I bet you’ve all seen “Trippin with Tarte” all over our FYP and have been dying to go, right? Or maybe you want a chance to get your very own soda machine filled with tons of free Poppi?

Or maybe… the idea of a brand trip or extravagant PR packages are going right over brands’ heads, because in reality, is it really going to make your consumers want to purchase your product?

Let’s talk about it.

brand trips

A brand trip is a marketing tactic a company employs that requires traveling with influencers to help advertise its products and services to the public through a luxurious and immersive experience. A lot of these brand trips often happen with beauty and lifestyle brands as they invite influencers to exotic locations and provide them with activities, food, and plenty of their products. In return, the influencers post on social media about the trip and the brand to generate buzz, all while they get to enjoy an all-expenses paid vacation, essentially.

What started off as a fun way to involve popular influencers has turned into a crazy PR strategy… and fans are over it. These trips have often turned a negative spotlight onto brands participating because of problems like a lack of diversity, appearing inauthentic, and creating an overall perception of elitism. Brands, like Tarte for example, are known for their brand trips which appear to be a super fun trip on the company’s dime, but actual consumers of the brand have pointed out these problems within the trips. 

Along with that, consumers have seen a lot of influencers coming out of these brand trips saying they didn’t have a good time due to issues within the trip. This clashes with the brand’s marketing strategy and ends up bringing backlash against them instead of promoting the products they want to sell. 

now back to tarte…

To add on to the messiness surrounding Tarte, their most recent brand trip caused them some MAJOR backlash because the brand decided to keep their trip during the LA fires (with many influencers invited having resided or grown up in LA). Fans saw this as a “tasteless act” because as this extravagant trip was going on, LA was facing a major crisis. Instead, Tarte could have donated the hundreds and thousands of dollars spent on the trip to helping the people affected by the fires. 

And to top it all off, one of the themed dinners that night was called “Tarte on Fire” UHH.. YIKES. If this doesn’t scream out of touch, then we don’t know what does. While we know this theme was probably planned well in advance, there is still an opportunity for the brand to change it after knowing about the current state of LA.

This really enraged fans because of how disconnected the brand was for still having a theme like that and still not addressing any of the controversy they were getting. Eventually, Tarte made a statement apologizing and stating that they were making major donations to organizations in LA that were helping out with the fires, so all is forgiven right? Well, we don’t think so. 

Every brand trip that Tarte has done ends up in a mess, so we think it might be time to scrap the idea and figure out another way to market your brand.

pr packages

PR packages have been around for years, and to be honest, we think they’re a fun way to show some love! Plus us viewers love to see a good PR haul 😉 However, PR packages have taken a crazy turn – maybe for the better or worse, we can’t tell yet.

The recent move from Poppi sending true-to-size vending machines to mega-influencers really opened the eyes of everyone. People viewed this PR stunt as  “unfair” and “out of touch.” Fans were extremely upset to see their favorite probiotic soda brand sending $25,000 soda machines to creators that are very comfortable with their earnings and saw this as unnecessary. This caused an uproar online due to all of the money being spent on these PR packages. 

Was there actually harm in sending those PR packages, or was it actually genius of Poppi to do, as it got people talking about their brand ahead of their huge Super Bowl commercial (which featured the said vending machines)?

does this need to be fixed? HOW DO WE DO THAT?

There may really only be one solution to these “problems,” just stop them. Yes, we have seen the suggestions of possibly sending fans on these brand trips instead of wealthy influencers, and we think that’s also a great idea, but how does one determine which fans get to go? 

Our perspective is that there really is no need for these huge brands to do brand trips in order to market their products. For many years, there have been multi-million dollar companies that have never done a brand trip and are still extremely successful. Instead, they have used their money and turned to social media and print marketing for their products and services, which works out perfectly for them. They market authentically and genuinely to the people who are actually buying their products, and not continuously striving for influencer validation. 

The same kind of goes for these huge PR packages that brands have been sending out. For the Poppi machines specifically, these could have been sent to hospitals, fire departments, or first responders in order to show the brand really wants to help care for their community. This is a solution we would LOVE to see from this brand, but again, we just don’t think there’s a need for a Poppi soda machine. Instead of spending that money on a wasteful product, that will more than likely get thrown out by the influencer who received it, you could be spending that money with your marketing agency to make a better game plan for your brand’s social media presence post campaign.

These are just our thoughts on the matter. So, please let us know your thoughts on these marketing moves and what you think they could be doing differently – if anything! Brand trips or no brand trips? Extravagant PR packages to influencers or not?