How Art Basel turned into an influencer marketing hotspot

There’s a new annual pop culture event joining the ranks of Coachella and New York Fashion Week as a hub for influencer marketing—Art Basel Miami Beach, a massive art exhibition encompassing dozens of art fairs, galleries and, increasingly, brand activations featuring lifestyle, fashion and beauty influencers. Dozens of brands including Ulta Beauty, Celsius, Method, Stanley, Maybelline, Ikea and Sol de Janeiro flew influencers out to Miami Beach last weekend or partnered with local Miami creators to capture social content at their Art Basel activations, attend intimate influencer brunches and dinners and promote new products launched at the art show. While artists and contemporary art remain at the core of the annual festival, which began in 2002 as an offshoot of the art fair’s original Basel, Switzerland location, marketers are increasingly approaching Art Basel as an opportunity to get their brands in front of both the Gen Z and millennial consumers flocking to Miami Beach and the social media audiences of the growing number of musicians, athletes, actors and digital celebrities in attendance. @alixearle Things took a turn for the worst for big al 😅 ♬ original sound - Alix Earle Art Basel “is a big cultural moment on the calendar now, but people are still kind of figuring it out,” said Ed Victori, an executive at UTA Marketing’s Next Gen Practice. “It's not so clear yet what this week is—it’s an art festival, it’s a lot of art fairs, it’s a lot of parties—but it’s something cool, and it’s something that we need to be at or near in some way.” More than 75,000 people visited the various exhibitions and art galleries of Art Basel this year, according to the festival’s organizers (there were about 79,000 in attendance last year and 76,000 in 2022). Nearly half of the Airbnb reservations in neighborhoods surrounding the art festival this year were made by consumers under 30, according to Airbnb, a first-time partner of Art Basel. Beyond the large Gen Z and millennial audience at the event, Art Basel also offers brands an opportunity to connect with consumers in Miami’s predominantly Latino market. More than 72% of Miami residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Connecting with Latino consumers was the goal of many brands that partnered with Gallery Media Group, a digital media company under VaynerX, to host their Art Basel activations at its “Gallery Art House” at the Sacred Space Miami event venue, said Chris Anthony, chief revenue officer at Gallery Media Group. Brand partners included Patrón, Ulta, Method, Maybelline and Infiniti, Nissan’s luxury vehicle division. Read Ad Age’s Best of 2024 stories here Gallery Media Group’s work with brands at the event focused on social content creation tied to invite-only programming. It brought in influencers to collaborate with brands and produce content for its social channels, such as @cocktails and @purewow. The company has followed a similar experiential model at other buzzy cultural events this year, including Coachella, SXSW and the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, Anthony said. “It allows our brand partners to extract as much content as possible from so many different diverse voices that exist throughout these houses,” he said. “And then brands can walk away and say they've almost seen this as a production shoot for them, and not just an event.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by VaynerX (@vaynerx) Influencers at the Gallery Art House this year included model and influencer Olivia Ponton, former NFL wide receiver Dale Moss, beauty influencer Amra Olević Reyes and YouTuber and makeup artist Emmy Combs. The company has been showing up at Art Basel since 2022 and debuted its Art House at last year’s festival. Art Basel activations Many brands, such as Ulta and Maybelline, activated at Art Basel for the first time this year and teamed up with influencers to help promote their debut at the burgeoning cultural event. “We also know that Art Basel has become a destination for influential creators to come together to celebrate, connect and converse, sharing their meaningful moments at Art Basel with their engaged followers, especially Gen Z attendees," said Michelle Crossan-Matos, Ulta’s chief marketing officer, in an email. “Our presence at Art Basel allows us to deepen our connection to this demographic, drive relevance and showcase our purpose to share joy through community and self-expression.” At Ulta’s “House of Joy” activation, attendees could receive makeup and hair services offered at its in-store salons, take photos against brightly colored backdrops or simply sit by the large pool in the center of the space. Laurie Hernandez, a former U.S. Olympic gymnast and a member of Ulta’s “Joy Council” ambassador program, helped Ulta host the activation. Dozens of beauty and lifestyle influencers Ulta invited to the event also shared photos and videos of the space across TikTok and Instagram. @ultabeauty have you visited The Salon at Ulta Beauty yet?? #ultabeauty #houseofjoy #beautytrends ♬ original sound - Ulta Beauty Ulta’s Art Basel activation also extended beyond the art exhibition itself. The brand collaborated with fitness instructor and TV host Ally Love, another member of its “Joy Council,” to host a meet-and-greet event at one of its Miami storefronts during the weekend of Art Basel. Ikea and Sol de Janeiro similarly hosted public brand activations that extended beyond Art Basel. Ikea returned to Miami following its Art Basel debut in 2023 with a “Sleepeasy” pop-up located about seven miles from the Miami Beach Convention Center, where Art Basel’s official programming and galleries are based. Ikea invited several influencers to walk through the space, where the brand wove together product displays and art exhibitions and debuted its 2025 Style Guide. Gallery Media Group’s Art House was similarly located about six miles from the convention center, across the bay from Miami Beach. Sol de Janeiro stuck closer to Art Basel itself with its activation at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, located across the street from the convention center. The beauty brand partnered with three artists—Neige Borges, Bárbara Tamilin and Amanda Lobos—to create art installations to surround a bright yellow counter in the middle of the botanical garden stocked with Sol de Janeiro products. The brand also invited fashion and beauty influencers such as Oyin Edogi and Camila Coelho, as well as singer-songwriter Victoria Monét, to a private event at the space. @camilacoelho Baseling at Jardim @Sol de Janeiro ♬ original sound - Camila Coelho Maybelline similarly invited creators to an invite-only party celebrating the launch of its “Super Stay Teddy Tint” lip product, as well as a lunch event it co-hosted with nail polish brand Essie and creator-guided shopping platform LTK. In an email to Ad Age, Jessie Feinstein, Maybelline’s senior VP of marketing, grouped Art Basel with much larger cultural events such as the Super Bowl and the New York City Marathon, adding that the brand is “always looking for opportunities to connect with our consumers and new brand fans during culturally significant moments that align with our values.” @farahpinkk #ad Celebrating the launch of @Maybelline NY’s Super Stay Teddy Tint during Art Basel in Miami. It’s a liquid lip tint that gives a blurred matte look, has up to 12 hour wear, no transfer and looks gorgeous on the lips. My favorite part is that it is lightweight and buildable so you can wear it sheer, blurred, bold or even on the cheeks. Find it at @Ulta Beauty @LTK #liketkit https://liketk.it/4Ztwp #maybellinepartner #teddytint ♬ original sound - FARAHPINK Method, too, leveraged Art Basel to promote a new product launch. UTA Next Gen partnered with the brand to host a four-course, “foam-inspired” influencer brunch to celebrate Method’s new foaming body wash, Victori said, while Gallery Media Group helped the brand host an Amazon liveshopping stream at its “Gallery Art House” venue, Anthony said. And Stanley hosted a pop-up dedicated entirely to its latest limited-edition tumbler—a collaboration with soccer star Lionel Messi. One of the most closely watched Miami reveals came from Jaguar, which officially lifted the curtain on its new brand identity and concept car, the Type 00, with events that included galleries showcasing art by British artists Ibby Njoya, Campbell Addy, Yagamoto and Patience Harding. Influencer Vik White was among those involved. Global design agency Imagination worked on the event, which Jaguar billed as a “multi-sensorial cultural installation.” The reveal came after an earlier tease of Jaguar’s new look was subjected to intense criticism. Jaguar Managing Director Rawdon Glover told Bloomberg that the tease was “really designed to get eyeballs on really what we’ve been doing in Miami.” The Miami market While brands first began exploring Art Basel in the mid-2010s, the first wave of activations was somewhat chaotic and involved brands “kind of doing everything and anything, throwing things against the wall and trying to be cool” rather than tying their pop-ups to the art and creativity at the core of Art Basel, Victori said. But over the last few years, “brands are starting to realize that they’re not just showing up just because they have the budget for it, or because there are eyeballs on this—they're actually showing because they feel like there is an element of the week that they can grab onto that aligns with their brand,” he said. “The opportunity for brands to authentically show up here is ripe … if you want to put in the work and time and energy to do it right,” he added. Haley Walsh, director of talent at UTA-owned influencer management company Digital Brand Architects, has also noticed brands gradually become more interested in activating at Art Basel in a way that both “makes a splash” but “has a tie back to the significance of the [event].” One influence represented by Digital Brand Architects, Silvana Mojica, partnered with Chase Bank, Essie, e.l.f. Beauty and Celsius at this year’s festival alone, Walsh said. @silvanamojicaz ♬ original sound - Jesus O🌹 Part of the event’s growing appeal is Art Basel’s Miami setting, as Miami is now one of the biggest markets for the influencer industry, she said. This year, “brands have really done a fantastic job of jumping on an already high-traffic time down in a market that now has become synonymous with New York and L.A.,” she added. “There’s a lot of interest in both the Miami market and Miami life in addition to Art Basel itself,” Walsh said, similar to how young consumers are increasingly interested in attending emerging cultural events such as the Formula 1 Grand Prix and the U.S. Open tennis tournament through the lens of influencers on social media. “So, during these more high-traffic, high-engagement times, why not have influencers support [brand activations] across their content in a really impactful way?” Contributing: E.J. Schultz

How Art Basel turned into an influencer marketing hotspot

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