Navigating Beauty’s Experiential Era: A Foolproof Method for Success
Sophie Pitt
Actress Margot Robbie as Barbie in the new movie (Credit: Warner Bros)
Over the past few years, experiential marketing has become a powerful tool for beauty brands, driving consumer connections through immersive, memorable encounters. The global experiential marketing spend is predicted to reach $128.35 billion by the end of 2024, surpassing pre-pandemic levels in a 10.5% jump that outpaces the 9.7% growth seen in 2023.
“Experiential marketing is fundamentally the creation of a physical experience or a stunt that tells a story to an audience about your brand that evokes an emotional connection,” Katie Peake, co-founder and Creative Director of creative experiential agency Backlash, tells BeautyMatter.
In the beauty sector, 84% of brands have increased their experiential marketing budgets over the past three years (38% significantly and 46% slightly), with 10%-30% of overall company budgets now attributed to events and immersive activities that enhance customer experiences.
According to research from experiential marketing agency Gradient, brands are specifically investing in initiatives such as in-retail rituals (62%), livestreams (56%), partnerships and collaborations (41%), and influencer content creation (36%). Notable industry examples include temporary branded shoppable events such as Sephoria, Roblox activations, and other immersive gaming campaigns, as well as social media livestream selling. The primary objectives for hosting such experiential events and brand experiences include content creation (51%), innovation/test marketing (49%), and customer relationship management (41%).
The rise of interest and monetary share for experiential marketing can also be attributed to growing consumer demand, where beauty customers are increasingly seeking brands that deliver authentic out-of-the-box experiences. Nowadays, consumers are becoming more skeptical of traditional advertising and generic marketing tactics. Instead, they want to engage with brands that understand their individuality and offer immersive, personalized experiences. Specifically, 75% of consumers now expect personalized experiences from beauty brands.
"It's not enough to promote a product anymore—brands must create moments that make customers feel seen, understood, and part of the brand's journey,” Pauline Oudin, CEO of Gradient, tells BeautyMatter. “The experiential era allows beauty brands to connect with their consumers on a deeper level—creating stronger brand affinity and engagement.”
As experiential marketing becomes widely embraced across the industry, it's important to note that its value lies in strategic execution rather than mere participation. To set business on the right track, BeautyMatter investigates the challenges of experiential marketing, identifying how these challenges can be overcome to create the path to success.
Authentic Aspirations
In a saturated market, consumers look for originality when deciding which brand gets their buck. To put it into numbers, 86% of shoppers state that authenticity matters when deciding what brands they support—meaning that staying true to brand messaging and principles is key when delving into experiential marketing.
Peake explains that due to a heavy number of beauty brands now involving themselves in experiential marketing, some brands miss the mark by trying to copy others' achievements; however, a lack of the authenticity consumers desire can lead to unsuccessful outcomes. “We tend to find that some brands want to copy other industry famous campaigns, hoping the success from other brand activations will rub off on theirs,” she says. “Ultimately success comes from brave and insightful creativity that leads the industry—so original thinking is crucial.”
James Barnes, co-founder and Business Director of Backlash, further emphasizes his business partners' point of view, explaining that “effective activations are not driven by fleeting trends, but by a deep understanding of the strategic building blocks that ensure the campaign aligns with the brand’s business objectives.”
Barnes recommends that businesses use essential brand-specific data to navigate an experiential strategy. This includes taking into account key factors such as consumer behavior and reactions to past campaigns, which will help to navigate important aspects of experiential marketing including decisions such as location or platform selection—ensuring reflection on how these choices will resonate with target audiences.
Barnes suggests that brands reflect on three main points in order to remain authentic in experiential marketing. “Important questions to think about when developing a brief are ‘How do you want customers to think and feel?’ ‘What is it you want them to remember about your brand so that they come back to you?’ Or is it simply ‘We want to be disruptive and massively shareable,’” he says. “Once we know those answers, the fun can begin. When you layer bold, innovative creativity on top of a solid strategic foundation, that’s when you create an experience that truly resonates and drives impact for the brand.”
Key takeaway: Authenticity is crucial for experiential marketing success, with many shoppers prioritizing it when choosing brands, emphasizing the need for original, insight-driven strategies that align with brand values and resonate deeply with target audiences.
Creative Bravery
Across marketing, being creatively brave and bold is important to stand out, and holding back from doing so has its pushbacks. “At first brands can hesitate to push boundaries with bold, innovative concepts, often due to concerns about straying too far from the brand’s established identity, or a lack of focus on direct sales. This can result in watered-down creativity that doesn’t capture attention or deliver meaningful engagement,” Peake explains.
