Experiential marketing isn’t about telling people what a brand stands for it’s about letting them feel it. It turns audiences from passive consumers into active participants. That’s where real brand love begins.

Take Nescafé: A cup handed out in-store wasn’t just a sample it was a pause in someone’s day, a moment of warmth. Or Honor’s mobile demos at mall roadshows consumers didn’t just see features; they experienced the product in motion. Those moments stay with people longer than any billboard ever could.

With brands in the GCC striving to differentiate themselves, how can experiential marketing help them break through the market clutter and leave a lasting impression?

In a region crowded with digital noise and promotional clutter, experiential marketing breaks through with something rare: presence. People remember how a brand made them feel: what they touched, tasted, laughed at, or posted about.

When we launched Whizmo, we didn’t explain how currency exchange worked, we let people try it, live and real-time, using interactive tech that brought the product to life. Or when we created Bioderma’s roadshow at universities, students received tailored skin consultations, building trust, relevance, and affinity. That’s when the brand stopped being a logo and became a relationship.

As AI continues to influence nearly every aspect of marketing, how can it be leveraged to create more targeted and effective experiential campaigns?

AI doesn’t replace creativity, it amplifies it.

From smarter targeting to real-time personalization, AI helps us make faster, think sharper and connect deeper. We have used facial recognition to read crowd sentiment, adjusted digital content mid-event, and built adaptive product journeys based on who is engaging with the screen.

What once took days now takes minutes. What used to feel generic now feels personal, at scale. And maybe that’s the real win: not just better efficiency, but deeper human connections.

Experiential marketing is known to foster a deeper connection with audiences. Can you explain how it resonates on both an emotional and behavioral level?

Emotionally, it creates memories that stick, people remember what they feel. Behaviorally, it drives action through hands-on trial and personalized experiences, gamified moments. These don’t just engage, they convert.  When consumers participate in something like customizing their own skincare regime during a live consultation or trying out a product in a playful, gamified setup they are far more likely to talk about it, trust it, and ultimately, buy into the brand. It’s not just marketing, it’s relationship-building in real time.

FLC Marketing has had a strong presence in the region for several years. Could you share a few examples to showcase how the agency has supported brands in driving measurable growth through your strategies and campaigns?

At FLC, every campaign starts with one question: what does success look like?

For some brands, it’s shifting perception. For others, driving awareness, for some it’s footfall, trial, or sales. We have helped iconic brands like Lacoste drive record-breaking engagement through interactive beach activations and mall roadshows.

For Hisense during FIFA, we turned brand association into brand love by recreating the energy of the stadium boosting offline and digital brand imagery by over 40%.

Even new-age brands like Seres (EV by Green Motors) trusted us to lead a full-funnel journey: we led with awareness, created need, and turned interest into conversion by understanding what truly moved their audience.

What ties it all together? Insight-led strategy, cross-channel storytelling, and a deep respect for ROI. Experiential is our stage, but business growth is our goal.

Over the 35 years I’ve worked in Brand, Business, and Finance, in Europe, Asia- the Pacific, and the Americas, the question “What’s next?” is probably the most asked. Of course, I don’t have a crystal ball (unfortunately), so it’s hard to predict with 100% accuracy. But I do think I have a keen sense of the fundamentals and the ‘truths’ that I think will drive the future of commerce. Here’s what I see:

Commerce has shifted from being purely transactional to almost entirely relational. There has been a seismic shift in the way we build brands and conduct business. Paying an ever-increasing tax to the tech giants for a one-time connection with your own customers is untenable. The strongest brands build deeper and longer relationships by consistently solving meaningful customer problems. Recently, I found myself in a hitch looking for the latest addition to my record collection and was introduced to Vinyl Me Please, one of many online record clubs. They have managed to fulfill every music lover’s dream of building their own perfect record collection. How do they do it? By embedding expert recommendations with a ‘swap’ functionality that allows for just enough choice without being overwhelmed.

Empathize.

