8 Types of Experiential Marketing with Examples

The sheer volume of ads and marketing messages consumers are inundated with daily makes standing out from the competition harder than ever in 2025. So much so that a Marketing Brew survey reported 41% of respondents saying they remember fewer than 10% of the ads they’d seen in the past 24 hours.
Breaking through the noise in the multi-platform, multi-screen world of 2025 is more complex than ever. That’s why many brands look to experiential for the answer.
When done well and backed by the right tools, live marketing experiences create positive memories, capture leads and provide the data needed to extend consumer connections long past activation day. But there’s more than one way to generate buzz with experiential marketing.
This article explores eight types of experiential marketing—with real-world examples—to inspire your next activation.
8 Types of Experiential Marketing with Examples
From immersive activations to product sampling, brands use experiential marketing to forge deeper customer connections, generate buzz, and drive meaningful engagement.
Below, we break down eight powerful experiential marketing tactics, complete with real-world examples to inspire your next campaign.
1. Brand Activation: Turning Consumers into Brand Advocates
Brand activations are experiences that provide a real-life immersive experience to create connections between consumers and a brand. It involves consumer participation in an experience that drives sales by collecting data and creating emotional attachments.
Goals:
- Drive brand engagement through real-time interactions
- Create emotional connections that build long-term loyalty
- Collect valuable consumer data for future campaigns
Example: IKEA Sleepover
The IKEA Sleepover in 2011 started with identifying a Facebook group called ‘I wanna have a sleepover in IKEA’ and ended with an immersive experience that included guests personalizing beds, pillows and bedding and getting tips from a sleep expert. It’s a perfect example of a brand recognizing an opportunity and creating buzz and memories for an engaged consumer base.
2. Guerrilla Marketing: Low Budget, High Impact
Guerilla Marketing is a cost-effective, unconventional marketing tactic designed to surprise and engage people in unexpected locations. A great activation requires elements of creativity and surprise, often in an unexpected public location.
Goals:
- Create viral buzz with minimal budget
- Generate social sharing and media coverage
- Make a bold, memorable statement
Example: Fiji Water Girl (2019 Golden Globes)
Fiji Water Girl. There are legitimate questions about whether this was on purpose, but there is no doubt that a series of photobombs at the 2019 Golden Globes became the viral story of a cultural event. It also had the bonus of being kept in the news after, thanks to lawsuits between the model and the brand. It really couldn’t have gone better from a marketing perspective.
3. Product Demonstrations: Show, Don’t Just Tell
A hands-on showcase that lets customers experience a product’s benefits firsthand. Product demos are used because they engage multiple senses—seeing, touching, and hearing. It’s also proof of value in real-time.
Goals:
-
Build trust and credibility.
-
Engage multiple senses to reinforce brand value.
-
Convert prospects into customers.
Example: Tupperware Parties
Tupperware Parties have existed since the 1950s for a reason. They are the classic blueprint for a successful product demo. A relatable, engaging brand ambassador drives conversions with a proof-of-concept demonstration to a targeted, engaged audience. Any marketer planning demos today can learn much from what started eight decades ago.
4. Product Launch: Making A Great First Impression
This is a strategic introduction of a new product to the market. It’s typically used to generate awareness and excitement, attract early adopters and drive initial sales. A grand product launch involves coordinated marketing, PR, and live excitement to create buzz. That often means investing higher budgets to make bigger splashes.
Goals:
-
Create buzz and anticipation.
-
Establish a strong market presence from day one.
-
Generate media coverage and social sharing.
Example: Apple iPhone Launch
Nothing in recent memory tops the 2007 iPhone launch. Steve Jobs and Apple revolutionized pocket-sized communication, knowledge, and entertainment. Take a few minutes to watch this masterclass on generating excitement while explaining features and pricing.
5. Event Marketing
Events created or sponsored by brands that build brand awareness by engaging consumers directly. Event marketing involves a wide range of possibilities, including organizing aspects of an entire event, branding, naming rights, signage, etc., and even other marketing activations inside the event.
Goals:
-
Build brand awareness through direct consumer interaction.
-
Create emotional connections that increase brand loyalty.
-
Leverage event sponsorships to expand reach.
It’s an opportunity to tailor experiences to audiences and create emotional attachments by immersing them in a branded experience.
Example: SoFi Golf Experience
The SoFi Center is a made-for-TV golf simulator-cum-arena experience that debuted in 2025 as the home of TGL. For a banking and fintech brand, it hits all the right notes — innovative, buzzy, and catering to a high-income demographic.
6. Immersive Experience: Actively Engaging Consumers
An interactive environment that showcases a brand story or product and allows customers to be active participants in an experience. It’s meant to create memories through engagement and drive brand awareness.
