A murder mystery experience designed to immerse competition winners in the world of The Thursday Murder Club
The Challenge
The Solution
The Results
“It was an amazing night – champagne flowed all evening, murder mystery was fun, and our four poster bed was fit for a queen!” – A guest
A competitive football experience for celebrities and fans to play, raising awareness for adidas Soccer Aid
The Challenge
The Solution
The Results
Charlotte Bunyan, Head of Strategy & Innovation at We Are Collider, dives into why participation is the new competitive advantage for brands, and why a little play can go a long way towards achieving ROI.
In recent years, audiences have shifted away from passive consumption in favour of active participation. With content ubiquitous, just seeing something feels ordinary. People want to co-create, not spectate, and in doing so feel like part of a community.1
In real terms, this trend is driving a shift in what makes an event memorable. This is where elements of ‘play’ are such a valuable addition to an experience. Playful moments feel effortless, not work or obligation, because of our innate sense of curiosity, discovery, competition, and achievement. Done well, gamification can increase conversion by around 50% and boost engagement by 150%2
We know that competition in particular boosts memory, sentiment and advocacy. Gamification has become a buzzword for that reason, but there is a way to bring in elements of play without it seeming like you’re just jumping on the bandwagon. Brands that focus on the core of gamification – on the playfulness – and incorporate it in a way that it authentic to their identity are most likely to see real results.
Start small: find a glimmer
Adults are increasingly seeking tangible, playful experiences, from LEGO’s adult product ranges to the growing popularity of board game cafes. We also know that most grown-ups are keen to accept ‘glimmers’3 when they appear. If you’re unfamiliar, glimmers are the opposite of triggers, which are linked to the body’s stress response; glimmers instead stimulate feelings of joy, calm and safety. These small moments of happiness and surprise are opportunities to coax people to open up, forge connections and relax, and the ability to pause and recognize them when they appear is linked to lower stress and a more positive mental outlook.3
Events don’t need to jump into play or gamification with both feet to invite glimmers into their experience design. Instead, simple mechanics often outperform complex ones in practice. Think quizzes, spin-to-win setups, scavenger hunts and simple rewards mechanics.
At John Lewis Liverpool, our interactive mirror was part of an activation to promote their beauty offering; it chatted to passers-by in a thick Scouse accent, making people laugh and stop what they were doing to accept its cheerful compliments.4
These moments aren’t the headline of people’s day, but they stick with them long after they leave. The question shouldn’t be ‘how can we gamify this experience?’ but instead simply: what would make this more fun? I’d argue that nearly every event could be improved with a little more fun. Play gives everyone an equal opportunity to warm up, loosen up, and gives permission for new relationships to form organically.
The most effective networking mechanics are often simple, and playful: a shared challenge or conversation starter that gives strangers a reason to engage. We’ve seen great results from quizzes, escape room-style tasks or even ‘human experience bingo’, where participants ask each other who speaks the most languages or has eaten the weirdest food. They don’t need to be flashy to be powerful – tap into your audience’s innate sense of curiosity and simulate their competitive instincts, and connections will follow.
Designing play with purpose
So, you’re on board with building some playful glimmers into your event. I encourage you to start with the objective, not the mechanic. Start instead with the behaviour, and business outcome you’re trying to drive, then build gamified elements around interactions that contribute to that goal.
Mechanics should be intuitive and accessible, in every sense. Ease of entry should be the priority, with the option for deeper engagement if appropriate. The right level of friction is a fine line to walk, but aiming for low complication is a good starting point.
Play and gamification should feel authentic to your brand, not forced. Think about your brand values and image before committing to a big giveaway or a virtual reality experience; there will be a way to make it feel like you, and be something you can feel proud of long past the moment itself.
Measuring the impact of playful elements
Measurement is a key element to bake in early. Some of the most valuable indicators to track include:
The real value comes from connecting these signals, rather than viewing them in isolation. While participation figures can tell you what happened, combining behavioural data, engagement patterns and audience feedback provides a much clearer understanding of why it happened and what impact it had on business objectives.
This is where measurement moves beyond reporting and becomes a tool for optimisation. It can help you to benchmark performance, identify what drives engagement and make more informed decisions about where your investment should go in future.
