The Experiential Explosion of 2026
As a creative leader with a decade of experience in experiential marketing, people might say I was tooting my own horn when I wrote last year’s article about experiential being the next big thing in marketing. But my job as a creative director is to be embedded deep in culture and look for signs of what’s hot and what’s coming next, so I’m just going to go ahead and say it: I called it.
In case you’ve been distracted by the state of the world and missed it, Publicis Groupe acquired 160over90, one of the biggest experiential agencies in the business, in a deal estimated between $160 and $200 million. Soon enough, the rest of the agency conglomerate titans will follow, desperate to make their outdated business models survive a little longer. And not only them. Marketing visionaries like Gary Vaynerchuk’s agency, VaynerMedia, are actively recruiting experiential talent to build up their internal XM capabilities. This isn’t a fad. It’s not a trend. It’s a business reality.
Roughly 74 percent of brands are planning to increase their experiential spend going into 2026. The shift is already happening.
Soon enough, we’ll see XM move from a below-the-line afterthought to an above-the-line priority. But I don’t have much hope that this will spark an experiential renaissance. I think we’re heading straight into an era of XM Slop.
Why?
In conversations with people inside these agencies, I’ve already noticed leaders lumping XM together with sports and live music efforts, which is a big mistake. They do it because they don’t really understand what XM is or the power it unlocks. “Events are events,” they say, and treat this brand-building magic portal like an afternoon with the boys at the sports bar. I get it. Familiar feels safe. And safety is a priority for the people at the top.
Truth is, there is of course some overlap in the fandom side of brand relevance. But the thing most non-XM advertisers still miss is that experiential has the power to create that fandom before it exists.
At its best, experiential marketing is an opportunity to immerse people in a world of brand affinity, where fun, wow moments, and in-person human connection turn into memories, which in turn unlock long-term loyalty. Do that consistently, long enough, and that loyalty becomes fandom.
All that to say, those of us who have been building experiential marketing into the force it is today have an outsized opportunity to lead the industry forward. Away from shoving ads in people’s faces, and toward inviting them into the real world to experience something worth remembering, courtesy of the world’s most interesting brands.
And to all those leaders I’ve been talking about: we see you. We’ll be here when you’re ready to be humble and learn from the people who have put in the work. The overnight load-ins. The chaos. The craft. The years it took to build this thing you’re now trying to get your clammy greedy fingers on.
At the end of the day, nothing would make me happier than seeing advertising, both as a business and as a cultural force, finally become something that’s fun to make, fun to experience, and actually worth people’s time. Because we have the collective talent, the taste and the heart to make it happen.
Challenge accepted?