Imagine walking into a store where, instead of being bombarded with sales pitches, you’re invited into a whole new world. You step into an Ikea, and it’s not just about buying a new couch – it’s about envisioning the kind of life you could live with that couch. Or maybe you’re at Starbucks, sipping on your usual order but feeling like it’s somehow more than just coffee; it’s a mood, a community, maybe even a lifestyle. Welcome to the world of ‘Experience Culture,’ where brands aren’t just selling products; they’re offering up little universes for us to step into, explore, and make our own.
Nike doesn’t persuade consumers with ads; it integrates itself into their lives through fitness tracking, achievement sharing, and motivation. Royal Enfield sells not just motorcycles but the spirit of the open road, nurturing a brotherhood of riders. Red Bull’s product barely appears in its communications; instead, it powers a world of extreme sports, art, and culture.
This evolution signals the blurring boundaries between marketing and life itself. As brands build ecosystems of engagement, they aren’t just selling products anymore but shaping experiences.
Platinum Guild International came up with a fan-first campaign, offering fans a rare opportunity to come face-to-face with cricketer and brand ambassador MS Dhoni. Sujala Martis, Director – Consumer Marketing (India), Platinum Guild International, says that such experiences aren’t just about selling, it’s about stirring something real. It’s the art of turning a fleeting moment into a lasting memory, into meaning. She adds that its success is measured by conversations sparked and the cultural impact it creates. The best experiences draw people in, inviting them to belong to something bigger.
“In a world where audiences can scroll past content in a heartbeat, the true power of an experience lies in how it changes what people feel about your brand, how they interact with it and how they remember it. When experiences leave an emotional imprint, they build momentum that turns into advocacy and cultural relevance, the metrics that matter most in the age of attention fatigue,” Martis explains.
So, what’s behind this shift? And why are we, as customers, gravitating towards it? Let’s take a look at how these brands are pulling us in, one experience at a time. It’s more than shopping or working out – it’s a carefully crafted invitation to connect, belong, and be part of a story. Dive in as we explore how Starbucks, Cult Fitness, McDowell’s and more have embraced the experience culture and made it a game-changer for all of us.
“I’m a big fan of Ikea myself, and one of the most striking things is how non-intrusive the shopping experience feels. The layout and communication guide you seamlessly from one section to the next, making the whole process very engaging. You’re free to explore without anyone pressuring you to buy, which makes discovering new items enjoyable. People often go in with specific plans but end up purchasing much more than intended, a testament to how the setup encourages exploration. Even the subtle, welcoming environment in-store feels less like a sales pitch and more like an invitation to interact with the products at your own pace,” says Sudhir Nair, Founder and CEO, 21N78E.
Ikea stores are designed to feel more like a curated experience than a typical retail store. They’re known for their distinctive layout: a winding pathway called ‘the maze’ guides customers through various showroom setups, each resembling different rooms in a home. The spaces are organised to inspire, with staged living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms showcasing products in real-life settings, so you can visualise how items might look in your own space.
“In store, our showrooms are designed to inspire, showcasing real-life room settings customers can relate to. Online, we offer tools like the Ikea Kreativ, a design tool allowing customers to visualise products in their homes. By combining practical solutions, immersive in-store experiences, and seamless online tools, we create meaningful connections that enhance our customers’ lives at home,” says Jasmeet Sood, Country Manager - Home Furnishing & Retail Design Manager, Ikea India.
Vishesh Sahni, Founder & CEO, White, states that digital and on-ground initiatives have increasingly become inextricable from each other. A digital campaign that talks ‘at’ its audience but doesn’t weave in a more interactive, experiential lens to the conversation is rarely memorable. On the other hand, an on-ground experience lives in posterity for digital-native audiences to consume, beyond just the ones who attended it in person.
“Experiential has expanded its own definition and scope over the past few years. It is no longer restricted to brand events – but rather envisioning a holistic, integrated approach that creates resonance, memorability, and active interaction,” he explains.
Burger King has consistently embraced technology to engage its fans into having memorable experiences. During a major cricket event, the company connected with audiences through real-time, contextual messaging, creating a unique experience during a widely watched tournament. During Diwali 2025, Burger King launched ‘#BurgerKingSwaadKaPatakha’, an innovative campaign inviting customers to a microsite where they can select a favourite Burger King item and pair it with a firecracker. With AI, they can design personalised packaging to share on social media, and by tagging Burger King India with #BurgerKingSwaadKaPatakha, they’ll receive a free Whopper. This campaign celebrated the festive spirit and let the customers create memorable experiences. The burger joint focused on variety and affordability in their offerings, introducing new products based on customer preferences.