Community often delivers greater long-term value than visibility alone. Visibility creates awareness in the moment; communities create ongoing engagement, advocacy and repeat participation. The result is not just a larger audience, but a more valuable and connected one.
Final thoughts
Gamification may be today’s buzzword, but the most effective experiences are built around participation, discovery and connection. From where I stand, the future of experiential marketing belongs to brands that invite audiences into their story and give them the chance to become the main character.
References:
Charlotte Bunyan is Head of Strategy & Innovation at We Are Collider. She embeds immersive media, AI, gaming, and virtual world storytelling into the agency’s core, as well as shaping IP, forging strategic partnerships, and driving thought leadership at global stages like SXSW. She is focused on unlocking new commercial value, accelerating R&D, and positioning We Are Collider as a bold, future-facing creative force for innovation-led brands, all underpinned by Behavioural Science insights and proprietary AI Tools.
What makes a good event great isn’t your ROI: it’s what your audience got for their time investment. Giles Cattle (Chief Growth Officer, The Strata Group) shares his insights from leading discussions at the ICEN Conference & Awards in New York & London
For decades the events industry has been obsessed with providing Return on Investment (ROI). How many leads were generated? How much revenue was influenced? What sponsorship value was delivered? These are all valid questions, but they share one significant limitation: they measure value through the organiser’s lens. What if, instead of focusing on ROI, we prioritised the value received by the audience as our indicator of success?
As work becomes more demanding, schedules stay crowded and AI makes information available instantly, time takes on a new weight as a resource. Audiences demand more in return for their investment of time, and as event organisers, we should be tracking that return. Speaking at the recent ICEN Conference & Awards in both London and New York, I challenged my audience to consider a new metric: Return on Time, or ROT.
To measure ROT, we need to understand how people actually judge experiences. This is why we teamed up with Lea Karam at Mindscope, to develop The Experience Lab. Our work together dives into how human behavioural psychology can inform event design and allows us to deliver real insights to our clients, based on how their audiences feel and behave.
People remember relationships & experiences, not information
The greatest ROT often comes from what people remember, and that is constructed partly from who they remember experiencing it with.
Our memories are not formed equally [1]. Instead, recollection of experiences is disproportionately shaped by emotional and psychological moments. Your audience will remember not the volume of content delivered but rather the memorable value they were presented, based on their thoughts and feelings during the event.
This is important to the concept of ROT because it illustrates how time spent and memories gained don’t necessarily overlap; everyone remembers the highlights of the holiday, while few remember the details of the plane ride.
Experience design
It’s been interesting attending these events with my work with the Experience Lab informing my own experiences as an audience member. What I see, and what I’m hearing from my colleagues is that when you’re designing for ROT, the audience experience has to take priority over the content itself. Luckily, there are some behavioural psychology tricks that are easy to implement and produce quick results when it comes to making presentations more memorable and feel more valuable to participants.
Creating peaks and endings
People remember the emotional peak of an event and how it ended with better clarity than all the surrounding information. For event designers, this means that there are two main opportunities to drive home a message. The first is at the peak, which can be crafted into your presentation; your message, tied to your ‘best bit’ and your peak of feeling and energy. The second is at the conclusion. Just stating you’re closing re-focuses your audience, and you can give them the key take-away in a clear, memorable format.
Surprise and delight
Unexpected positive experiences create stronger emotional responses and are more likely to be remembered [2]. I’ve seen surprise giveaways, impromptu rock-paper-scissors tournaments and even just short, funny videos in presentations all achieve this with aplomb.
Participation
People place greater value on experiences they actively shape or contribute to; it’s often called The IKEA Effect [3]. From an event design perspective, we see that participants gain greater ROT from conversations rather than presentations, workshops over lectures and co-creation rather than passive observation.
Attendees’ time can be better used by including opportunities for active learning, rather than passive consumption. I’ve seen great results from something as simple as allowing time naturally during a talk for people to talk to their neighbour and debate key learnings.
Measuring ROT
Of course, for ROT to become a meaningful metric, we need a way to measure it. On top of standard net promoter scores (NPS), consider asking your audience how they personally ranked the value of experience. Focus on an individual session or moment of the agenda for the clearest response.
By asking a question like this, you demonstrate not only that you value their time investment, but that you’re listening.
Final Thoughts
For years, event success has been measured through the lens of ROI. Yet what I’m seeing is that attendees make a different calculation. They just want to know whether the experience justified the time they invested to be there.
