While scrolling Tik Tok, you might have come across some content creators on a lavish trip at Bora Bora in their luxury overwater bungalows sipping champagne living their best lives.
This is just a small glimpse into #TrippinWithTarte, a promotional campaign sponsored by the beauty brand, Tarte Cosmetics, known for sending influencers on elaborate trips.
The recent four night trip to Bora Bora is catching virality with 30 influencers and their plus-ones getting the best treatment. Before the trip even started, Tarte sent gift boxes to the guests filled with goodies such as two pairs of custom Nike Jordans, a Béis Tote Bag, and a Canon Powershot G7X camera, racking in over $2,000 per box.
Tarte started the luxury trip from take-off, putting the guests on multiple private jets from Los Angeles to Bora Bora, costing about $98,500 per flight. On the flight, there was plenty of champagne, caviar, and gourmet food for everyone.
When they arrived, the influencers stayed at the Four Seasons Resort in their overwater bungalows filled with gifts including luggage, clothes, makeup, swimsuits, and more. During the trip, influencers snorkeled, jet skied, and partied by the beach, documenting the whole trip online. All of it for free with no requirement for any content creation.
This isn’t anything new. Tarte has hosted over 20 of these trips. Their first trip took place in 2015 at a rental house in Turks and Caicos and from then, it’s just become bigger and better.
Just last year, Tarte had a controversial trip to Dubai and this trip isn’t much different. People are starting to get sick of these brand trips. A lot of the commentary is about how this experience is too unrelatable and insensitive about the economy and the world today.
“Tarte is trash to me now,” one user on Instagram said. “This trip is so incredibly tone deaf.”
Tarte Cosmetics CEO and founder Maureen Kelly has responded to the criticisms of the trips and plans to keep doing brand trips.
“I find it so interesting that people don’t get outraged when they see the Super Bowl commercials or those Times Square billboards,” Kelly said to the New York Times.
Despite the backlash about being out of touch, Tarte’s got people talking.