In order to be creatively brave, brands must be open-minded to pushing the boundaries. “When starting the concept process it's best to find inspiration everywhere—not just by looking at what other brands are doing. I find that if you want to create unique or disruptive ideas you need to be inspired by anything and everything and approach ideation with an open mind,” says Peake.
Oftentimes, creative bravery can stem from personal experiences that leave a lasting memory. “My best ideas have come from pulling on my own personal experiences and then stripping them right down to a singular thought that can then be layered with design and interactions that are suitable for the brand I'm working with,” she continues.
Personal experiences and fond memories create the perfect foundation for creative ideas as they spark emotion, which is the key to engaging the consumer. Creating a sense of emotional connection is proven to be a significant driver of consumer loyalty, responsible for 43% of business value. Moreover, according to Harvard Business Review, it is proved that over time, customers who reach the pinnacle of the brand emotional connection scale bring 52% more value than consumers who are simply “highly satisfied.”
“Successful experiential is meant to evoke emotions and the brand is responsible for how they want customers to think and feel,” Peake adds. “People remember experiences that resonate on a deeper level, so tapping into emotions and creating lasting impressions is key—this ensures guests come away feeling valued and more likely to share their positive experience with friends and family.”
Peake notes that businesses often pose a threat to their own success in experiential marketing by overlooking the value of the consumers' memorable emotions from interactions. “Often, brands only think about how they will look outwardly to customers [during the experiential campaign],” she states. “They don’t think about what the average of 400-2,000 people who attend will be thinking about the brand a week later when they are telling their friends, colleagues, or family about it.” However, emotional connections should be prioritized, as 71% of consumers who had an emotional experience with a brand state they are willing to recommend its services to others.
These emotional connections are most effectively created through compelling themes and storylines that resonate with audiences on a personal level. “By crafting a concept or narrative that mirrors real-life experiences or aspirations, brands can foster deeper engagement and connection," says Peake. “Leading with a concept or theme that connects with real people is the key to landing successful experiential campaigns, as the role is to create a story or world that customers can connect with.”
Oudin further emphasizes the importance of this approach in beauty marketing. “The future of beauty marketing isn’t just about selling perfect skin; it’s about selling a moment, a feeling, a story,” she exclaims. “Those who master this art will lead the industry.”
Key takeaway: Emotional connections and creative bravery are imperative for impactful experiential marketing that leaves lasting impressions, fosters consumer loyalty, and drives word-of-mouth advocacy, ultimately offering more long-term value than simply focusing on immediate outward appearance or direct sales.
Diverting from Direct Sales
According to Gradient, compared to other industries, beauty and skincare brands place a stronger emphasis on direct sales when it comes to experiential marketing. In fact, 64% of beauty businesses believe sales to be an important outcome of experiential marketing, with 44% marking it as the most important factor.
However, experts warn that prioritizing sales as an experiential marketing KPI can often lead to disappointment, as success is better off measured based on long-term consumer interactions with the brand. "Measuring success in experiential marketing can be challenging," notes Oudin. "It's not just about direct sales; it's about how people feel after engaging with your brand. The key is finding the right tools to track and analyze these emotional connections.”
Barnes reaffirms Oudin’s positioning on sales measurement. “While driving sales is certainly an important objective, the primary focus for most brands when creating experiential marketing campaigns should be to generate brand awareness and create an immersive, ownable brand experience.”
Notably, however, for brands that remain committed to direct sales, pop-ups are often the best avenue to go down when considering experiential marketing strategies that increase brand sales. This is due to consumers being influenced by the temporariness of such spaces, with many concerned that the venue and product may not be there when they next return to the area. Specifically, 79% of people who attend a pop-up make a purchase—this figure rises to 87% amongst Gen Z, and 70% of consumers become repeat customers after experiencing a brand in real life.
However, Barnes notes that even within pop-ups, direct sales should not always be a top priority. “Pop-up experience-driven approaches should typically prioritize brand awareness and consumer engagement, with sales being a secondary consideration or an opportunity for testing,” he says. “Pop-ups are particularly valuable for brands that don’t have physical stores—whether they’re sold through multi-brand retailers or are D2C brands—as they offer a unique opportunity to engage with consumers in a fully branded space without the constraints of traditional retail environments.” When executed correctly, pop-ups can do wonders for brand awareness, with 95% of respondents who visited a pop-up claiming it had had a positive impact on their perception of the brand, with another 73% saying that it had made them want to see or hear more from the brand in question.
Key takeaway: With experiential marketing, long-term success lies in fostering brand awareness, and consumer engagement—outcomes that create lasting impact beyond immediate transactions.
““The future of beauty marketing isn’t just about selling perfect skin; it’s about selling a moment, a feeling, a story. Those who master this art will lead the industry.””