Goals:
-
Build deep brand engagement through storytelling.
-
Enhance brand recall through multi-sensory experiences.
-
Generate earned media through shareable moments.
Customers are active participants in the marketing, often playing roles in the story being told.
Example: HBO’s Westworld Experience
Westworld’s “Live Without Limits Weekend” at SXSW 2018, fans of the show were bussed 30 miles outside Austin to a ghost town reimagined as Sweetwater, the show’s setting. A cast of 60 actors, six stunt people, five bands and horses were used to bring the Weekend to life for attendees who became players in the narratives. The activation promoted the coming season and reinforced HBO as a premium content creator.
7. Product Sampling: Try Before You Buy
Offering free samples to introduce a product and encourage purchase. The goal is to drive sales and awareness by allowing people to eat/play with/try a product.
Product sampling involves giving away small quantities of a product to a targeted group of people — think bite-sized cupcakes to promote a new cake flavor at a baking convention.
Goals:
-
Allow potential customers to experience the product firsthand.
-
Build trust and reduce purchase hesitation.
-
Encourage impulse purchases and word-of-mouth marketing.
Example: Costco Free Samples
When was the last time you went to Costco? Did you have a cracker, cheese, a cookie, or maybe some olives? Did your kid demand more of something, and did you throw it in your cart? Costco samples are a reason some shoppers choose their stores, and they drive sales. Product sampling is an age-old practice that works for everything from food to cars. Because once people get a taste for something they like, they’re more likely to buy.
8. Retail Pop-Ups: Creating FOMO with Limited-Time Stores
A short-term space promotes a brand, new product, or service, typically in a high-traffic area targeting a specific customer cohort. The goal is to test a new market, create buzz, surprise and delight potential customers.
It's a highly adaptable tactic with low overhead costs and high flexibility. It also creates buzz and a sense of FOMO for customers.
Goals:
-
Create urgency and exclusivity.
-
Offer hands-on experiences in high-traffic areas.
-
Gather real-time customer feedback.
Example: Netflix’s “As Seen on Netflix”
“As Seen on Netflix” was a live and online auction for memorabilia from the streamer’s shows, which (hint, hint) are still available to watch! It drew fans and kept Netflix and its content in the pop-culture discussion.
Experiential Marketing Best Practices for Planning a Successful Campaign
Executing a successful experiential marketing campaign requires more than just creativity—it demands strategic planning, clear objectives, and measurable outcomes. To ensure your brand activations engage the right audience and deliver strong ROI, follow these key best practices.
Understand your target audience
Increase engagement by tailoring activations to resonate with an audience’s needs, interests and preferences.
Tip: Let short surveys, dynamic questionnaires, gamification, etc., do the work of gathering data so you can learn from it and create progressively better experiences.
Set goals and objectives
Make sure your marketing goals ladder up to broader business objectives so you can justify resources.
Tip: Use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) criteria to define expectations clearly and set benchmarks for success.
Create a cohesive consumer experience
Foster deeper connections and brand recall with a seamless experience that links the before, during and after every activation.
Tip: Every consumer touchpoint should have the same look, feel, and messaging to drive home your brand’s story.
Go omnichannel
Enhance your reach and build a consistent brand presence across platforms to meet and engage customers wherever they are.
Tip: Integrate online and offline channels, such as social media, email, video, audio, and live events, with a core message and creative.
Create and communicate a clear message
Cut through the noise discussed earlier to reinforce your brand story and ensure people implicitly or explicitly understand the campaign's purpose.
Tip: Keep it simple with consistent language and visuals that reflect your brand values.
Measure results and success
Measuring results identifies what works and what doesn’t so you can optimize future activations to increase their impact.
Tip: Use software tools to collect data and track KPIs, such as leads generated, social mentions, conversion rates, and ROI, to evaluate overall performance.
Using Limelight to Build a Seamless Experiential Marketing Campaign
Manage experiences
The centralized dashboard allows marketers to coordinate multiple touchpoints and activations simultaneously. Users see what’s working and what’s not in multiple locations and can optimize on the fly.
Track metrics
Whatever KPIs you’ve identified to measure your goals, you can track them in real time and make data-driven decisions immediately. This means no more waiting days or weeks for activation analysis and reporting.
Capture first-party data
A suite of online and offline data collection tools that integrate into any activation type allows brands to gather consumer information through interactive digital touchpoints. This will enable marketers to learn more about behaviors and preferences.
Automate communications
Limelight's system segments attendees and triggers personalized, timely follow-up messages based on their preferences. This means more nuanced targeting with content, offers, etc., and keeping the brand top of mind following an activation.