The future of events is not simply proving ROI for organisers. It is demonstrating Return on Time for audiences. In a world where information is abundant and time is scarce, the most successful events will be those that create memorable experiences, meaningful connections and moments worth investing time in.
So next time you are planning an event for a client, I challenge you to think about more than just the ROI. It’s an opportunity, disguised as a valuable metric: a chance to create more lasting memories, stronger relationships and greater impact long after the event has ended.
References
Giles Cattle is Chief Growth Officer at Strata. A Creative Strategist, he uses insights to fuel the creative design of experiences and communications to engage, inspire and persuade audiences.
He brings brands and people closer together, and using every channel, internal or external, to achieve that.
He has extensive experience working with global clients spanning multiple sectors, targeting multiple audiences through multiple channels.
Our internal summer conference isn’t something we’d usually be shouting about. But this year’s event became a blueprint for what The Strata Group really stands for.
We built a conference that showcased exactly what we tell clients every day: when specialist expertise comes together, brilliant brand experiences happen.
Simon Hambley, Group CEO of The Strata Group explained, “We wanted to do things differently this year and give our emerging talent the opportunity to lead the conversation around the messages that matter most to our people, particularly as we’ve welcomed new colleagues through the acquisition of Wonderland and We Are Collider.
Senior leadership speeches were kept to a minimum, and instead the focus was on involving the wider team.
Watching people from different agencies collaborate, challenge each other and build on each other’s ideas has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the event. While the conference was designed for our people, it also demonstrates the unique shape of our offering and the breadth of expertise that exists across The Strata Group.”
Reimagining the conference experience
One of the biggest challenges facing the team was creating a conference that felt genuinely different while bringing the Group’s story to life. Rather than relying on traditional presentations and passive audiences, the ambition was to create an experience that encouraged participation, conversation and connection.
Peyton Martin, Senior Producer at Strata, explained that the experience narrative model he follows doesn’t start with questions like ‘what presentations do we need?’ and instead asks ‘how do we want people to participate?’ and ‘how do we want people to feel?’
“Our ambition wasn’t simply to produce another company conference – it was to create a shared experience. We wanted people to leave feeling they had been part of a conversation rather than sitting through a series of presentations.
Every element of the production, from the way the hosts interacted with our speakers to the role of the screen as a visual storyteller, was designed to support the narrative rather than distract from it.”
The approach shifted the conference from a one-way broadcast into a shared experience, helping colleagues engage more deeply with both the content and each other.
Creativity: The driver of participation
Bringing the Group story to life required more than strong content. It needed a creative approach that could connect people to the message, while showcasing how different specialisms across the Group can work together to create a more engaging experience.
“At the heart of Wonderland is creativity, so when we started thinking about the conference, we wanted to move away from static presentation slides and instead create an experience driven by storytelling, motion and dynamic content. It was important that every film, graphic and animation had a purpose – not just to look great, but to help tell The Strata Group story in a way that would keep people engaged.
Collaborating with On Event Production Co gave us the opportunity to really push the creative. Their impressive 12m x 2m LED screen allowed us to transform the stage into a dynamic storytelling canvas and bring the new Strata Group identity to life through animated gradients and particle-based graphics, using motion to reflect collaboration, connection and the coming together of different businesses as one group.
For us, it wasn’t just about creating a visually impressive conference – it was about creating an experience that reflected who The Strata Group is and where it is heading. Our hope was that people didn’t just hear the story of The Strata Group – they experienced it.” – Nuala Farrelly, Marketing Manager at Wonderland.
The partnership between Wonderland and On enabled the transformation of the stage into a dynamic storytelling environment that brought the Group’s evolution and future ambitions to life.
Creating space for connection
Selecting the right venue was also critical. The space needed to encourage interaction, conversation and connection.
Tracy Winsworth, Managing Director at Trinity Event Solutions, explained “We chose De Vere Beaumont Estate because it perfectly supported what the group wanted to achieve with the summer conference. As the first event designed to bring together colleagues from all seven companies within the group, it was important to find a venue that could unite people in one environment and support a blend of business content, team building and celebration.
The expansive outdoor space was a key factor in our decision, giving us the opportunity to bring our ‘Field of Play’ concept to life through a series of collaborative challenges and activities that encouraged people to mix, connect and work together.
