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.
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
Strata’s Head of Pharma Operations, Sally Bradley, discusses why putting delegates front and centre of event design delivers stronger engagement, better recall, and lasting relationships.
A few years ago, I was working on a large-scale pharmaceutical conference for an international client. One of the key opinion leaders (KOLs) on the panel was also a patient advocate, living with the chronic condition he was there to discuss.
On the morning of his session, I knew from managing his travel that he had already been on an eight-hour journey and had not had any time to rest before arriving at the venue. So when I met him, half an hour before he was due on stage, I had water and snacks ready.
Because while the project had high expectations of him as a KOL, he was also a person managing a health condition. I knew that a small moment of consideration could make a meaningful difference, both to his experience and his ability to deliver the session.
That moment has stayed with me because it reflects a wider truth. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are under increasing pressure, from junior practitioners through to globally recognised KOLs. If we want them to engage, contribute and retain what they learn, we have to respect their time, energy and individuality.
Delegate experience is no longer just a “nice to have”. It directly determines engagement, recall and impact. If the journey feels impersonal or uncomfortable, there is a real risk that even the most important educational messages will not land.
Conference success sits at the intersection of logistics, production and compelling content. Increasingly, operations teams are playing a critical role in shaping that content, ensuring it aligns with where audiences are in the drug lifecycle and how they want to engage. When operational insight is brought into content design, it creates opportunities for more meaningful, human-led experiences.
Once in the room, that human-first approach can transform outcomes. Traditional formats such as long presentations and static panel discussions still have their place, but they are no longer enough on their own. There is a clear opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry to stand out by moving beyond passive, sit-and-listen models.
The most effective conferences I have worked on incorporate:
Designing for the individual, rather than the crowd, enables deeper engagement. HCP needs vary significantly depending on their role, experience and position within the drug lifecycle, and events should reflect that diversity.
Smaller forums, such as advisory boards, give delegates a voice and create space for genuine exchange. They also strengthen the networking experience, which remains one of the most compelling reasons for attending live events.
Just as importantly, it is often the smallest touches that leave the biggest impression. Personal acknowledgement, accessibility considerations and thoughtful details all contribute to an experience that feels considered and respectful. These experiences are what drive lasting recall.
When I spoke to that KOL again several years later, he still remembered that moment of consideration and thanked me for it. It’s easy in our industry to focus on trial data, product launches and key messages. But ultimately, events are about relationships. They are platforms for connection, conversation and trust-building.
We are not just engaging today’s delegates. We are nurturing future KOLs and long-term advocates. While content matters, how people are made to feel matters just as much. In the end, delegates may not remember every slide, but they will remember how they were treated. Kindness, empathy and genuine human consideration remain some of the most powerful tools we have.
Sally Bradley is Head of Pharma Operations at Strata. With deep sector expertise, Sally is a skilled project manager with experience with live, virtual and hybrid events.
As part of A Season of Strategy, Michael Wryley-Birch (Strata president and Group managing director, growth and strategy) and Chris Pearson (Client Services Director at Element) discuss how brands can successfully seize culturally significant moments in an authentic way.
“A few years ago, my team ran an interactive window display for a household-name brand at their Oxford Street flagship store,” says Michael Wryley-Birch, Strata president and Group managing director, growth and strategy. “The display encouraged passers-by to dance, and it was equipped with cameras and sensors so that we could track audience participation; at the time, a pretty new and nifty piece of tech.”
When Wryley-Birch’s team sat down to assess the data, the results were surprising. At busy times, vanishingly few people stopped to interact. In fact, the clear and consistent peak time for the display was at 6 in the morning on a weekday.
“The reality was that no one wanted to hold up traffic and participate during peak hours. No one wanted to stop their own mission – shopping, socialising, running errands – to take part in ours,” Wryley-Birch explains. “People were willing to take part when they naturally had down time. They were waiting for the bus to take them to work.”
In 2026, that sort of technology is built into the majority of experiences designed by Strata, and it provides detailed information about our diverse and fascinating audiences.
The message was clear: attention isn’t about volume, it’s about receptivity.
The problem with ‘big moments’
As we head into a summer absolutely packed with big sporting and cultural events – events like the FIFA World Cup, Wimbledon and various music festivals – Wryley-Birch advises brands to think twice about their instinct to show up during the loudest, most crowded moment.
