From Traditional Marketing to Experience-First Dominance
Digital ads reach audiences, sure – but experiential marketing creates memories. In a world saturated by algorithms, programmatic ad buys, and endless scroll, brands are rediscovering something ancient: the human need to feel, touch, and belong. The future of marketing is not just digital; it’s intensely experiential.
Gen Z and Millennials, despite growing up online, are increasingly craving offline experiences that feel authentic, crucially, and shareable. They don’t just buy products; they buy participation. According to a 2024 Student Beans study, a massive 76 % of Gen Z consumers say they’re more loyal to brands that “create real-world experiences or events.” This is why, across industries, the most successful campaigns today aren’t built around impressions – they’re built around immersion.
OTINGA Insight: “Modern brands don’t just tell stories, they stage them.”
This isn’t new, but it’s evolved. This shift is rooted in what experiential strategist Smilansky (2009) called interaction as brand exchange: consumers refuse to be passive like Red Bull Flugtag and Nike Run London – used physical space to create brand meaning. When people interact with your brand through the senses touch, sound, and feeling you move from mere visibility to lasting memory. It’s no longer a transaction; it’s an emotional exchange. In 2025, however, brands fuse digital storytelling with real-world emotion.
Retailtainment – The Rise of the Experience Economy
Marketing scholar Batat (2021) calls this movement the “7 Es Framework” Experience, Exchange, Engagement, Emotion, Empathy, Exclusivity, and Equity.
It builds on a powerful truth: consumers no longer separate shopping from entertainment. In retail, this has become known as “Retailtainment.” Sephora, The Ordinary, and even Barbie exemplify it, transforming product discovery into sensory theatre. Whether it’s a neon-pink Barbie dreamscape or a skincare counter that feels like a lab-meets-lounge, every touchpoint becomes part of the brand’s cinematic world.
OTINGA Insight: “Retailtainment isn’t about distraction, it’s about deepening desire.
Case study 1: Sephora UK – Opening Day Hype Done Right If one brand has mastered turning queues into viral campaigns, it’s Sephora. After years away from the UK, Sephora’s grand return became a national cultural event. From Sephora Sheffield to Birmingham, shoppers queued before dawn. At Meadowhall, Sheffield, over 1,000 beauty fans lined up overnight for the 9 am opening (Yorkshire Post, 2025). Why the queue? Not just for mascara, but for meaning and belonging. Why did they queue for hours? Not for mascara for meaning. Read more: Why People Queue for Hours at Sephora, Apple & Space NK? What’s the New Marketing Trend?
OTINGA Insight: “People weren’t queuing for products. They were queuing for proximity to culture.”
Case study 2: The Ordinary – The Science of Simplicity
if Sephora embodies the spectacle of experience, The Ordinary and Anua represent its intimacy.The Ordinary’s success is built on transparency. But as its products became cult favourites online, the brand recognised a new challenge: how to translate that digital trust into tactile connection, they launched a “Campus Skincare Experience Tour” (The Ordinary, 2025) across UK universities. promoting their new The Ordinary the clear set to students, the campaign:
- Execution: With interactive pop-ups staffed by trained advisors, students could test serums, measure hydration, and leave with personalised samples linked to digital QR codes for further advice (The Ordinary, 2025).
- The win: The booths weren’t selling skincare; they were teaching self-knowledge, fusing education with emotion.
OTINGA Insight: “Skincare is personal. The Ordinary understood that trust begins when hands meet skin not just when eyes meet ads.” This approach aligns perfectly with Batat’s (2021) framework of Empathy and Exchange. By letting consumers physically explore texture, scent, and routine, The Ordinary tapped into sensory storytelling, what Batat (2022) later identified as the key to deep emotional branding.
Case study 3: Anua: Calm Corners and Gentle Encounters
K-Beauty brand Anua, known for its “Heartleaf 77 % Soothing Toner,” or Anua 10 niacinamide serum approached experience with quiet empathy. At booth, they built “Calm Corners” at pop-ups. These minimalist booths used soft lighting, ambient music, and tactile product testers.
- Execution: Visitors could test products, play skincare mini-games, or win prizes through small acts of self-care. Every detail, from soft lighting to tactile product textures told the same story: gentle, mindful care.
- The Win: This sensory cohesion (Batat, 2022) created emotional immersion. The result? 1.5K new followers from one campus activation and a 25% conversion from sample to purchase (Anua Global, 2025).
- The results? 1.5 K new followers gained from one campus activation and 25 % conversion from sample to purchase (Anua Global, 2025).