We also wanted the event to have a relaxed festival feel, and the outdoor setting allowed us to incorporate food trucks and informal social spaces that helped create a more inclusive and engaging experience.
The right venue doesn’t just host an event; it helps shape the experience, and De Vere Beaumont Estate provided the perfect backdrop for strengthening relationships, building culture and helping everyone feel part of one Strata Group.”
Collaboration in action
What made the conference particularly special wasn’t any single creative element, venue decision or production choice. It was the way each agency’s expertise complemented the others.
Trinity sourced a venue that supported connection and participation. Wonderland developed a creative approach that brought the Group story to life. On turned those ideas into an immersive visual experience, while Strata shaped the overall narrative and event journey. Element enhanced the attendee experience with prizes and giveaways, helping to create moments of excitement, recognition and engagement that reinforced the event’s interactive spirit.
Individually, each contribution added value. Together, they demonstrated the strength of a fully integrated approach, showing how connected specialist teams can deliver richer, more meaningful experiences.
Phil Staines (Group Chief Operating Officer) sits down with Laura Whittington (Head of Data) to discuss the value of different metrics when building out your events strategy
If there’s one metric I see brands over-relying on, it’s Net Promoter Scores (NPS). They measure how likely customers are to recommend a brand, and traditionally they’ve been a useful benchmark for customer loyalty, but increasingly I’m seeing them as painting an incomplete picture. Organisations are able to achieve acceptable NPS while their underlying satisfaction trends are declining. This summer, as we look at large-scale events like the World Cup and music festivals, I challenge brands to think beyond the obvious. Too many organisations are looking at the same metric, giving it excessive weight, just because everyone else is looking at it.
What is your brand’s podium moment?
Every business needs its own definition of success, and different organisations need different measures. I challenge clients within The Strata Group to take a deep dive and consider relationships, progression through a sales cycle, repeat engagement and advocacy, to name just a few.
Brands need to find the metrics that matter.
At big summer events, client entertainment is big business. Sponsors get tickets for clients, but success isn’t in attendance alone: it’s in whether those relationships progress afterwards. I’ve known busy clients to forget who it was who sent them to Wimbledon, once they’re on their second Pimms! Is it enough of a return on your investment to get people in a room, or is there another metric that you want to move the needle on?
The hidden value in event data
Huge investments are made in hospitality assets at major events. F1, Wimbledon, rugby and festival experiences often involve significant client entertainment budgets, but the right tickets need to go to the right people. In my experience, tickets wind up in the hands of friends-of-friends, given to clients who never use them or handed out as freebies, ignoring the value they hold to the brand.
When an investment like that is made, it’s critical to track who attends, who engages and what business outcomes follow. “Audience understfanding improves dramatically when ticketing data is taken in context,” explains Laura Whittington, Head of Data at Strata. “Combine it with wider behavioural and context information, and it becomes significantly more powerful.”
Activation matters as much as access
Simply giving tickets away is not a strategy. Strong brands create purposeful activations around experiences. For example, on-site engagement and experiential moments, audience participation initiatives and crafted, memorable interactions that extend beyond the moment itself.
This same energy – tickets invested in, then squandered – is more common than you’d think. It’s easy for brands to pursue vanity activity rather than brand equity. An event that might make for a great story on paper or in the company brochure may be a poor fit with the target audience, and have little measurable business impact. There is no point investing heavily in being visible at Wimbledon when your audience are disinterested in tennis, no matter how nicely the white-and-green fits into your website.
The future of measurement: behaviour over sentiment
When it comes to measurement, technology is on your side as you build out a robust and informative brand strategy around your events. Brand sentiment surveys are useful tools, as are YouGov-style market tracking tools, but there are many ways to go one step beyond.
In physical stores, real-world feedback mechanisms like a button at the entrance and exit allow the audience to communicate with low cognitive investment. There are many cool emerging technologies that allow data to be collected in a way we’ve never seen before, too: wearables that track changes in body temperature and pulse as a proxy for excitement, programmes that track behavioural and emotional responses from video footage, and real-time engagement analysis tools that allow event organisers to tweak production during the event.
Measurement has never been more nuanced and predictive, and a little investment goes a long way. The question I now put to brands is no longer are you measuring, it’s this: are you measuring the things that actually matter?