“While it makes sense to link your brand to a moment of heightened awareness, it is near impossible to gain positive attention at the peak of a moment that belongs to someone else,” he explains. “Like Oxford Street on a sunny Saturday afternoon, these moments are saturated, noisy and often intrusive for people who aren’t on the bandwagon.”
Anticipation and afterglow
The solution? Find your own space: your own 6am slot waiting for the bus.
This is where a moment-based approach becomes practical. One agency that forms part of The Strata Group is Element, who work with major brands to provide prizes, incentives and rewards. Chris Pearson, Client Services Director at Element, explains the value of what he calls anticipation and afterglow.
“We work with many brands who offer tickets to these big summer events as prizes,” Pearson says, “and they’re great, but we always advise them not to miss opportunities to make good into great. When we design incentive trips, we don’t just get people to Latitude or Reading Festival. We make sure they have all the camping gear they’ll need – we combine the prize with vouchers for festival essentials like new clothes. We make sure they have travel home, as well.”
Water doesn’t feel valuable – until you’re baking in the sun and someone offers you a cold drink. Holidays are the most memorable either when they’re plagued by travel disasters or rich with bucket-list items.
“My point is that by thinking through these moments that surround the big moment, brands can gain attention in a really authentic way,” Pearson summarises. “There’s something to be said about treating a smaller group to a better experience.”
In the anticipation phase, brands can build excitement. Marketing can be around helping to prepare, plan or feel a part of the event early. In the moment, it’s about avoiding interruption; enhancing, rather than competing.
“It’s after the event that memory and meaning is really formed,” Pearson concludes. “That’s where you have the opportunity for reflection and sharing.”
Design for real human moments
At their best, events and experiences are moments of delight, and whether brands are designing professional congresses or brand activations, the same principles stand. By introducing small moments that solve real friction, events become optimised and memorable, easing the way for the core messages to be received and recalled. Some principles are universal: reduce waiting times, improve the experience of travelling to and from the event, and plan for the post-event lull. When brands chase the biggest moment, especially surrounding these large-scale events like football tournaments or festivals, they miss out on the opportunity to identify and plan for the most meaningful moments. Often, the biggest gains come from the least glamourous fixes: optimising things that others overlook.
“Success comes from understanding mindset, spotting overlooked opportunities, and showing up with relevance and authenticity,” says Wryley-Birch. “I recall watching back footage of sleepy commuters dancing in front of that Oxford Street window, and thinking that it looked like a lot of fun – it was just a moment in their day, but one I’m sure they spoke about when they got to the office later. “
“The brands we remember aren’t usually the ones that shout the loudest; they’re the ones that met us where we were, at exactly the right moment.”
Ready to go further? Follow Strata on LinkedIn for A Season of Strategy, exploring human behaviour, strategic event design and how to build a measurement strategy that goes well beyond ROI.
Want to get in touch? Drop us a line at [email protected]
Summer 2026 proved once again that global attention centres around shared, high-profile moments. But as the dust settles, it’s clear which brands were truly ready. It’s no longer enough to simply target audiences; the real winners were the brands that showed up with intent in the moments that mattered most.
Over the past few months, live sporting events: the FIFA World Cup, Wimbledon, the Grand Prix, sat alongside major festivals and cultural moments to create something massive: millions of people watching, reacting in real time, and feeling part of something collective.
Yet many brands still approached these moments the way they always have: chasing reach, impressions, and visibility. That’s where traditional planning fell short. Because an event like the World Cup isn’t just a media moment; it’s a behavioural one.
We Are Collider’s CEO, Anton Jerges, explains: “Demographic data and reach metrics only tell a fraction of the story, because a die-hard fan’s connection is driven by emotional resonance and social identity. From a behavioural perspective, fans aren’t evaluating a rational value exchange; they’re craving a peak experience, the heart-pounding emotional rollercoaster and the deep tribal sociality of collective belonging.”
What makes these kinds of events unique is that they aren’t just for hardcore fans; they draw in people turning up purely for the occasion or watching from the digital sidelines. This opens the door for brands to reach new audiences, not through cold targeting, but by immersing themselves in something people genuinely cared about. The shared build-up, the atmosphere, and the simple pull of wanting to be part of something bigger created the real opportunity.
THE VALUE OF EXPERIENCE DOESN’T LIE IN REACH ALONE
Live experiences create moments where behavior shifts at scale. Emotion increases cognitive encoding, making messages far more memorable, while shared moments reinforce meaning through social connections; from friends in the pub to online communities.