Deeper relationships with consumers are fueled by empathy. Too often, I am seeing how brands and advertisers are only focusing on the monetary aspect in the process of building lifetime value for their consumers. When what they should be doing is building a lifetime relationship with their customers. The best businesses build unbreakable bonds with their consumers that grow in value over time. American physical exercise tracking app – Strava, for example, on its mission to ‘build the world’s biggest team’, has recognized that communities can, if managed properly, become more engaging as they grow. Instead of monetizing member data, they protect it – thus prioritizing member privacy. They also recognize that not all new elements of the offering need to be at scale to succeed. They recognize it is just as important to create micro-magic-moments amongst niche member groups. My own running club in Portland – the Runaway Club – has just 139 members but we all know and support each other.

Consumer trust, loyalty, and fandom are built through connections at an emotional level. Empathy helps lay the foundation for unbreakable bonds. We need to think beyond linear customer acquisition to eliminate barriers and unlock reasons for customers to stay engaged. An excellent example is the Saudi Arabian food delivery that made history at Cannes Lions last year – becoming the first Saudi brand to bag a Grand Prix in the Creative Commerce category. Hunger Station uses eye-tracking on the phone to help indecisive customers let their subconscious choose their food, adding meaningful value through easier choices.

Engage.

There is a consumer backlash against brands and retailers who sacrifice empathy for efficiency. It’s true when they say that technology can be a double-edged sword – it can be as much a hindrance in the long term as it can be an opportunity in the short term. Try searching – ‘self-checkout backlash’ to see the furor. The future lies in technology helping employees meaningfully engage with customers.

Sephora has set the bar high by embedding flexible in-store online tools in its mobile app for consumers to engage with while shopping, generating a more fun and engaging ‘beauty experience’. They tie this into a loyalty program that rewards action creating a flywheel of engagement in the store and at home.

Unbreakable bonds are built with a flywheel of meaningful engagements. Prioritizing lifetime relationships over short-term gains means pursuing a unified customer experience that cancels out traditional organizational silos of a brand and the business, in the sense that marketing can be seen as a cost whilst business is seen as revenue-at-all-costs. The future of commerce will see marketing activities becoming self-sustaining and business experiences driving long-term engagement. Microsoft

Copilot is a great example of this. Either as a standalone paid service or integrated into Microsoft’s hardware and software, Copilot provided tech consumers with 365-day support for all their computing and productivity needs. But it is also an always-on marketing campaign that demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to caring for its customers. Now that’s brand love.

In image above: by Dave Cobban, Founding Partner at UNBRKBLE

Meaningful engagement comes from understanding customers’ needs. Truly understanding customer pain points and needs is the most powerful tool for identifying what they consider meaningful, revealing valuable opportunity spaces. Pivoting quickly to focus on what’s most important proves the brand is listening.

In my own business, Nike Adventure Club, we pivoted what started as a sustainable running subscription into a kids’ sneaker club. The most acute pain point to solve for parents was “kids growing fast and wrecking shoes”. In doing so, parents awarded the offering an 84 Net Promoter Score, and voluntary monthly churn was less than 5%.

Implement.

Confidence to launch new solutions is built step-by-step. The goal is to mitigate risk while increasing confidence in new solutions over time. Both brand and business managers must ask three fundamental questions in all their activities:

• Desirability: Is this something people want, need, or desire? Will they be engaged by it? Will they pay for it?

• Feasibility: Can we build it? What resources are required? Can we maintain it?

• Viability: Can we make money from it? Will it deliver margin? Is it sustainable?

To summarize, of course, the future of commerce will include incredible advances in technology, but those advances must be in the service of the fundamentals of human behaviors. If technology separates the brand from its customers, then in the long term the brand and business will fail. Think about simple truths of building a long-term relationship: Be kind, be thoughtful, listen to understand, be generous, be consistent but also flexible, and seek ways to demonstrate your commitment regularly. That’s how all of us try to behave with our loved ones. That’s how we should behave with our customers. If we do that, customers will reciprocate with their lifetime value.

