Join the Crew
Get the best resources for producers delivered to your mailbox
Get the best resources for producers delivered to your mailbox
Shaudi is a Seattle-based musician, theatre artist, writer and social media marketing specialist. She holds degrees from Berklee College of Music and the University of Washington School of Drama.
At Wrapbook, we pride ourselves on providing outstanding free resources to producers and their crews, but this post is for informational purposes only as of the date above. The content on our website is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for legal, accounting, or tax advice. You should consult with your own legal, accounting, or tax advisors to determine how this general information may apply to your specific circumstances.
Today’s audiences are more sophisticated and discerning than ever. To reach them, marketers are increasingly embracing nontraditional forms of advertising, including experiential marketing events.
In this article, we’ll help you get inspired to create innovative, one-of-a-kind experiential advertising for your brand by exploring 20 of the best experiential marketing events of 2024.
The term “experiential marketing” can be applied to multiple types of events. Broadly, though, experiential events generate a personal experience for a potential customer that creates or reinforces their relationship with a brand.
A useful litmus test if you’re unsure whether something counts as an experiential marketing event is to consider whether the audience is engaging actively or passively. If they are passive, like watching a YouTube shorts ad, it’s generally not experiential marketing. But if they are prompted to participate through action, for example by taking a photo, sampling a product, or creating something, that’s a sign of experiential advertising.
There’s typically a strong relationship between experiential events and social media. Almost all of the experiential marketing examples on this list include a social media element in which attendees are able to share their experience with their network.
The stats show that experiential marketing events are great for creating an emotional connection to brands. So what are experiential marketing events trying to achieve? Experiential events can be used for a variety of marketing objectives, from expanding brand awareness, to encouraging customer loyalty, to direct sales and more.
Here’s our roundup of some of the best experiential events of 2024. These experiential marketing events vary widely in scope and style. Some are designed to be experienced live by large numbers of people for a fixed duration. Others are accessible for individuals or small groups to experience on a more flexible timeline.
A few elements that all of these experiential marketing campaigns have in common? They’re creative, out-of-the-box, and leave a lasting impression on the target audience.
Let’s take a look at some outstanding experiential marketing examples from this year.
Tire company BFGoodrich invited a group of companies and influencers in the off-road driving space to test out its new KO3 all-terrain tires at a very hands-on experiential event in Alaska. The invitees tried out the tires in a series of planned and meticulously documented rugged outdoor activities.
This is one of those experiential marketing campaigns that works because it taps into the networks of people who are already established and trusted in the world of customers the brand is hoping to reach.
This experiential event shows that marketing can be meaningful. Canon Europe partnered with the Royal Institute of Blind People to create World Unseen, a photography exhibit that centers the experience of blind and partially sighted people.
The exhibit used techniques like tactile graphics, audio descriptions, and creative braille to make images accessible to individuals with visual impairments. It also featured educational materials for sighted people to learn more about the experiences of blind and partially sighted individuals.
One of the keys to the success of this experiential event is the partnership between the brand and an established organization. The Royal Institute of Blind People was able to offer wisdom in reaching a population traditionally underserved by photography and visual art exhibitions, adding real value to this campaign.
To stand out from the crowd of sponsors at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Corona beer worked with experiential marketing agency WINK to transform a number of iconic points in the city into special spaces where guests could find their own relaxing “golden moment.”
These transformations included everything from crafting an urban beach around the Eiffel Tower with recycled used Corona bottles, installing a playful adult-sized swingset at the Jardins du Trocadero, branded boat tours along the Seine, and a final closing ceremony on the rooftop of the Champs Elysees.
Extras like guided meditation sessions, ice baths, and live music complimented the takeovers. The experiential marketing event also connected with athletes through special Corona merch and a branded cabana at Olympic Village.
Sometimes, your choice of venue is the most crucial component of an experiential marketing event. When launching their new Immune+ Crystals product this year, supplement company Emergen-C demonstrated this by hosting a free ASMR installation at JetBlue Terminal 5 at JFK Airport.
The installation featured the Emergen-C Immune+ Crystals Corridor, a tunnel that visitors could walk through to experience sights, smells, and sounds evoking the new product. It also featured benches where tired travelers could take a quiet moment of rest and enjoy their free sample of the crystals.
This is an experiential marketing example that shows location is key. Plane travelers often seek an extra boost to protect their immune systems during a flight. This was underlined with the product tagline, “Emerge your best, no matter where you go!” Plus, travelers who arrive early or who are experiencing delays are literally a captive audience and often eager for a novel airport experience while they wait.
To promote its new horror series Grotesquerie, TV network FX decided to think inside the box. Specifically, boxes called “scream chambers” (think old-fashioned phone booths) that they placed in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York on a Friday the 13th this past autumn.