That’s what made this summer’s lineup of the World Cup or the upcoming Reading Festival such powerful engagement opportunities. Urgency, anticipation, and unpredictability were built into the fabric of these events. While some brands relied solely on surface metrics like impressions, others created something far more enduring.
Jerges continues: “When you add in casual viewers, most of whom tune in once every four years, the primary drivers shift to powerful social proof and emotional contagion.
“It becomes a shared peak experience: the unmitigated joy of country-wide synchrony, cracking open a drink and screaming in unison at the screen. It reminds us that we can all believe in the same thing for a moment, despite our differences.
For brands this isn’t something you can capture on a spreadsheet or ask AI to replicate. We intuitively feel it, but engineering that raw emotion into sustained cognitive encoding and strategic resonance? That’s where the real behavioural design lies.”
THE STRATEGIC LESSON FOR BRANDS
Mass-reach events represent a rare environment where behaviour, emotion, and attention align at scale. But capitalising on that alignment requires a deliberate strategy before, during, and after the event.
In order to stand-out brands should master three distinct phases:
Part of what made these moments so powerful is that they weren’t instant. From queuing for tickets to waiting for a spot in a fan zone, fans earned their place in the moment. That effort makes the experience feel meaningful, memorable, and worth sharing.
Jerges concludes: “Whether it’s the World Cup or any other cultural milestone, for a brand to trigger real behaviour change, it has to align with the audience’s social identity: behave like a fan, share the emotional exchange, and bring genuine value to the narrative. It’s about proving your brand isn’t just passive labelling on a banner, but an authentic facilitator of the peak experiences people store in long-term memory.”
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If there’s one clear takeaway from Strata’s latest Making Moments Matter live event (April 23rd, 2026), it’s that the experience economy is booming. Spotlight speaker Oliver Murray, Sales Director at Future Stores, opened by highlighting that 74% of Fortune 100 marketers are increasing their experiential budgets1, and consumers are now twice as likely2 to spend on experiences as they are on things.
With attention spans shrinking – now just 8 seconds, down from 12 in 2002 – consumers are skipping ads and actively seeking out more relevant, immersive moments. Experiences are no longer just a ‘nice to have’; they’re a critical part of the marketing mix.
Here are our key takeaways from ‘Beyond the Event: How Brands Build and Measure High-Performing Experiences’, with Giles Cattle (CGO, Strata), Oli Murray (Future Stores), and Phil Staines (CCO, Strata) making up our panel.
Oli opened the session by introducing Future Stores and their ‘flagship-on-demand’ model, framing a challenge many brands face today: trust. In a crowded and often noisy selling environment, brands might be able to reach audiences, but that doesn’t mean they’re earning attention, let alone moving people from awareness to consideration and conversion.
Consumers want reassurance. They want to feel that the brands they engage with genuinely align with their values and understand their needs. This is where experiences play a vital role. They create space for meaningful, personal interaction – moments where brands can guide customers through a considered journey, rather than relying on fleeting impressions.
Well-designed experiences turn attention into engagement, and engagement into trust.
A key question discussed on stage was how brands break cycles of experiences that look and feel the same as they always have. As events move out of the shadow of media and digital – channels, particularly digital, long backed by data and measurement – they need to continue to prove their value across the funnel.
That starts with strategy. Experiences need clear intent before, during, and after the moment itself. What are you trying to change? Perception, behaviour? Without that clarity, it’s impossible to measure success meaningfully.
Event teams need to challenge the comfort of “this is how we’ve always done it” and push for creative, strategic experiences that stand out and justify their place in the marketing mix.
Measurement doesn’t start when doors open. Insight-led planning is the foundation of a high-performing experience. Audience behaviour, brand objectives, and success metrics should all shape the build from the beginning.
Future Stores spoke about designing for the full lifecycle. Before the event, brands need to be clear on who they want to attract and why. Whether it’s a product launch, brand-building, or community engagement. During the event, live data such as dwell time, footfall patterns, and social listening allow teams to adjust in real time. Why did more people gravitate towards one product over another? What’s resonating in the moment?
Afterwards, performance data should flow into an omnichannel follow-up strategy. Understanding real behaviour, not just attendance, allows brands to focus on genuine interest, measure sentiment, and prioritise quality engagement over noise.
The most effective experiences are built around how people actually behave, not how we expect them or want them to.
That means understanding natural movement and decision-making, from how people enter a space to where they pause, browse, or interact. Small design choices can have a big impact on engagement; a clear takeaway following Future Stores’ decision to build two entrances in their store “as consumers want choice.”