Laura gives the technological perspective: “when you overlay different data sources, that’s when you begin to understand cause and effect,” she states. “It’s no longer enough to just report on outcomes, when you can go so much deeper.”
Strategy is ultimately about making informed choices. This Season of Strategy, I challenge you to consider your own decisions – because when your measurement framework improves, the better those decisions can become.
Phil Staines is Chief Operating Officer for The Strata Group. A leader in measurement and data, Phil leads strategic conversations, challenges assumptions and works consultatively to understand the bigger picture. He defines what is trying to be achieved and offers up solutions that optimise business or client performance.
As part of our ongoing Season of Strategy, Laura Whittington, Strata’s Head of Data, is joined by Group Chief Operations Officer Phil Staines to discuss audience psychology and the power of smart data analysis
There are plenty of ways to gauge if your event was a success: attendance, sentiment, pure vibes. But what some organisers are missing is that great events create great data.
When we think about big summer events – the World Cup, F1, Wimbledon, Glastonbury – the energy is unmistakable, even from a distance. If you know where to look, you can see essential context in these events, year to year. An underwhelming Wimbledon that, when you look at the forecast, was plagued by terrible weather. An oddly quiet festival, because politics or oil prices disrupted air travel. For events at this size, we sometimes imagine that they are unaffected by context, but the opposite is true: success is informed by a diverse and fascinating array of data points.
The real value isn’t in looking at one dataset, when it comes to events. It’s understanding how different factors interact to explain behaviour.
Context changes everything
The traditional prediction that England will always lose key football matches in penalties has been upheld by generations of teams, although I’m delighted to say that wasn’t the case this year! As someone who studied sports psychology, I was fascinated to learn about Gareth Southgate’s approach to the problem as manager: he didn’t simply look at whether penalties were scored. He looked at time taken to step in, reactions under pressure, and the psychology of his players.
The more data he gathered, the more insights were revealed with the potential to inform future performance. He found that England had the quickest reaction time of any national team in penalty shootouts, almost rushing1. Without looking at that data point – how quickly penalties were being taken, not just by England but by every national team – that insight might have been lost.
There is a clear parallel here with live events and sponsored events: understanding the ‘why’ behind behaviour, capturing that data, matters as much as measuring the outcome. Learnings from sports psychology often have practical applications when we look at human behaviour more broadly.
“Successful event strategies come from profiling the right people, getting the right insights from them, rather than treating all audiences the same,” adds Phil Staines, Strata’s Chief Operations Officer. “Context is so valuable.”
Before, during, after: building a complete picture
The work of data collection needs to begin from the moment planning starts. Gathering insights into who your audience are, how they act and what they want can begin during the marketing stage, and build as you see who purchases tickets, interacts with pre-event communications and the event website, and who downloads and interacts with any delegate apps or other supporting content. Travel patterns, weather forecasts and geopolitics are useful to build in to your planning, to understand how the event can be best supported.
During the event itself, data collection doesn’t pause, especially in those at great scale like big summer experiences. Crowd movement, social media use, attendance at on-site amenities, activation engagement… these data points can provide fascinating insights and direct leads.
After the event, in addition to post-event communications, there’s now an opportunity to put all your data to work. To understand what truly drove the outcomes seen on the ground. This is where we see that Wimbledon literally performs better some years because the weather materially changes attendee behaviour, and public willingness to join the ticket queue.
When you overlay data – weather, travel, attendance and engagement, for example, you stop guessing and start understanding.
Mia: AI turning insight into action
It’s this logic that helped me and my team to design Mia, Strata’s AI-supported data management tool. Mia connects disparate sources and uncovers patterns humans may miss, and it is custom-built to each client who uses it, to ensure we’re helping organisations to move strategically beyond hindsight and towards predictive insight.
Mia can identify likely behaviours, emerging risks and opportunities in real time. “Mia can help brands with the simplest question, but arguably the most important,” Phil explains. “What should we do next?”
Beyond traditional demographics
When we consider large-scale and strategically designed events, it becomes clear that the future of data is behavioural. As we are able to move beyond traditional demographic tools like age, location or job title, we enter a much more interesting playing field: understanding motivations, sentiment, and the psychology behind decision-making.
