The Advertising Amateur

Spring Break is over and I said I’d record the advertising campaigns that I saw during my camping trip on South Padre Island, but I actually didn’t see many!

I did see a vehicles advertising beverages, but that’s not anything new.

Usually brands advertise on the beach where all the spring breakers go to party, but I only spent three hours walking on what is known as Coca-Cola Beach. Although I didn’t notice any campaigns, I realized  that Coca-Cola Beach itself was a huge marketing campaign.

Coca-Cola Beach is basically a huge stage that is decked out in Coca-Cola red with the Coca-Cola brand name. Here, they play live music during the day while hosting contests and activities. This could be considered a form of engaged advertising because Coca-Cola is “entertaining” the spring breakers and basically being the source of fun on South Padre Island. While this isn’t anything new, it’s still effective because I’m sure the soda of choice for spring breakers isn’t going to be Mountain Dew,Sunkist, or even Pepsi–it’s Coca-Cola.

 Even though I wasn’t at Coca-Cola Beach, I was spending my three days on South Padre Island resting, and I spent my nights at the annual Ultimate Music Experience (UME) Festival.

UME is a festival with prominent electronic DJ’s headlining the show. Last year’s festival was headlined by Avicii, Porter Robinson, Madeon, Skrillex, and Cazzette. This year, Nervo, Calvin Harris, Major Lazer, Flux Pavillion, and Krewella graced the stage at South Padre’s Schlitterbahn,where UME is held. Every year, Rio Grande Valley’s favorite DJ, Tiesto  ends the show at the last day of UME.

I’ve browsed the internet and found that UME is also staying connected via social network by advertising through their twitter.

UME invites it’s guests to upload their photos to Instagram and post them on twitter with specific hash tags in order to have photos of their UME experience featured on the DJMag  Canada April Edition.

I had a great time attending the concert and camping out in tents with my friends. Although I didn’t see as many advertising campaigns as I hoped, I’ve seen how social media is now being integrated during Spring Break!