25 Experiential Marketing Examples and What Each One Actually Produced

The best marketing doesn't interrupt. It invites. Every experiential marketing example below started with the same decision: give people something to do, not just something to watch. We pulled together 25 campaigns from 2024 to 2026 and sorted them by what the guest actually did. Some played. Some made something. Some got a result built from their own data. Each one comes with what it produced, taken from the brand, its agency or the trade press, and linked so you can check it.

What counts as an experiential marketing example?

An experiential marketing example is any campaign where the audience takes part instead of just looking. The mechanic changes from one to the next. A game, a trip, a personalized video, a trading card. The shape stays the same: the person does something, and the brand earns attention it didn't have to buy.

Our CEO, Sam Eitzen, described the feeling in one of our Shorts. It's where people feel "like the brand is there to do something with them versus just saying something to them or selling them something."

If you are planning your own program rather than looking for ideas, start with our guide to event and experiential marketing. For activation formats rather than named campaigns, see our interactive marketing examples.

Which experiential marketing campaigns asked guests to play?

Some of the best experiential marketing campaigns of the last two years are games. Rules, a goal and a crowd turn a brand message into something people queue for.

Netflix: Red Light, Green Light on the Champs-Élysées (December 2024)

On December 1, 2024, Netflix staged the Squid Game playground game on the Champs-Élysées ahead of season 2. Netflix reports that 909 players were picked from more than 50,000 applicants, 20,000 people watched on site, and 4.3 million watched live or on replay on YouTube. A few hundred people played. Tens of thousands came to watch.

Peacock: The Traitors Experience in Los Angeles (early 2025)

Peacock dressed the Beckett Mansion as the show's Scottish castle and ran one-hour games for eight players at a time. A host picks the Traitor while everyone is blindfolded, the group solves mission puzzles for coins, and the game ends in a vote. What it produced: demand. NBC Insider reported that many of the time slots had sold out while the run was still open.

The North Face: the Nuptse Locker campus tour (fall 2024)

The North Face and agency Newbridge put an oversized, Nuptse-inspired prize locker on the CU Boulder and University of Washington campuses, teased on the brand's TikTok in September 2024. Students followed clues from that account to crack the code. Newbridge reports more than 7,000 on-site locker attempts, 21,000 physical impressions and 16.3 million campaign views on TikTok, and says the University of Washington recap became the brand's fourth most-viewed TikTok of the year. It was a 2025 Ex Awards finalist.

Captain Morgan: Rum Street at Super Bowl LIX (February 2025)

For Super Bowl week in New Orleans, Captain Morgan rebranded Bourbon Street as "Rum Street" and turned the French Quarter into a trail. Fans followed the Captain by QR code to claim drinks, merch and golden-ticket experiences, with living statues and balcony giveaways along the way. As reported by NVE Experience Agency in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, it drew 7.4 billion impressions and lifted Captain Morgan's New Orleans sales by 13%.

Activision: Call of Duty Next in Washington, D.C. (August 2024)

Activision and agency OS Studios turned the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., into a Black Ops 6 operations headquarters. Guests on site took on mission challenges in interactive LED environments, while 215 creators streamed 632 feeds and viewers steered the gameplay in real time with polls, questions and code drops. The event took two of Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, including best use of virtual event technology.

Wendy's: Frosty Fix (September 2024)

Wendy's partnered with the developer of McBroken.com, the site that tracks downed McDonald's ice cream machines, and agency VML sent Frosty trucks to the locations where machines were out, backed by geo-targeted mobile coupons. As reported by VML in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, the stunt drew 1.17 billion earned media impressions, a 350% spike in brand mentions, 52.1 million Frostys sold and 33% year-over-year growth. A competitor's broken machines became the game board.

Which campaigns asked guests to make something?

There's a reason making works. Researchers Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely found that people value what they helped build more highly, and that the effect fades when the effort doesn't end in a finished result (the "IKEA effect" paper). Each campaign here hands the guest something finished.

Adobe Express: a design truck at the Upfronts (May 2025)

During Upfronts week in New York, Adobe and agency Wavemaker drove a glass-walled mobile design studio to spots like 30 Rockefeller Plaza and Madison Square Garden, according to Event Marketer. Inside, designers built assets live and invited media executives to make custom stickers from Adobe Express templates, printed on the spot and delivered digitally. As reported by Wavemaker in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, the truck drove more than 3,000 engagements and seven-minute dwell times. That's a product demo busy people chose to sit through.

Taco Bell: the Live Más Drive-Thru Cam (ahead of the 2025 Super Bowl)

Taco Bell put an LED-lit photo archway over the drive-thru lane at five US restaurants. It captured film-strip portraits of customers as they drove under it, delivered instant social content, and gave fans a chance to appear in the brand's 2025 Super Bowl ad. As reported by Taco Bell's agency team (Biite, Deeplocal, Edelman and others) in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, the tour drew 3,000 participants, 18.4 billion earned impressions and 1,629 media stories.