I’m seeing emerging opportunities in data analysis around brand sentiment tracking, audience reactions and real-time behavioural signals. Tools that can analyse facial expressions, pulse and body heat, or draw behavioural data down from user’s phone use within event venues. The biggest opportunities come when organisers understand not just what happened, but why audiences behaved the way that they did.
Live events are the gold standard for gathering real audience data, even for brands that exist primarily online – there’s a reason why brands like Shein and ASOS are investing in pop-ups on Oxford street!2 Online interactions can only tell you so much; data from people in real life, interacting physically with your brand, is more powerful.
Getting the right data, the best data, is the first step, but impact comes from what you’d do next. “No matter the quality of your data, if you’re collecting data and not using it to make better decisions, what’s the purpose of having it in the first place?” concludes Phil.
Laura Whittington is Head of Data at Strata. A skilled project manager, she excels at delivering digital solutions to complex client problems, including leveraging AI to produce bespoke tools.
Alex Didlick (Project Coordinator) discusses innovation, AI and what MAD//Fest 2026 had to offer. Discover his key highlights as an early career events and experiences professional.
On a sweltering July day, it felt as though the marketing and advertising world had temporarily relocated to a small corner of North London. The reward for braving a packed underground, was an eclectic mix of speakers and fireside chats from industry leaders, helping to develop my understanding of the ever-evolving world of marketing, and creative brand experiences. What followed was a day full of fresh perspectives, thought-provoking conversations, and four ideas that have stayed with me ever since.
Designing for the path of desire
One of the strongest messages I took away was from a chat between David Shulman (Global CEO Havas), Ben Richards (Global Head of Experience, Lego Group) and Claire MacArthur (Landscape Designer Studio MacArthur). Their discussion explored the ‘path of desire’. Rather than dictating customer behaviour, the most effective brand experiences remove friction, and support how people naturally think, feel and act.
It sounds simple, but instead of forcing audiences to adapt to a campaign, brands should remove guardrails and make engagement feel more intuitive. Reading Strata’s own perspective afterwards reinforced this point ‘attention isn’t about volume, it’s about receptivity.’ Reflecting how naturally coexisting in people’s lives is often where the most success can be found.
For those working in brand experience, these principles are powerful in my view. In a world where audiences are exposed to countless messages every day, the best campaigns won’t force participation. They create authentic environments where engagement feels natural and rewarding. This idea aligns closely with a point made by Giles Cattle (Chief Growth Officer, Strata), who spoke in an article about his belief that the most impactful experiences aren’t just attended they’re shared. It’s those shared moments that create meaningful memories and emotional connections that endure long after an event.
The rise of creator-led marketing
Another recurring theme throughout my day was the importance and development of the creator marketing space. Youtube’s Izzy Ngo, detailed how creator advertising expenditure is growing four times faster than traditional advertising, underlining how important the industry is becoming. Ben Carter (CMO, CarWow), reinforced this message later in the day as he asserted, creator marketing was his number one development in the industry for 2026 and beyond.
It’s also been proven that creators are building long-term relationships with audiences, Ngo noted how 80% of viewers return to the same creator again. For brands, this is perhaps the most important facet creators can bring. By building campaigns around a community, a creator has already established, we can create an experience that feels more authentic, relevant and meaningful to that audience. David Powell (Commercial Director, Wonderland, part of the Strata Group) touched on this in a recent article. He notes the revolutionary impact truly understanding an audience and their interests can have on the success of a campaign.
A word on AI
It wouldn’t be 2026 without plenty of intrigue about the world of AI, specifically its applications in our industry. It was fascinating to hear how different organisations are choosing to implement it.
One example from Ben Carter (CMO, CarWow), described how they have adopted an ‘AI-first’ approach. Rather than replacing people, they focus on identifying repetitive, time-consuming tasks that can be completed more efficiently by AI, freeing up time to be spent on more creative and strategic thinking tasks. Interestingly, they have also begun an AI show-and-tell session once a month for all employees, allowing teams to share practical ways they’re using new tools. This I felt was very valuable, as it shifts the narrative from being intimidated by this new software into a collaborative, team building asset.
Another session however, was much more cautious of AI and its practical uses. Research by Havas’ AI operations department, undertook a consumer poll that indicated 50% of consumers felt the use of AI by brands feels cold, and further 56% also noting it felt misleading when used. This raises important questions regarding trust and authenticity.
