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It’s not about the brands, man

Posted in General, Marketing, Oliver Milman, Latest reporters' blogs June 27th, 2007 by Oliver Milman

If you believe the nay-sayers, the Glastonbury festival has become a sanitised, commercial event, servile to the whims of advertisers and corporate backstage-dwellers.

The truth, of course, is slightly more complicated. In an attempt to expand the festival, and you might cynically claim, to rake in more cash, the festival’s organisers have cosied up to a number of brands.

Orange provided mobile phone charging, at no doubt substantial cost to the company, while Natwest offered a cashpoint service. Meanwhile, Carlsberg and Brothers took the mantle of official beer and cider brands.

However, walking, or should that be abbreviated trudging, through the festival isn’t exactly comparable to a stroll around Piccadilly Circus. The brands are there, but subtly so.

Yes, Orange has plastered its tent with its eponymous colour. And yes, if you wanted a beer, it was either Carlsberg or, er, Carlsberg Export. Neither developments were particularly welcome, but to say that this somehow diluted the essence of the festival would be stretching the argument to breaking point.

Travelling around at Glastonbury, when you’re not gawping at your mud-caked wellies to ensure you don’t perform a Norman Wisdom-style pratfall, you are looking for something to eat or see.

As there are no chain stores or branding on tents or signs, you’re not being marketed to in any way, other than being lured to the next attraction.

When watching bands on the main stages, the most prominent branding is for Greenpeace, a charity. When the giant screens around the stages switch to adverts between performances, it’s for Water Aid or spots encouraging you to recycle.

In all reality, it would be slightly arcane to host a festival for 175,000 people and deny them a cashpoint or mobile phone charging. The vast majority of people at Glastonbury - youngsters - are used to such services on a regular basis, so it would cause more harm than good to deny them such ‘luxuries’, especially when the skinny jean-wearers are asked to shell out increasing amounts of money each year to sit in a field that resembles the Somme for the best part of a week.

For Glastonbury to remain viable as a major cultural event, it needs a degree of collusion with brands. However, it can’t be denied that it has retained its soul. Let’s not start bandying around phrases like ‘selling out’ until Michael Eavis does something completely over-the-top, like lower a set of McDonald’s golden arches upon the Pyramid stage.