Jack Link's: WILD in Times Square (launched May 2024)

Jack Link's launched its Feed Your Wild Side campaign in May 2024 and asked Gen Z to show off their WILD side on TikTok. Creators sent in more than 5,000 videos. The best ran on Times Square billboards, and the campaign peaked with a sampling event: a towering jerky box, selfies with Sasquatch and live TikTok broadcasts. Newbridge, which ran it with Milestone Integrated, reports a 15% spike in weekly sales, more than 22 million billboard impressions and 25,000 samples handed out in a single day, and the campaign won a 2025 Ex Award. When guests make the content, it becomes the ad, the idea behind event UGC as marketing fuel.

Corona: the Golden Bottle at Paris 2024 (summer 2024)

Corona and agency Wink worked within France's strict alcohol marketing rules at the Paris 2024 Olympics by making the bottle the keepsake. Athletes engraved personal "golden moments" on limited-edition bottles in the Olympic Village, and fans collected them at Corona's Paris Oases around the city. As reported by Wink in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, the campaign drove 4.1 billion impressions, 10,000 athlete engagements, a 38% share of voice and a 122% year-over-year sales lift.

Three Cannes Lions 2026 builds put making at the center. (For how sponsors make festival presence pay off, see festival brand activations.)

Adobe and Pinterest: Visual Search at Cannes Lions (June 2026)

At Pinterest's Manifestival, Adobe powered a Pinterest Visual Search activation where on-site designers used Adobe Express to help attendees find their personal style. What it produced: a custom-printed journal for each participant, and a spot in Event Marketer's Cannes Lions 2026 coverage.

Microsoft: gardens built around "human AI" (June 2026)

Microsoft and agency Wonderland built multisensory gardens for talks about AI. What guests made: personalized "Flow State" mantras and AI-generated artwork about what being in flow means to them, plus shots from a garden-themed Polaroid photo op, per the same Event Marketer coverage. The AI output was about the guest, not the product.

Amazon: Rue Visionnaire at Amazon Port (June 2026)

At Amazon's French village-themed Amazon Port, Rue Visionnaire, powered by AWS, let visitors use an AI agent interface to build a business from scratch, from ideation to branding to operations. What each visitor walked away with, as Event Marketer reports: a physical key that set off a "grand opening" for their business, complete with a proposed logo, a brand identity and a live ad campaign across Amazon's properties.

Which campaigns turned guest data into a personal experience?

These examples move personalization into a physical space, where guests watch their own data turn into something.

Art Gallery of Ontario: the Art Rate Monitor (fall 2024)

The AGO and agency Zulu Alpha Kilo gave visitors wristbands that tracked their heart rate as they moved through the gallery, then handed each one a personalized visualization of how they experienced the art, according to LBB, which reported the experience running from October to November 19, 2024. As reported by Zulu Alpha Kilo in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, more than 5,000 people took part in eight weeks, visitation rose 32% and intent to return rose 75%. The AGO is bringing it back.

Spotify: Wrapped on a Brooklyn landmark (December 2024)

For 2024, Spotify took Wrapped outdoors with neighborhood projections in New York and Los Angeles. The biggest, according to OOH agency Atlas Media, was a 262-foot projection on the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg celebrating Sabrina Carpenter's 16 million-plus New York streams. The reach came from the fan it celebrated: Atlas reports that the artist shared the projection with her 43.4 million Instagram followers.

Abbott: a blood-type test on the CES 2026 floor (January 2026)

At CES 2026, Abbott's booth (agency Factory360, build by Catalyst Exhibits) ran push-button quizzes on topics like glucose monitoring, but the line formed at a mini-clinic. A phlebotomist pricked visitors' fingers to confirm their blood type on the spot, followed by a short consultation and a personalized badge showing the result. The booth made Event Marketer's editors' picks for the best booth experiences at the show. At a trade show, a result about you beats a brochure about the company.

What do immersive brand experiences look like?

Immersive brand experiences put the guest inside a world instead of in front of a message. In the best immersive brand activations, set design, scent and scale do most of the work.

HBO: The White Lotus season 3 premiere (February 2025)

For the season 3 premiere, HBO and UNBOXED GROUP turned two Paramount Studios soundstages into a Thai resort. The studio entrance sign was rebranded "The White Lotus Resort & Spa", which UNBOXED GROUP told BizBash was a first in Paramount's history. Live grills filled the space with the smell of Thai cooking, and a 16-foot-wide lotus chandelier hung over the central bar. The build earned a full photo tour in BizBash a month later.

Airbnb: Icons (launched May 2024)

Airbnb's Icons offered stays and experiences hosted by names from music, film, television, art and sports. One was a house strung with more than 8,000 balloons, like the one in Pixar's Up, where Airbnb offered ten free one-night stays through booking requests. Airbnb's Q3 2024 shareholder letter says Icons drew more than 60 million views on its site and more than 1 billion social impressions, and credits them with expanding the brand beyond places to stay.