Once inside, participants were invited to pick up the handset and let out a scream. When they did, the scream chamber’s built-in “scream meter” would let them know how powerful their vocalization was. For FX fans not lucky enough to be in one of the cities with scream chambers, there was an opportunity to contribute screams remotely through social media.
Once all the screams had been collected, FX tapped GRAMMY-winning producer Blake Slatkin to mix some of them into a brand-new, publicly released track to celebrate the show’s debut.
What’s brilliant about this experiential event is the unique, involved role the audience is asked to play. Audiences were excited about the chance to collaborate on this track, and it created a meaningful relationship with the show before it even aired. This made it more likely participants would tune in, but it also increased the shareability of their experiences with the scream chambers online, generating even more awareness for the show.
Speaking of networks utilizing experiential events to create buzz, Max (previously HBO Max) promoted its latest season of True Detective by installing billboards disguised as immersive experiences.
The billboards were essentially giant ice sculptures, surrounded by police tape, that melted over the course of the day to reveal the pieces of clothing and lines from the show embedded inside. A nearby QR code allowed viewers to learn more about the new season.
The billboard installations made passersby in New York and Los Angeles feel like they had stumbled into a scene of the Alaska-set season of the creepy murder mystery—a surefire way to generate intrigue for the show.
Following up on the success of LEGO’s Build the Change sustainability-focused challenge, which was launched in 2022 and encouraged children to build solutions to environmental problems using LEGO blocks, this year LEGO partnered with YELLOW, artist Pharrel Williams’ nonprofit, for a more playful take on the challenge.
In this campaign, children everywhere are invited to imagine and build their ideal space to learn, play and grow. Kids can use LEGOs, crafting materials, or drawings to express their design ideas and submit them via a link. The challenge has the goal of honoring diverse learning styles by encouraging kids to dream up their own ideal “school of tomorrow.”
To launch its new Chicken Big Mac, McDonald’s pulled out all the stops for a huge marketing campaign involving everything from a new commercial, a Las Vegas Sphere takeover, a Zynga mini-game, presence at Billboard Latin Music Week, and an experiential event featuring an invented McDonald’s dupe called “McDonnell’s.”
The fictional McDonnell’s, presented as a pop-up restaurant in LA, was very similar in branding and concept to McDonald’s. Attendees were served the new sandwich and interviewed about how McDonnell’s compares to McDonald’s. The campaign leveraged the popularity of dupe culture to make sure the new menu item made a splash.
Brewing company Modelo elevated the standard marketing photo booth during fan festivities around this year’s College Football Playoff National Championship game in Houston.
The company provided fans with Modelo-branded football props like golden footballs, oversize hats, and turnover chains, and encouraged them to pose for the Modelo-branded camera. Instead of receiving standard photo-booth prints, however, fans received their photos as personalized trading cards they could share digitally.
This simple twist on a classic event staple boosted both the shareability of the photos and the memorability of the event.
Athletic industry giants Nike and Dick’s Sporting Goods have teamed up every year since 2021 for It’s Her Shot, an event centering young female basketball players. It’s Her Shot is a mobile tour that offers free skills workshops, talks from WNBA athletes and sports influencers, coaching, giveaways and more. This year, the tour stopped in six cities and served girls and young women from ages eight to 18.
Young athletes got to hear from WNBA icons Sheryl Swoopes and Sylvia Fowles, experience unique photo ops, and participate in skill challenges, complete with prizes from the brands. The Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation also made grants to community partners in the cities visited to keep the empowerment and opportunity going after the tour’s end.
If you know your target audience’s preferred social media platforms and interact meaningfully with them, you can have a hit experiential marketing campaign on your hands.
The North Face did just that when they teamed up with Snap Inc. to create a Snapchat filter that placed a giant version of one of their most popular backpack models on top of the most famous branch of the New York Public Library for the back-to-school season.
Students are an important demographic for The North Face, so it made sense to launch the filter on a platform known to be popular with young people.
Pinterest is a social media platform known for its fun, user-friendly digital vision boards. This year, the company turned heads at Coachella with experiential marketing that brought those digital boards to life.
The Pinterest pop-up at the festival was called Manifest Station, and allowed attendees to express themselves through music festival fashion and makeup trends catalogued on Pinterest, including “nostalgic 2014 core” and “dark feminine aesthetic”.
Festival-goers could get outfit and merch embellishments from celebrity stylists and Pinterest-trend-inspired looks from a celebrity makeup artist. They could then capture it all in the branded photo-op area, which was styled to look like it was straight out of a Pinterest board.