The article was first published in Communicate's Issue 180 2024.

Khaled Zaatarah, the founder of VUZ, commented, “Our goal is to provide our users with the most beloved content and the best immersive experiences, and by partnering with MBC GROUP, one of the leading media companies in the world, we aim to bring in the best content to integrate within our immersive social app; all while embracing the latest media trends such as the metaverse, and XR, which of course, encompasses augmented [AR] and virtual reality [VR]. Together with MBC GROUP, we are excited to strengthen our position as the leading immersive social app globally.”

Fadel Zahreddine, Group Director of Emerging Media at MBC GROUP, added: “There’s no doubt that immersive experiences have become increasingly important in the world of entertainment, and the region is fully embracing this. Creating a more realistic and engaging environment allows users to become more deeply involved in – and more connected to – the content they are consuming. We are thrilled to have partnered with VUZ to amplify these audience experiences.”

VUZ has so far raised over $30 million in funding, backed by investors including e& Capital, Caruso Ventures, Dubai Future District Fund, SRMG, and others. The immersive media platform leverages its partners' infrastructure to expand into countries worldwide.

Known previously as 360VUZ, VUZ bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds to offer the biggest premium immersive content library in the world, with more than 20,000 hours of content that has garnered over one Billion views so far. Content covers entertainment, creator spotlights, and sports segments in XR experiences, such as AR and VR, from virtually anywhere in the world.

Communicate sat down with the Senior Director of Marketing Communications for Majid-Al-Futtaim Shopping Malls, Michelle Walsh to dive deeper into the campaign’s know-how and its renewed approach to marketing.

What does the ‘Big City Centre Vote’ campaign aim to do?

What makes a brand successful is its ability to listen to its customers. This campaign kicked off with an NPS survey, which asked people to tell us whether they would recommend us to another brand, it's quite a popular feedback loop that a lot of brands use globally. But it doesn't give you real deep insight. And as we know, malls are such a huge part of people's daily lives. In the UAE and the region, we wanted to make sure that we were understanding what's happening in consumers’ minds, and what their expectation is going to be for the future. We’ve taken this meeting room from our offices and moved it into the mall to allow people to have a voice on how they would like to see the evolution of the mall. The campaign itself is called the Big City Centre vote, and it's happening across all city centers, and what's beautiful about it is what we hear in City Centre, Deira is completely different from what we're hearing in City Centre, Mirdif. Each mall has a local audience that has completely different needs and wants from the mall. So, for us to remain relevant to them, we had to listen to them and that’s why we've given them the opportunity to tell us through the vote what they would like to see more of. The intention is we need to go back to them now and tell them that we've heard the ideas and the votes and actually bring them to life.

How are you looking at implementing these requirements that your consumers have voted for?

I have a marketing and operations team in every mall. Now we're starting to divide all of the ideas. So, this is not going to be built into our annual marketing plans, since we're making sure that we know for sure that our activities are going to appeal to customers, but ideas will be implemented quarterly through our autumn, winter campaigns, and even festive campaigns. From now on, we're going to make sure that those campaigns are steeped in customer insights and actually deliver what customers want in the hope that will make them feel like they have a sense of belonging to the mall, and that they've had a part to play, hence, we're calling It'sYour Space. That's kind of our new brand proposition.

What role do the retailers play in this campaign? How is the campaign going to attract fresher local retailers in the market?

There are two components. One being our current retailers and the second, being new retailers looking for a break and opportunity. Malls and retailers have traditionally worked together to bring footfall to the malls and create sales for our tenants. We work with them on a consistent basis to support them. The results of the vote will help us give specific feedback to our retailers. Retailers are asking customers what they'd like to see more already. But this is another way for them to get that insight. So, we're sharing the results with our tenants particularly, you know, the feedback on sustainability.

For instance, from a food and beverage perspective, we'll say, look, people want healthier options, can you make sure that you have that on your menu as well? That’s how it’s going live in many formats with our current retailers and future prospective retailers. This is where looking at what the local entrepreneurs are doing and giving them a chance to come into a mall and see if they can be successful in bricks and mortar environment of the mall.