The overall takeaway wasn’t that brands should avoid AI altogether (obviously!). Rather, it should be used in instances where it adds genuine value, from broad research tasks to improving efficiency. This will ensure the human element remains central and even elevates our ability to create lasting and important experiences.
The power of behavioural science
Behavioural scientist author, Richard Shotten, captivated a packed audience with his application of psychology within marketing, drawing upon insights to illustrate how it can impact engagement.
One example demonstrated how introducing a simple ritual before eating a chocolate bar- asking recipients to look at it and break it apart etc- reported an increase in enjoyment of 16%. Whilst, most brands don’t sell delicious chocolate bars, the learnings can be taken elsewhere. Creating tension, storylines and intrigue can boost an experience for stakeholders, journalists and customers.
Shotten also explored how acknowledging a genuine flaw can make brands more appealing. A restaurant review that acknowledges a shortcoming within an on the whole positive review, counter intuitively is much more likely to be listened to and received by others. He also incorporated Guinness’ famous ‘good things come to those who wait,’ campaign as an example of transforming a potential weakness into a successful campaign.
It was a lesson that successful experiences aren’t only built through creativity and their substance. By picking up on subtle behavioural quirks and tendencies, we can create campaigns that leave a lasting impression. This is something Strata are truly leaning into with their exciting new partnership with Lea Karam Founder of Mindscope through The Experience Labs which looks at how brands can truly lean into the behaviours of their audiences to maximise their experience and ultimately their connection to the brand.
Final takeaways
Reflecting on my first MAD//Fest, the biggest takeaway wasn’t a single statistic or campaign. Rather it was how every conversation, regardless of topic, ultimately centred on people.
Innovation will undoubtedly continue to reshape marketing, but the brands that will find the most success will be those that combine new technologies with a genuine understanding of human behaviours.
Continuing my journey with Strata, that’s the lesson that will stick with me, regardless of the experience or campaign, it’s about reminded oneself that people are always at the heart of everything we are trying to achieve.
Alex Didlick is a Project Coordinator at Strata, working closely with the marketing team and supporting in content development for events and experience clients. He has a background in journalism and is passionate about supporting other early career marketing professionals.
As part of A Season of Strategy, Dave Powell, Commercial Director at Wonderland (part of The Strata Group), talks authenticity, culture and why the brands that contribute real value win.
At the time of writing, London is at boiling point. It’s not just due to the current heatwave that makes the tube even more unbearable but the feverous nature that the FIFA World Cup bringing to the city. A metropolis of cultures and passions where you’ll expect to see every kind of flag and football shirt populate this great city. “When combined with the spectacle of Wimbledon, a series of amazing day festivals and major artists bringing the party to the big smoke (we see you, Mr Worldwide) not to forget the eclectic mix of blockbuster movies about to blow up the box office, we are at a cultural maelstrom where the live thrives and people truly embrace coming together,” enthuses Dave Powell, Commercial Director at Wonderland (part of The Strata Group).
“Now when you put that brand hat on, you find yourself in a quandary,” Powell continues. “How do you show up in these key moments? Simply tagging along to a big moment doesn’t deliver that immediate relevance.” Exposure without participation can risk feeling generic, and there is an art to authenticity that is difficult to force. Authenticity comes from a place of contribution, not just presence, and that’s what the team at Wonderland and colleagues in the wider Strata Group have been thinking about lately: how brands can achieve their goals with real authenticity.
Culture is where authenticity lives
Real engagement sits with communities, not audiences. The art is to unlock these connections at intuitive entry points that feel, if you know where to look as a brand.
“As a lover of heavy music who has a Crossfit addiction, I can spot a kindred spirit on a crowded Tube platform when I spy a tattoo of the iconic lightning bolt M of the Metallica logo or trust someone wearing R.A.D trainers will happily compare their Workout of the Day with me,” explains Powell. “By tapping into the energy that is already there, rather than attempting to manufacture it, brands can find that sweet spot of contributing to an existing culture and forging authentic connections without crowding the moment.“
A fantastic example is Nike’s collaboration with Palace Skateboards1. Yes, Nike can afford to launch a massive campaign around the World Cup – Rip The Script2, their 2026 campaign, is a truly impressive display of star power – but they also understand the power of grassroots. Palace is a London-based streetwear and skateboarding brand, and together with Nike they opened Manor Place: a revitalized heritage building in South London, now a sport, creativity and community hub open six days a week and totally free to use. The collaboration element means Nike is spoken in the same breath as a brand whose identity is around street style, enmeshed with the city’s subculture of skateboarding and football, specific to London, and the social investment won’t be forgotten by the locals who benefit from the space.
