Travis Scott took over Coachella this year and built his own city on the festival grounds.
Inside Cactus Jack village, all of Travis’ wildest ideas came to life. There were giant statues all over the place, a Vetements tattoo station, a Nike soccer arena, and surprise celebrity appearances. (If you looked close, you even saw a presence from Complex on the walls of the village.)
“I’m taking Coachella over through my lens,” Travis told Complex in his recent cover story interview, hinting at his plans for the festival. “I’m trying to create a next-level way to do things.”
As promised, the takeover was full of big surprises, including an appearance from a familiar face we’ve seen on TV screens for years: Jake from State Farm. The TV commercial star was at the village all weekend, rocking a custom varsity jacket designed by Travis Scott and the Cactus Jack team.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know this isn’t the first time Travis has linked with Jake. Last year, they dapped each other up at one of Caitlin Clark’s Iowa games and were later seen on a red carpet together. Both interactions went viral. “They have a history of fondness for each other,” Alyson Griffin, head of marketing at State Farm, tells Complex. “So when we heard Travis was re-imagining the desert experience at Coachella, we were interested in teaming up with him.”
In honor of the occasion, Travis helped put together two signed, one-of-one Cactus Jack x State Farm varsity jackets. Each of the jackets featured different design elements that he reimagined from the brand’s archives, including a cactus-spiked State Farm logo and a vintage “Good Neigh Bear” mascot. Fans could enter to win one of the jackets inside the Cactus Jack village on Weekend 1, and the other jacket will be given away on Weekend 2. According to State Farm, it’s the first time Cactus Jack has created one-of-one merch like this.
“We gave them access to our archives of assets, and they picked out, ‘Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There.’ But they also picked out things like the ‘Good Neigh Bear,’ which has been around since the 80s,” Griffin says, detailing the design process of the jackets. “[Travis] loved it, and he put Cactus Jack on the shirt of the bear. It was fun to see which elements from our archives resonated with him and what he did with them.”
Jake from State Farm, who initially appeared in commercials as Jake Stone (a real State Farm employee) is now played by actor Kevin Miles, who made the most of his time on festival grounds. He took part in some of the Cactus Jack events inside the village—taking a penalty kick inside the Nike soccer arena—and he was approached by fans wherever he went. “He could not go two feet without being mobbed,” Griffin says. “Everybody was taking pictures, selfies, meeting him, the whole shebang. It’s always fun to be reminded of his celebrity.”
The team is already preparing to give away the second jacket during weekend two, and according to Griffin, the first weekend was a big success.
“Our strategy for quite a long time has been that culture is our differentiator and being a part of culture is inherent in everything we do,” she says. “So it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a brand like ours to be in consideration with a brand like Cactus Jack. It was great.”
