By Max Fellows, Founder of allpoints
Brands have focused heavily on performance marketing for years, including online engagement, paid social, and digital visibility, all with the goal of reaching audiences faster, more efficiently, and at greater scale.
However, another shift has been happening alongside it. Research from Eventbrite found that 78% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers would rather spend money on experiences than physical products. That shift is changing the role experiential marketing and face-to-face events play within emerging business strategy. So what does that mean for the experience economy?
Events were once considered a “nice addition” to a campaign, but are now becoming a central part of how brands build visibility, loyalty, cultural relevance, and long-term engagement. For agencies, that creates both a major opportunity and a significant challenge as experience-led strategy becomes increasingly important for brand growth.
1. The Demand for Experience-Led Strategy Is Growing
Across industries, brands are investing more heavily into experiential campaigns, immersive activations, live events, community-driven experiences, and consumer-focused moments.
Particularly for businesses with B2C or consumer-facing elements, there is increasing pressure to create experiences that bring people together physically, not just digitally.
Festivals, immersive pop-ups, branded activations, community events, and interactive experiences are becoming more valuable because they create something digital marketing alone often struggles to achieve, emotional connection. Even digital-first businesses are beginning to pivot towards physical experiences and in-person connection models. Dating platform Thursday is one example of this. Originally built around online interaction, the brand has increasingly positioned itself around real-world events and physical meetups, recognising that audiences are actively craving in-person connection again, while still engaging with digital platforms more selectively.
2. Why Younger Audiences Are Driving This Change
Your business visuals and fonts absolutely matter. Sans-serif fonts often feel modern, clean, and forward-thinking, while serif fonts can feel more classic, established, and rooted in heritage. Colours also carry meaning, blue often feels calm and trustworthy, while red and yellow can signal urgency or attention. These interpretations aren’t always universal, but can be heavily understood. Something to consOne of the most interesting shifts agencies are beginning to notice is the changing behaviour of younger audiences. 72% of 21-35 year olds feel positively towards events that offer meaningful, transformative experiences, highlighting the growing demand for immersive, experience-led engagement over traditional consumerism.
Audiences are becoming increasingly aware of oversaturation, algorithm-driven content, and performative online engagement. As a result, real-life experiences are beginning to carry more cultural value. People want moments they can genuinely participate in rather than simply consume through a screen. In fact, digital often amplifies the impact of experiential campaigns and the content captured through live experiences frequently becomes the fuel for wider social campaigns, PR, community engagement, and long-term brand storytelling. The difference now is that the experience itself is becoming the core asset with the online content becoming an extension of the moment rather than the entire strategy.
3. Why Agencies Need to Adapt Now
The experiential economy is still growing rapidly, and many agencies believe the next three to four years could see a major acceleration in demand for experience-led strategy. In 2025 alone, 74% of Fortune 1000 marketers increased their experiential marketing spend, signalling a clear shift toward experience-led growth and audience engagement strategies.
However, adapting does not simply mean adding “events” onto a services page. It requires agencies to rethink how they understand audiences, measure engagement, build campaigns, and position value. The agencies likely to lead this next phase of growth are the ones investing in areas such as:
- Behavioural insight and audience psychology
- Experiential strategy
- Consumer engagement
- Data and analytics
- Community-building
- Immersive storytelling
- Hybrid digital and physical campaigns
Experiential marketing without audience understanding is ineffective. Brands now need deeper insight into behaviour, emotional engagement, and what creates lasting loyalty.
4. The Biggest Challenge For Agencies
Despite growing demand, many brands are still cautious about experiential investment.
The biggest reason behind this is that proving impact is harder. Digital campaigns often provide immediate metrics including clicks, impressions, conversions, and attribution. Experiential campaigns operate differently, with value often being emotional, long-term, community-driven, and spread across multiple touchpoints, making measurement more complex and for agencies, this creates pressure to develop stronger ways of tracking success through:
- Data capture
- Audience engagement metrics
- Content performance
- Lead generation
- Brand sentiment
- Community growth
- Social amplification
- Long-term customer retention
The agencies that can clearly demonstrate commercial impact alongside emotional engagement will likely become increasingly valuable to brands over the coming years.
5. Challenges Agencies Need to Consider
There is also another reality agencies must navigate. In order to market experiential work effectively, agencies often need previous experiential work to showcase. Live events generate the content, engagement insights, and case studies brands want to see before investing, this means agencies may need to strategically invest in building experiential portfolios now, even before demand fully peaks. Once an experience happens, the value extends far beyond the event itself, creating content ecosystems, social assets, measurable engagement, and long-term marketing material that continues driving visibility long after the event ends.
This Is Not a Passing Trend
Brands are increasingly looking for ways to create deeper audience connection, stronger emotional engagement, and real-world visibility that cuts through digital saturation. While the industry is still evolving, the direction of travel is clear. The agencies that strengthen their audience understanding and build experience-led capabilities now will likely be far better positioned for where the industry is heading next. The future of marketing may not belong solely to the brands that are seen the most, but to the brands people actually remember. Your next read, we recommend: Is Cannes Lions Worth It for Agencies and What Leaders Should Consider Before Booking 2026