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Over the weekend, TikTok was flooded with posts of major influencers — including Kennedy Eurich, Brandon Edelman, Halley Kate McGookin and Jazmyn Smith — partying in Tulum with the electrolytes brand Waterboy. At the same time, dozens of posts criticizing the brand’s social media strategy for the trip began circulating: Why weren’t the influencers showing the products? And don’t electrolytes help thwart hangovers? Why, then, were they posting about how hungover they were? The marketing experts on TikTok (read: everyone) had questions.
“I don’t think it was a good representation of what a brand trip should look like at all, because the product was missing from the content,” said Clare Moore, an influencer marketing consultant and writer of a Substack about the creator economy, Following Up.
In a TikTok over seven minutes long, Waterboy CEO and co-founder Mike Xhaxho defended the trip and the content made by the brand’s social media manager — a creator in her own right — Madi Marotta (205,000 TikTok followers). “As a brand owner, I’m flattered people love our product packaging so much,” he said in the post. “They’re like, ‘You know what? We can’t see enough of it. We want to see more of it.’ I personally think when companies constantly try to push products, it’s so suffocating.”
Glossy Pop has covered brand trips for years, including the aftermath of 2023’s Tarte Dubai trip, which also got TikTok up in arms; Tarte’s more recent move to take customers on trips; and, most recently, creators like Edelman hosting their own trips for their followers.
It is, of course, more common for people to spend the time criticizing brand initiatives than praising them — after all, rage bait is very real and drives views. Still, brand trips — according to the many marketing and social media experts contributing to this story — are not going anywhere.
Below, some of what went wrong on the Waterboy trip, what makes brand trips worthwhile (and here to stay) and how brands can do them right.
How to get a brand trip right, according to experts
“If a brand trip is not designed to be consistent with the brand’s values, and they’re not consistent with what the brand benefits are and why someone would use the brand, and you don’t design the whole trip, from every touchpoint, around that, then you’re going to get into trouble very quickly,” said an executive who recently managed such trips for mass consumer brands at a major beauty company. “Either the influencer experience will be an issue, or the content created or the consumer [sentiment]. It’s a whole ecosystem.”
For Waterboy, at least, it turns out all press may be good press after all. In his TikTok post, Xhaxho shared that, despite the backlash, the brand saw its best sales week ever during the week of the trip across Amazon, Target and Walmart.
And, according to the mass brand executive, brands should not simply accept the notion that bad press is inevitable. “When brands are very thoughtful about knowing who they are, why they exist and the job to be done — of they’re very detailed and maniacal about holding to their brand equity — they can figure out what makes sense, from location to activities to content,” he said.
Essentially, brand trips should have a raison d’être beyond tapping influencers’ followings for attention, Moore said.
“What were the goals of Waterboy’s trip at the beginning?” she said. “Brands need to make sure that, from leadership down, there’s a reason you’re hosting this trip. What are you expecting and hoping to get out of it?” For an example of a well-executed trip, Moore pointed to Reformation’s recent “Ref in Residence” trip, where the product showed up in clear and logical ways. The trip was aspirational but approachable, matching the brand’s price points. And the trip was hosted at the start of summer, when people would be buying the products shown.
Importantly, a brand trip is as successful as who is invited, interviewees said. More specifically, Moore said, a trip should not be the first time the invited creators are engaging with the brand. “Audiences are smart,” and the content will feel inauthentic, she said.
On the same note, the mass brand executive said the invitations shouldn’t just go to whoever has the biggest following. Rather, they should be filtered through the specific lens of what a given brand is looking to accomplish.
To that point, Moore said, “Brands should make sure who they invite matches who they are trying to reach. Are [their followers] your target audience of consumers?”
According to every executive interviewed, earned media value is most often the main KPI.
As an executive at a top-selling Sephora brand put it, EMV often translates directly into sales. In other words, the brands that are part of the conversation are the ones selling products.
Brand trips, she noted, contribute to marketing’s famed “rule of seven” — the notion that a potential customer needs to come into contact with a brand’s message seven times before they remember it, or buy it. When viewers’ For You Pages are inundated by brand trip content, brands are likely to get to seven fast.
“Influencer trips are super beneficial, as long as you have a strategy to sustain [the buzz],” the beauty brand exec said. To be most effective, she said, marketers should supplement the trip with out-of-home ads or in-store sampling.
If a trip is planned well — with multiple, aspirational photo ops, for example — then influencers will go above and beyond the agreed-upon deliverables and make the brand’s investment in the trip well worth it, Moore said. “You’re with people for 48 or 72 hours who are dedicated to your brand,” she said. “Hire the right photographer. Yes, you’ll have dedicated deliverables, but if you have the right photo moments, they’ll create content for you for 48 hours straight.”
“Brand trips shouldn’t just be a fun vacation opportunity for creators. They should also mean something to the people attending and the people watching,” said Nicole Czarnecki, head of brand marketing at another beverage-based supplement brand, Nello. “Consumers don’t want to see influencers getting spoiled. Instead, they want to feel like they’re in on something special and immersive. Great brand trips feel less like flexes and more like invitations — to the brand’s world, to a community, to a feeling. If your trip looks like a vacation but doesn’t fully integrate and immerse the purpose and mission of the brand, then you’ve missed the point. The goal should be to impress everyone — the guests and the viewers — through intentional settings, itineraries and moments.”
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