Additionally, the company launched BK Café, a platform offering a diverse selection of beverages to enhance the in-store experience. Kapil Grover, Chief Marketing Officer, Burger King India, says, “We have deployed multiple successful campaigns in the past; However, our most recent campaign ran on International Coffee Day, when we launched ‘Roast the Roast’, inviting guests to share and roast their worst coffee experiences while enjoying free coffee. The campaign went viral reaching over 60 million audiences and garnered over 75 million impressions, including 1.02 lakh likes, 6.2 million post engagements and more than 800 shares across social media platforms.”
Every day, we see brands continually evolving and strengthening their experiential ecosystem, introducing new and refreshing experiences. The launch of Barbie with a Diwali-themed makeover is a historic step forward for the brand, highlighting cultural representation in a meaningful way. This special collaboration with a renowned Indian designer presents the iconic doll in a fresh light, honouring Indian traditions and style on an international platform. It’s more than a doll in festive clothing; it’s the first initiative to truly ‘Indianize’ Barbie, transforming her into a lively symbol of Indian culture.
As a producer, Ganesh Pareek, Executive Producer and Partner, First December Films, says that he treats every campaign like a live show —where the experience doesn’t end with the curtain call, but continues through sustained audience interaction. That’s the new expectation: don’t just capture attention, choreograph emotion that travels.
“They [the brands] still say ‘we want a film’, but what they actually mean is ‘we want something that people will feel’. A film has become the emotional spark that starts a larger ecosystem,” he describes what brands today are focusing on. “When Marvel made Iron Man, it didn’t end with one movie; it opened a universe. That’s exactly how brand work functions now. The film is just Act 1; the Reels, concerts, and creator collabs are Acts 2, 3, and 4. Every brief now asks: ‘How do we make people live inside the story?,’” he explains.
Somany Ceramics aligns its strategies with a design culture that prioritises personalisation and creativity, with a strong commitment to fostering a Design-Centric Community. The company’s showrooms act as inspiration hubs, featuring case studies, model setups, and exclusive design consultations. Through collaborative spaces—both physical, like flagship showrooms, and digital, including an online platform—Somany Ceramics empowers customers, designers, and architects to connect, engage, and bring innovative design concepts to life.
“It’s a strategic move to deepen emotional connections with consumers, enhancing relatability and fostering loyalty. The cultural relevance of this collaboration is key: it speaks directly to Indian consumers, a market that values both heritage and modernity, and strengthens the global appeal of Barbie by embracing diversity. From a marketing perspective, this ‘glocalisation’ strategy—adapting a global brand to reflect local culture—cements Barbie’s position as a brand that celebrates all children, embracing their unique identities and cultures. It also reinforces that it isn’t just a seasonal product; but a sustainable brand relationship builder,” says Anshuman Chakravarty, VP & Head of Marketing and Communication, Somany Ceramics.
Brands also create experiences that can be tweaked by people and turned into fun marketing campaigns. A great example of a brand experience is Spotify Wrapped. It’s an annual experience that Spotify creates for their listeners based on their listening data.
“Over the years, it’s become a cultural phenomenon where now a lot of brands replicate the wrapped format and engage with their target audience. Last year, the Congress party as well as the BJP, used our Spotify Wrapped format to communicate their messages for the election campaign. Even Mumbai traffic police issued a ‘Wrapped Card’ of the number of challans issued by them,” says Vikram Pandey, Chief Creative Officer, Leo India.
In a world where products and services are easily replicable, it’s the experiences crafted by a brand that truly set it apart. The rise of the ‘Experience Economy’ is fuelled by our collective thirst for validation on social media, where, if something isn’t ‘post-worthy,’ it hardly feels like an experience at all. This phenomenon has turned experiences into social currency, pushing brands to design moments that not only engage customers but also inspire them to share. Brands that excel at creating these memorable, sharable experiences stand out in today’s competitive market, tapping into consumers’ desire for both connection and online visibility.
For Sumbul Khan, Country Lead, Virtue Asia, brand experiences have been pivotal in driving brand loyalty and preference for a while. Giving examples of brands such as Lego, Victoria’s Secret, Apple, Lululemon, she says that it is imperative upon brand marketers and agencies now more than ever to deliver authentic brand interfaces and interactions, while remaining salient.