Airbnb partnered with Mattel to celebrate the 35th anniversary of its beloved, tiny Polly Pocket doll. They built a life-sized replica of a 1994 compact Polly Pocket dollhouse, then listed it on Airbnb with Polly herself as the host. Only a few lucky guests got to stay at the limited-time-only Airbnb.
This experiential event was all about tapping into unabashed nostalgia for childhood pastimes. Attendees got to raid a fridge filled with classic ‘90s sleepover snacks, watch VHS movies on Polly’s big plastic couch, give each other makeovers at Polly’s vanity, and even try on life-size versions of Polly’s outfits.
The flawless recreation of the 1994 toy, attention to detail with the sleepover events, and the casting of Polly as an Airbnb host make this one of the best experiential events of 2024.
Paris Olympics sponsor Proctor & Gamble created health and wellness services for Olympic and Paralympic athletes this year. The corporation created spaces for athletes in the Olympic Village prominently featuring its sub-brands. Examples include a Pampers-branded nursery, where athletes and their families could spend time with their young kids, an Oral-B dental clinic, and a multi-brand beauty and grooming salon where athletes could receive complimentary treatments.
While elite athletes used to be presented as super-human, recent industry trends have gravitated toward presenting them in a more holistic manner. Many athletes are raising families, dealing with health issues, or in need of mental health support. Proctor & Gamble’s sponsorship earns its spot as one of the best experiential events of the year because it’s right in line with this emerging public view of athletes.
To launch its new fragrance, Paradoxe Virtual Flower, Prada invited fragrance heads to visit the Paradoxe Virtual Flower Lab during New York Fashion Week. The Flower Lab was an immersive pop-up experiential event that allowed participants to experience the new fragrance in multiple forms.
Highlights included the “bubble room” where guests could pop bubbles that contained the different notes included in the perfume, and a 3D scanner to take 360-degree branded digital photos. Visitors got a free sample of the perfume and a charming, petite bouquet of flowers to take home.
To connect with their key target demographic of college students, clothing brand Pretty Little Thing embarked on a back-to-school pop-up tour of college campuses this fall. Their branded pink school bus is certainly eye-catching, and the brand offered exclusive discounts, cute photo ops, and a prize wheel (also pink, of course).
This is one of the few experiential marketing campaigns on this list that features a tour element. While the upfront cost of touring experiential events can be higher, directly reaching multiple target geographies can be well worth the cost.
Some of the best experiential events connect with potential customers by simply giving them what they need, when they need it. Delivery company Shipt did that through their experiential advertising at Austin’s SXSW Film & TV Festival.
The idea was simple: have street teams distribute branded festival essentials, such as sunscreen, fans, and energy drinks, to attendees around the SXSW grounds. They also partnered with local influencer Rachel Lately to make sure the experiential event went beyond just SXSW attendees.
This campaign is smart for identifying and underlining the brand’s value to customers—get things delivered right to you, right when you need them—and embodying it in an experiential marketing event.
Speaking of giving people what they want and need, video game company Supercell scored one of the best experiential events of the year by creating branded bathroom stalls for San Diego Comic-Con attendees, styled after their popular mobile game, Clash of Clans.
This experiential campaign concept is a cheeky nod to the high percentage of mobile gamers who say they play on the toilet. Supercell and their experiential marketing agency committed fully to the bit, with everything from the fake graffiti to the soap dispenser to the toilet paper being tied to the game.
Anticipating that bathroom lines at Comic-Con can be lengthy, the experiential event designers made sure that fans waiting in line had something fun to do as well. The area around the mobile bathroom stalls included branded merch giveaways and photo ops.
This is one of the experiential marketing examples that highlights the importance of deeply understanding your audience.
To get fans of the video game Borderlands excited for its upcoming movie adaptation, Mountain Dew, Regal Cinemas, and Lionsgate partnered to transform an ordinary Albuquerque motel into a recreation of the Borderlands world.
The Mountain Dew Borderlands Motel invited fans to party with a live DJ, food, and lots of Mountain Dew. They could explore different character’s rooms and enter for a chance to win an animatronic replica of one of the film’s characters, who wandered around the event for photo ops.
Qatar Airways created one of the best experiential events of the year by utilizing AI to truly put its audience at the center of the campaign. Fans can upload photos of themselves to be digitally inserted into a short romantic film. The film highlights the glamour of travel and specifically of Qatar Airways’ services and destinations.
This campaign works because even though the technology is cutting-edge, it builds off an age-old human tendency to romanticize travel and fantasize about incredible trips to far-off lands.
Experiential marketing events aren’t going anywhere. We predict experiential advertising will only become more popular in the coming years as brands work to stand out from the competition, and we hope this list of the best experiential events of the year has given you some ideas for your own brand.
And if you need production accounting and payroll help for your next marketing campaign, reach out to Wrapbook. We’d love to help you make your project happen!
