Dive Brief:
- Land Rover has announced a weekend live music festival with lifestyle, culinary and adventure experiences called 4XFar as part of the U.S. re-launch of the Land Rover Defender, according to a press release.
- The festival will take place Jan. 18-19 at the Empire Grand Oasis in the Coachella Valley in Southern California, and will feature Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Mark Ronson & Q-Tip, and Sofi Tukker, among other performers. An off-road course will let attendees experience the new vehicle, which goes on sale in the spring, as well as other Land Rover models.
- An adventure area with media partner Outside magazine will feature workshops on slacklining, rock climbing, yoga and mobility, mountain biking, campsite mixology, navigation and wilderness safety. There will also be activities with Land Rover partners such as professional volleyball player Gabby Reece and big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton, curated art and design activities, interactive photo moments, VIP amenities and a 4xFAR marketplace with exclusive branded and curated goods and apparel.
Dive Insight:
Through the 4XFar music festival and related activities, Land Rover is leveraging experiential marketing on a grand scale to target luxury adventure travelers and position the Defender, which has a starting price of $49,900, as an SUV for "people with a passion for exploring the unknown and exploring new adventures."
The effort taps into a couple of key trends — experiential marketing and music festivals — and interprets them for the luxury travel market, which is forecast to grow 7.4% a year over the next few years, according to recent research from Adroit Market Research. In 2017, adventure travel accounted for 48.8% of the luxury travel market, the largest share, and this segment is expected to experience strong growth going forward.
However, if Land Rover is targeting affluent millennials with this event, it could find that courting them is more challenging than reaching affluent consumers of older generations, as this younger cohort tends to have a more cautious spending mentality, according to Tim Barlow, a senior principal analyst at Gartner.
Car brands have shown a penchant for tie-ins with music festivals in an attempt to connect with younger and more active consumers. In June, Hyundai featured an augmented reality experience at the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta to promote its 2020 Sonata. Using Live Nation's AR Livestream, fans could open the festival app, point their smartphones at a flat surface and see a 3D version of selected performances, along with the new Hyundai.
In the summer of 2017, Toyota partnered with media firm Oath to live stream four music festivals, along with video, native and display ads. The car maker said the campaign resulted in a 23% lift in purchase consideration among millennials.