“The consumer is also the creator now and the key stakeholder in a brand’s narrative as well, be it in the digital world through reviews, unboxings, and hauls or in the offline environment, where consumers experience, share, and engage with brands both online and as part of offline fandoms,” she adds.
In today’s cluttered media environment, marketers are increasingly realising that creating impact requires presence in both digital and physical spaces. Tushar Khakhar, First Executive at Agency09, notes that immersive experiences are the new differentiators. “They go beyond the transactional and position the brand in the user’s mind through engagement, not interruption. The best part? People don’t just consume them, they remember and share them.”
Khakhar explains that these two dimensions work best in tandem, each amplifying the other. “They echo each other to deepen loyalty,” he says. “A physical event might spark the emotion, and a digital touchpoint keeps it alive.”
For advertising agencies, this transformation demands a fundamental rethink of their role. “For agencies, this means moving from campaign creators to architects designing experience ecosystems,” he adds.
Ajeeta Bharadwaj, Chief Strategy Officer at Wondrlab Network, views the biggest reality of branding and advertising as the clutter that brands must navigate to get their message across. She believes that post-Covid years have added clutter to most categories - a case in point being the sheer volume of D2C brands that we are seeing across categories. “As more and more brands start to focus on digitisation, this has added clutter on every platform. Just to give a sense of how much data is coming our way today. As per the Data Never Sleeps report, every minute of the day, 138.9 million reels get played on Instagram + Facebook! So, if a brand wants to use Instagram as a medium to send out a perfectly authentic message, the competition is not just the other brands in the category, it is all that branded and unbranded Instagram content that it must wade through. It’s becoming harder to get through in an authentic and compelling manner, and this is reflecting in falling brand loyalty scores across categories,” she says.
As consumers grew increasingly numb to direct product pitches, marketers began searching for more meaningful ways to connect. The answer, many believe, lay in experiences that evoke emotion rather than explanation.
Kunal Vora, Founder-Partner at ABND, explains that the real power of experiential marketing came from its ability to leave a lasting emotional imprint. “Specs fade. Feelings stick,” he says. “Experiences aren’t about what a product does, they’re about what it makes you feel, that is, thrill, pride, or belonging. Humans remember emotions more than features. Experiential marketing embeds the brand in memory because it’s personal, social, and sensory,” Vora clarifies.
He also points out that technological innovation has only amplified this potential. With tools like AI-driven personalisation and immersive digital environments, brands could now tailor interactions to individual preferences. “With advancements like AI-driven personalisation and immersive environments, brands can now tailor experiences to individuals, creating deeper, more meaningful connections,” he adds.
Pragati Rana, Head of Originals, Regional Creative Officer - West and Founding Partner, tgthr, asserts that digital tells but the real-world proves. A digital campaign can declare a brand’s purpose. But a real-world experience makes people feel it, live it, and ultimately trust it. According to her, this is what today’s “cynical, ad-fatigued consumers value most. Not promises, but proof. Not words, but commitment.”
When both worlds work together, loyalty is born. Digital spreads the story. Real-world experience validates it. Together, they transform a message into a movement. “Agencies can no longer just craft clever ads. They need to design ecosystems where digital communication and physical experiences feed each other. The role shifts from making messages to making proof points. From storytelling to story-living,” Rana shares.
Echoing the sentiment, Dhanya Mohan - Lead - Strategy, TheSmallBigIdea, points out that many e-commerce-first home decor brands are now using physical experience centers as their only ATL strategy. These mini-zones serve as always-on, live hoarding spaces where consumers can interact with the brand beyond the screen. While the reach may be lesser than traditional ATL mediums, the impact on brand equity and affinity is higher.
“For agencies, this shift means evolving from campaign creators to experience zone designers- across physical and virtual mediums (virtual trials, AR/AI integrations, gamified interactions, or digital IPs). The future lies in creating brand IPs and ecosystems, not just campaigns,” she adds.
Ultimately, we’re living in an age where brands are designing entire worlds for us to step into, each one crafted to leave a lasting impression. Whether it’s the immersive Ikea maze, a unique Starbucks vibe, or Burger King’s playful Diwali campaign, these experiences go beyond transactions—they’re stories we want to be part of, moments we want to share. With the ‘Experience Economy’ rising, brands are challenging themselves to create experiences that are memorable, shareable, and distinctly ‘post-worthy.’ This shift isn’t just about showcasing products; it’s about fostering connections and letting customers feel like they belong.
