Interview

November 21, 2019

From Fyre Festival to fintech – Spanish startup SamyRoad on the boom of influencer marketing

Fyre Festival showed the danger of influencer marketing. But it also gave an opportunity for marketing startups looking to approach this sector differently.


Tim Smith

5 min read

Fyre Festival Pig

When thousands of expectant revellers landed in the Bahamas to attend the now-infamous Fyre Festival it wasn’t long before the exotic promotional images they’d seen on social media were replaced by a dystopian nightmare.

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Screengrab from a promotional video for Fyre Festival.
Screengrab from a promotional video for Fyre Festival. Photograph: YouTube/Fyre Festval
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Marta Nicolas, Co-founder of SamyRoad
Marta Nicolas, cofounder of SamyRoad
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A SamyRoad campaign, showing travel vlog account roadtowild promoting digital bank N26
A SamyRoad campaign, showing travel vlog account roadtowild promoting digital bank N26
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Tim Smith

Tim Smith was news editor at Sifted. He covered deeptech and AI, and produced Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast . Follow him on X and LinkedIn

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