It also requires a mindset shift. Events aren’t just about communicating to an audience; they’re about creating opportunities for connection. While leadership presentations have their place, the real value often sits in conversation: peer-to-peer interaction, breakout sessions, round tables, and informal networking moments.
As Giles shared, no one wants a 90-minute presentation when a shorter, sharper session would deliver more impact. Phil echoed this with a real-world example: as one event he worked on previously grew in size, satisfaction dropped. Bigger wasn’t better; it diluted the core purpose.
The takeaway? Audit your audience, ask better questions, involve advisors early, and treat events as part of a broader, curated customer journey, not isolated moments.
For years, success was reported upwards using simple metrics: attendee numbers, impressions, footfall. That’s no longer enough.
Brands need to lay the foundations for measurement now. They must set clear objectives and map data directly back to strategy, so they can demonstrate how experiences actually shift sentiment. How are people talking about the brand afterwards? What actions are they taking online? Which parts of the experience mattered most?
When these insights feed directly into CRM, brands can qualify leads properly, personalise follow-up, and build longer-term relationships. Participation turns into perception, and perception can finally be measured as performance.
In closing, Giles asked the room how many people currently measure performance post-event. Only a handful of hands went up. But that will change. Performance is fast becoming the baseline, not attendance.
And measurement isn’t just about reporting. It shapes how experiences are designed, optimised, and delivered. From content and format to flow, coffee, and conversation, these details influence human behaviour, build trust, and create experiences that truly matter.
At Strata, we design experiences with performance in mind – from strategy and audience insight through to live optimisation and post-event measurement. If you’d like to explore how measurement can work harder for your experiences, we’d love to talk.
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Our Head of Pharma Growth, Vicky Fraser, shares her insights from PharmaForum in Boston, MA.
Having been home from PharmaForum (Boston, MA) for a few weeks, I’ve had time to reflect on my experiences, and one thing is clear: the role of events is being re-examined by the pharmaceutical industry. It’s something I heard consistently in my conversations with leaders across meetings, events and procurement: there is now a far greater focus on impact, defensibility and value when planning events.
Events are being judged on impact, not activity. Across multiple sessions at PharmaForum, I saw clear pressure on teams to justify the purpose and outcome of events. Return on investment (ROI), engagement and memory are now considered more important than size, scale or production value. Events are being evaluated as investments, rather than outputs.
Procurement is shaping decisions earlier. Another recurring theme at PharmaForum was the earlier and stronger influence of procurement in event planning. Conversations have moved beyond cost to include value, defensibility and risk. Pharma wants to work with partners who understand the broader context around compliance, industry uncertainty and pressure on teams.
Uncertainty is driving smarter choices. Many attendees expressed to me that they feel they’re operating in a high-uncertainty environment. Tighter budgets, rising costs, shorter lead times and external pressures such as travel inflation and geopolitics all contribute to the pressure, and teams are being forced to make more intentional decisions around destination, duration and where investment in experience design truly matters.
Healthcare professionals’ expectations have shifted. I heard repeatedly that while HCPs’ appetite for medical education is still strong, they are very time-poor. Solutions discussed include smaller meetings, optional virtual access, and formats that build community and relevance. HCPs value the quality of the experience and the educational outcomes more than frequency or scale.
Creativity and AI can work together, alongside compliance. There is growing openness to experience-led events that respect compliance considerations, particularly when they support learning and understanding rather than spectacle for its own sake. AI was, as always, a hot topic, but it has moved beyond being considered a competitive advantage and now is an efficiency baseline for many teams. Governance, data quality and human judgement are still front-of-mind.
Finally, events are now an enterprise asset. Something I noticed at the forum was the way meetings and events are now viewed as portfolio-level assets, not isolated tick-box activities. There is an increasing emphasis on data, forecasting and intelligence that enables better decisions over time and strategic improvement of event design, rather than the retrospective reporting that has always been done.
I found that PharmaForum reinforced what I’ve been hearing from clients and KOLs: events are now about doing what is defensible, effective and genuinely valuable. The opportunity now is to do what Strata does best: support our clients in their mission, by designing meetings and events that are easier to justify internally, harder to challenge externally and more meaningful for attendees. I can’t wait to attend the next event!
Vicky Fraser is Head of Pharma Growth at Strata Creative Communications. She’s a pharma and healthcare events strategist with more than 20 years of sector experience and is passionate about strategic scientific storytelling that connects.
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