Our Insights on the moments leading experiential

An activation usually falls apart weeks before event day. It happens in a permit office or on a loading dock, over a detail nobody flagged while the creative was getting all the attention. The idea was approved, the renders looked incredible, and by week nine none of that mattered. The creative is almost never what goes wrong. Handling complex logistics in experiential marketing is where the real separation happens in 2026, so it's worth walking through what actually goes wrong and what the...

Every brief we've read this year has some version of the same anxiety folded into it, that consumers aren't paying attention anymore, that digital feeds have become impossible to cut through, and that audiences walk into activations with their phones already up before they've had time to decide whether the activation is worth capturing. The question underneath all of that is how to break through, and the answer we keep landing on with clients is that the fight for attention has almost nothing...

The experiential marketing category has never been healthier. Global spend hit $138.94B in 2025 and is forecast to grow +10.3% this year, per PQ Media's 11th Biennial Global Experiential Marketing Forecast. 74% of Fortune 1000 marketers are increasing their experiential budgets in 2026, according to EventTrack's 2025 report. Kantar's 2025 Media Reactions report ranks in-person sponsored events as the #2 preferred advertising channel globally and the #1 preferred channel in North America....

CFO scrutiny of marketing is up 52% year over year, according to Gartner's most recent CMO Priorities survey. 63% of CMOs feel increased pressure specifically from the CFO, per the Deloitte and Duke CMO Survey. Sponsorships and events are the top channel CMOs plan to cut in 2026, per Gartner's CMO Spend Survey. For a CMO defending experiential spend, the environment could not be tougher. Data alone will not fix it. Neither will a compelling wrap deck. What actually moves the conversation is a...

CFO scrutiny of marketing is up 52% year over year, according to Gartner's most recent CMO Spend Survey. That is a bigger jump than any single-year rise in the survey's history, and it lands during a stretch when only 27% of CEOs and CFOs say their CMO's performance has exceeded expectations. Sponsorships and events are now the top channel CMOs plan to cut in 2026, per the same Gartner data. Deloitte and Duke's Spring 2026 CMO Survey shows 63% of CMOs feel increased CFO pressure specifically,...

Liquid Death ended 2024 with more than 30 billion earned-media impressions on under $2M in paid spend, per Adweek's breakdown of the brand's strategy. That is a bigger footprint than most Fortune 500 marketing programs will generate on ten times the budget. That result is not luck. Liquid Death runs the same set of plays as Rhode, Erewhon, Netflix, and a handful of other brands producing outsized outcomes from experiential right now. What follows is a breakdown of what they are actually...

By the numbers, experiential marketing just had its inflection year. The category is now $55.53 billion globally and forecast to hit $71.22 billion by 2035 (Business Research Insights). Brand activation specifically sits at $86.66 billion and is growing at a 5.28% CAGR through the next decade. 51% of brands say they're increasing experiential spend through 2026, and nine out of ten marketers now describe it as essential to their overall strategy (Seeker). Experiential has officially overtaken...

Pull the most recent Gartner CMO Spend Survey and the picture is clear. Paid media is 30.6% of the average marketing budget, the single largest line item. It is also the only category that has grown its share of marketing spend over the past five years, according to Gartner's 2025 survey of 402 marketing leaders across North America, the UK, and Europe. Every other line has lost ground. Martech sits at 22.4%, labor at 21.9%, agencies at 20.7%, and all three have eroded. The question every CMO...

There is a tendency in experiential marketing to focus heavily on placement. Where should this go? What’s the highest traffic location? How visible can we make it? On the surface, those are logical questions. Placement feels like the most controllable variable. If you can secure the right location, everything else should follow. But in practice, placement is rarely the deciding factor. Two brands can activate in the same location, with similar visibility and comparable production, and have...

There is a clear difference between an experience that feels premium and one that feels promotional, and most brands underestimate how quickly people can tell the difference. It has very little to do with budget and almost everything to do with how the experience is designed, positioned, and executed. You can invest heavily in production, technology, and scale, and still end up with something that feels like a branded installation rather than a meaningful environment. On the other hand, you...

Measuring ROI from experiential marketing starts by expanding what you define as “return.” If you are only measuring attendance, foot traffic, or on-site engagement, you are capturing a fraction of the total value. Experiential marketing ROI is not limited to what happens during the event. It includes everything the activation produces before, during, and after it goes live.

Experiential marketing has evolved, but the way many brands approach it has not. Despite increasing investment in live activations, product launches, and immersive brand experiences, most companies still measure success within a narrow window.