OTINGA Insight: “Anua didn’t just invite people to try skincare, it invited them to breathe.” Anua products who previously only available in Yesstyle now available anywhere in the UK. These activations may seem small next to Sephora’s spectacle, but for niche brands, intimacy is scale. Read more KBeauty build industry through emotion and effectiveness
Case study 4: Apple iPhone – The Power of Ritual and Anticipation Every September, we see a familiar sight: people lining up for hours — sometimes days — outside Apple Stores.In 2025, it happened again for the newest iPhone 17 Pro and Pro max available in store during launching. From London to Tokyo, customers queued in the rain, filming TikToks, chatting with staff, and documenting the moment like a pilgrimage. Read more: Why People Queue for Hours at Sephora, Apple & Space NK? What’s the New Marketing Trend?
Results Snapshot – What Experience Achieves
| Brand | Activation Type | Key Outcome |
| Sephora UK | Store launch festival | 6K+ in-store visits on opening day |
| The Ordinary | Skincare booth demos | 2K+ samples distributed, 40% online traffic spike |
| Anua | Campus event games | 1.5K+ new followers, 25% conversion rate |
| Barbie Movie | Global experiential campaign | $1.4B+ box office revenue |
| Apple | iPhone 17 Pro launch | 500M+ TikTok views, 15-min sellout in UK |
The Psychology of Experience
Why does experiential marketing outperform traditional advertising, even in the digital age? Because it taps into what humans value most, emotion, memory, and meaning. According to Zaltman (2016), 95% of consumer decisions occur in the subconscious mind. People don’t buy from logic; they buy from feeling.
Diagram showing brain-emotion connection with “Experience → Emotion → Memory → Loyalty” loop)
- Multi-Sensory Engagement When a brand engages more than one sense – sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, it activates the brain’s hippocampus, which forms long-term memory. As Steidl (2018) and Batat (2021) highlight, sensory consistency strengthens brand recognition.This is why Sephora sprays fragrance samples in-store, why Anua’s booths feel calm and tactile, why Apple’s packaging is engineered to sound like a whisper when opened. These are micro-experiences but together, they build emotional equity. OTINGA Insight: “Every sensory detail tells your customer what your brand believes in.”
- Memory and Ownership Memory creates belonging. When consumers participate, they feel ownership. This is central to Smilansky’s (2009) experiential framework: the more a consumer acts within a brand moment, the more likely they are to internalise the brand identity. Apple and Sephora’s opening-day lines weren’t just marketing stunts, they were acts of inclusion. People didn’t just attend; they identified. OTINGA Insight: “Engagement builds memory. Memory builds loyalty.”
Lessons for SMEs – Turning Experience into Advantage
Not every business has a Sephora or Apple’s global stage. But experiential strategy scales down beautifully.
Here’s how SMEs can create high-impact, low-cost brand experiences:
- Pop-up storytelling: Host micro-experiences – a booth, a small workshop, a street pop-up. Focus on narrative over size.
- Touch and Try: Let customers test, feel, or taste before buying. The physical connection accelerates trust.
- Encourage digital storytelling: Design every activation for selfie and reel moments – your customers become your free amplification
- Collaborate locally: Partner with micro-influencers, student groups, or artisans to co-create moments.
- Make every detail experiential: Packaging, lighting, music, staff tone – every sensory detail tells your customer what your brand believes in (Steidl, 2018).
OTINGA Insight: “Experience doesn’t cost millions — it costs attention.”
Conclusion: Experience as the New Brand Currency
Experience marketing isn’t about replacing advertising. It’s about transforming it, from telling stories to staging them. Consumers now expect brands to be present in their world: emotionally, digitally, and physically. That’s why experience-first marketing is not a trend; it’s the new baseline. Brands that win like Sephora, Anua, Barbie, Apple, share one truth: they let people belong. OTINGA Insight: “People forget ads, but they never forget how your brand made them feel.” Subscribes and Download the OTINGA Experiential Marketing Playbook for SMEs Learn how to design campaigns that move beyond impressions — to create moments that matter. Authentic. Emotional. Profitable.
References (Harvard UK Style)
- Apple Insider (2025) ‘iPhone 17 Pro Launch Recap’. Available at: https://appleinsider.com (Accessed: 13 October 2025).
- Anua Global (2025) ‘K-Beauty Pop-up & Event Report’. Available at: https://anua.us (Accessed: 13 October 2025).
- Batat, W. (2021) Experiential Marketing: Consumer Behavior, Customer Experience and the 7Es. London: Routledge.
- Batat, W. (2022) The Art of Engagement: Emotional Branding in the Experience Economy. Paris: Dunod.
- Smilansky, S. (2009) Experiential Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand Experiences. London: Kogan Page.
- Smith, K. and Hanover, D. (2016) Experiential Marketing: Secrets, Strategies and Success Stories from the World’s Greatest Brands. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
- Steidl, P. (2018) The Science of Branding. Sydney: Pearson.
- Student Beans (2024) ‘Gen Z Brand Engagement Study’. Available at: https://www.studentbeans.com/blog/uk/ (Accessed: 13 October 2025).
- The Ordinary (2025) ‘Campus Skincare Experience Tour’. Available at: https://theordinary.com (Accessed: 13 October 2025).
- Zaltman, G. (2016) How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