“The project puts cultural perspective first, and that’s why it’s memorable,” says Powell. “These two pathways then merge for the mases when Nike and Palace drop an extremely limited run of football shirts and apparel for the England Football team as well as utilising the partnership to created as the official England training kit at the World Cup, heralding what originally started its journey at a grassroots level to be finally delivered on the world’s biggest stage.”
Participation drives deeper connection
Events and experiences drive deeper emotional equity, not just reach. By putting the community element of activations before the broadcast element, the strategy gains cultural credibility, particularly in sports, which are amazing social equalisers.
“At Wonderland, we worked with Olympic Gold Medalist Keely Hodgkinson to celebrate the launch of Nike’s Vomero 18 running shoe, taking her home to her childhood club in Manchester. Keely led a community focused running event with 7 local running crews and Sports Direct Manchester employees3,” says Powell. “We could have put Keely anywhere, but by taking her home, it meant the audience around her was buzzing with excitement and energy, and the user-generated content (UGC) was authentic and pitch-perfect. The moment was right – the launch of the shoe – but the place and the audience had to be right, too.“
Chris Vernon-Smith, Creative Director at On Event Production Co, who along with Wonderland sit within The Strata Group, agrees. “There’s another element to consider, once you’ve got the right moment and the right audience,” Vernon-Smith explains. “Great live event production makes participation feel easy and accessible, and from that, you get great engagement. By getting the audio and staging right, you can make an event feel elevated, polished and experiential, and let the audience really take in your message.”
Scale should follow the moment
Not everything needs to be ‘Superbowl-big’; by taking a considered approach to the culture surrounding the moment you want to feature, you can correctly find your scale and the ‘volume’ at which you want to speak to your chosen audience. Sometimes, big is appropriate. “When we organised for Mr. Beast to hold a ‘Willy Wonka-style’ giveaway outside the Sydney Opera House to celebrate the relaunch of Feastables in Australia, we weren’t aiming for subtle.4 It would honestly have been off-brand! But while loud and flashy has its place, smaller, sharper moments with true authenticity can actually land harder,” explains Powell.
The truth acknowledged within the industry is that lasting positive brand associations are earned rather than engineered. Trust is built with the right collaborators and the right communities – there is significantly more value, particularly in the age of AI, in true UGC rather than forced content.
Hellman’s (yes, the mayonnaise) managed this impressively when Charlie XCX defended a banned poster during the height of brat summer – the regulators banned her original UK area tour poster, and she responded that it was just displaying ‘a sandwich bag’, encouraging fans to bring their own sandwiches to her show. Hellmans handed out free ‘Club Classic’ sandwiches to fans queuing to enter the area in clear, brat-inspired branded bags that immediately became limited-edition fan items.5
The brand took a risk, put their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, and successfully connected with an audience ready to be vocal and get excited. “We’re being asked by clients more and more to create ‘fan zones’ and other production solutions that promote non-staged participation moments,” describes Vernon-Smith. “Even at bigger events, if you can find a moment where people have the time and the energy to engage, you can create designs that get amazing authentic participation.”
Final thought
Sporting events like the World Cup are great unifiers; brands should plan to add value, rather than attempt to share the spotlight or steal focus. By building a strategy around culture as currency, existing communities can become engaged audiences.
“During my time here at Wonderland, I’ve come to believe that the truth is this: people engage with what brands enable, not what they say,” concludes Powell. “Sportswear that truly enables young people to kick a ball or run around a track with their friends. Sandwiches that spark a conversation and make sure you’re fueled, heading into a high-energy gig.
It’s as simple as this: no matter the scale you’re working with, be honest. Show up and give back. The results will follow.”
Dave Powell is Commercial Director at Wonderland, part of The Strata Group. He is an experienced Creative Strategist with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. He has a strong business development background in Brand Experience Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Youth Marketing, Social Media, and Digital Media.
References
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