KFC: the Nugget Dispensary (April 2024)

On April 20, 2024, KFC and agency M ss ng P eces took over a storefront on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, California, with a one-day pop-up styled as a cannabis dispensary. "Sauce-perts" guided guests through five Saucy Nugget flavor stations, and the agency describes long lines at the door. As reported by M ss ng P eces in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, the day drew more than 1,000 attendees and more than 1 billion earned impressions.

Delta Air Lines: a CES 2025 keynote at Sphere (January 2025)

Delta opened its centennial year at CES 2025 by staging CEO Ed Bastian's keynote inside Sphere in Las Vegas as a multisensory show, with virtual pilot training for SkyMiles members in the concourse. As reported by Delta's agency team (Team Epiphany, Wieden+Kennedy and others) in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, it generated 26 billion total impressions. Proof for B2B teams that a keynote can be an experience.

JBL: the Soundtrack of SXSW (March 2025)

As SXSW's official audio partner, JBL launched its Flip 7 and Charge 6 speakers with a three-day takeover built around the JBL Sound Bodega, a corner-store-style venue with speakers printed to look like fresh fruit, plus Rolling Stone Future of Music panels and performances. As reported by JBL's in-house team at Harman in Adweek's 2025 Experiential Awards, the takeover drove 5 billion earned impressions and 109 million social impressions, and brand awareness rose 9 points.

Which experiential campaigns were built around a cause?

These work when the guest can feel the cause, not just read about it.

Sela and Newcastle United: Unsilence the Crowd (April 2024)

For Deaf Awareness Week 2024, Sela and Newcastle United introduced haptic shirts, made by CuteCircuit, that turn stadium noise into touch so deaf fans can feel the atmosphere at St. James' Park. They debuted during a 4-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur in April 2024. The lasting result: the club says the shirts are now a permanent part of its accessibility offer.

Heineken: the Boring Phone (April 2024)

Heineken and retail marketplace Bodega launched a phone with no internet, social media or apps, built to get people talking to each other on nights out. Heineken says it was shown for the first time at a Bodega pop-up during Milan Design Week in April 2024, and Marketing Dive reported that 5,000 Boring Phones were being released.

How have Snapbar clients run experiential campaigns?

Two of our own, with results from each client page.

VCA Animal Hospitals: AI pet portraits at NAVC VMX (2025)

VCA, working with 3D Exhibits, ran an AI pet portrait experience at NAVC VMX 2025, one of the largest veterinary conferences. Attendees uploaded photos of their pets from their phones, answered a couple of personality questions that shaped the portrait style, and received the finished portrait by email. VCA also built a careers question into the flow, which let it reach a pool of more than 20,000 potential candidates. Across two main events, the client page reports more than 12,000 portraits and more than 25,000 participants, with more than 4,000 people taking part on the peak day. That exchange is the core of our playbook for event lead generation.

EA Sports: Madden trading cards at the Super Bowl Experience (Madden NFL 25 season)

EA Sports and Youth Marketing Company wanted fans at the Super Bowl Experience to feel like Madden NFL 25 players. Fans took a photo, entered their name, picked an overall rating from 1 to 99, and received a personalized Madden Ultimate Team card by email, with a code to download the mobile game. The client page reports more than 600 cards created in four days, a peak of 300 participants in a single day, and fans tagging EA Sports and the NFL when they shared. That mechanic now has its own home in our trading card experiences.

Both campaigns ran on brand styles and a short data capture step, and both ended with something the guest wanted to keep.

Guests can join from a branded kiosk, a tablet on a stand, a laptop or their own phones, and one event can use all of those together.

What results do these experiential marketing examples report?

The table below lists the headline figures published for the 18 campaigns in this list that released numbers, and who reported each one. Many of those figures come from award write-ups, so read them as reported, not audited. The other seven campaigns published outcomes without numbers, and those outcomes are in their sections above.

Most are reach and participation numbers. Sales figures appear only four times (Wendy's, Corona, Jack Link's and Captain Morgan). To measure your own program beyond impressions, see our framework for measuring experiential marketing ROI.

What do the best experiential marketing examples have in common?

Four patterns show up across the list.

The guest did something. Played, designed, wore a wristband, followed a clue. Nobody asked people to watch and remember a tagline.

They left with something finished. A card, a journal, an engraved bottle, a portrait. Effort that ends in a result makes the result feel like theirs.

Other people could see it happening. Netflix had a crowd, Jack Link's had billboards, Airbnb had a balloon house. At an event, that job falls to the screen showing what guests are making.

The exchange was worth it. VCA, EA and Abbott all asked for something small and gave back something guests wanted. It pays off later, too. In EventTrack 2026, Event Marketer and Sparks report that 61% of consumers are more inclined to purchase after attending a live event.

In another of our Shorts, Sam compared the ads people get fed on media platforms with live experiences: "They're trying to push messaging to you. Whereas events and experiences are inviting you into something that you can partake in."

How to turn these patterns into a plan is covered in event and experiential marketing, from goal to attendee journey. When you're ready to build, launch and measure your own, the Snapbar experiential marketing platform keeps the experience, displays and data in one place.