from her non-partner content, with Robillard’s personality consistently coming through whether the post featured Lola or not.
Every one of the partner videos prominently featured the blankets, whether they were draped over Robillard herself or the beds in the house, driving significant brand awareness.
But not every piece of content needs a whole content house to be successful as an awareness play. Some brand and creator partnerships leaned into the classic beauty tactics, as epitomized by MCoBeauty and e.l.f. Cosmetics.
Their partnerships came in the form of influencers preparing for the festival, epitomized by Aliya and Chyna Solder, both of whom have millions of followers.
Aliya’s video featured her talking about her time fangirling during the first day at Coachella while getting ready for Justin Bieber’s performance on day two, all while subtly applying MCoBeauty products.
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The e.l.f. x Solder partnership was less subtle, with the influencer directly calling out their new flavored lip balms during her day one outfit of the day video. Her outfit was even inspired by the blue raspberry flavor.
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Each of these videos took a different approach, but the common factor was driving awareness and a lot of engagement. The products were showcased in subtle and not so subtle ways, with each video getting more than 100,000 likes (and delivering clear ROI for the brands).
The brands are activating on the ground
While the influencers were narrating their lives, a different group of brands was world-building. Starbucks, Red Bull and Kylie Cosmetics all used their own social channels to push on-site physical activations at the festival in an interesting hybrid of analog and digital tactics.
Our Q1 2026 Pulse Survey found that consumers are trying to be more intentional online. Two of the most common goals for the year were reducing screen time and using social media more intentionally.
Amid this push for mindful social consumption, these brands bet on the power of physical presence and used their social content to drive IRL interaction and digital engagement.
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Starbucks highlighted the Unicorn Frappucino at the festival, while Red Bull hid some of the best festival passes in their coolers and hinted that they’d do the same for week two.
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Kylie Cosmetics highlighted the Kylie x Camp Poosh truck in collaboration with fellow Kardashian-owned brand Poosh, encouraging people to check it out during the festival.
These brand posts didn’t see the same success of the influencer partnerships in terms of engagement, hovering in the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. But, amidst all the influencer noise, brands that show up with something useful, aesthetic or fun create FOMO-inducing festival moments and long-term brand affinity.
A parting thought: People do still really care about the music
Beyond the ‘fits, people do still care about the hits. Despite all the influencer chatter, outfits, food and houses, the music has still been a huge driver of conversation. We’ve been tracking what’s trending at Coachella and artists like Justin Bieber and Sabrina Carpenter have seen millions of engagements and thousands of articles written about them.
Whichever way you slice it, the festival is still a huge driver of attention, and with weekend two coming up, it will be interesting to see how brands meet the moment. In the first weekend, the brands that stood out didn’t launch creator partnerships and feature IRL pop-ups on the same channel. They stayed in their lane.
Zooming out, this strategy applies to brands across industries. There’s still space for brand-driven content in creator-dominated spaces, but marketers need to approach these events in ways that create community-driven experiences and build brand lore—complementing rather than competing with influencer content.
Sometimes you need a star, and sometimes, you just need to build the stage.