How is Majid-Al-Futtaim looking at making its malls more sustainable?

We are already working with partners to help us become more sustainable. We’re about to announce next month, the installation of solar panels on our roof.  They will be feeding back into the grid so that we reduce our carbon emissions. We’re also doing our job to help brands and our sister companies like Carrefour to educate people, to also encourage customers to reduce their reliance on plastic bags. Not completely there but we will get there. What we’ve learned from the last year and a half is that it's no longer a question mark as to whether you will do it, it's more a case of when you are going to go plastic free and we're figuring out how to do that now. In the next couple of months, we will have to work with our retailers to do that.

Is it true to state that our industry is going through a disruptive renaissance, where marketers are quickly recognizing technology, digital marketing, and UX advances as the key facilitators of evolving consumer behavior? Global brand and customer experience agency, VMLY&R proves that it indeed is.

Creative Commerce is a concept that looks at the long-running performance of a campaign and not just the interim. Andrew Dimitriou, CEO of VMLY&R across EMEA, and Beth Ann Kaminkow, Global CEO at VMLY&R Commerce, sat down with Communicate to further explain the concept and how the global agency is putting it to action internationally and locally.

Blending creativity with commerce

The most effective campaigns in this time are the ones that strike the right chord between building an emotional and a digitally friendly experience for the consumer. “I think the greatest thing that we're discovering is, it's not just about the transaction, but how the consumer is now engaging with the brand and its channels. They're looking for so much more from the brand in terms of emotional experience in terms of authentic expression and engagement. At VLMY&R Commerce, we want to be at the forefront of not just knowing how to mechanically and functionally understand the utility of getting people to convert, but tying that to the process of creating and putting creativity in those channels that were typically absent of a real creative and engaging expression,” says Kaminkow.

According to Psychology Today, “functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows that when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences), rather than information (brand attributes, features, and facts).” These statistics form the core of VMLY&R’s purpose of blending creative with commerce. “With commerce dominantly surrounding us today, we decided to put commerce at the very heart of our brand and customer experience and came up with 2.0 version of our Living Commerce approach – Connected Commerce. It is based on the understanding that brands need to communicate with their consumer based on humanistic and true living ways that are relevant and relatable to their lives,” adds Kaminkow.

Omnichannel presence

"Helping brands curate immersive experiences is our mission, we're on a mission to help them build the most connected brands in the world. If you aren't able to achieve that vision, that means you need to create a brand experience it should be based on wherever the consumers are, whenever they want to be engaged, how they want to be engaged. In today's world, by default that is by an omnichannel approach. And if you're not thinking omnichannel from the beginning, then you've kind of missed a beat,” explains Dimitriou.

Kaminkow further explains how nothing is static anymore, “Billboards now have QR codes that lead the customers into a fresh VR experience. So, with this blending of online with offline, we try to integrate solutions that follow natural human behaviors and ultimately build a seamless experience for the brand.”

With an omnichannel direction, VMLY&R looks at exploring different horizons based on the evaluation of the consumer’s need and the challenge that it brings along with it.

In this campaign for RTA, VMLY&R Commerce recognized cab drivers with the ultimate tool to know exactly who was driving their cab. The taxi lightboxes were replaced with the driver's name. The RTA was able to reach a wider online audience growing in humanity and respect for frontline and essential workers. 

Localization is still the key to successful marketing

With the rapid emergence of technology in the form of immersive and innovative experiences, tracking a customer journey’s is no longer a straightforward process. “While the core mission of building connected brands, doing it through brand experience, customer experience, and commerce has not changed, and is consistent globally, I think the one thing that we do well as a network is we have certain centers of excellence where locally we can extract the goodness of the area. For example, we have a technology center of excellence in Krakow where we’ve deployed around 400 people. All of the technicalities of building digital experiences can be worked on there and deployed across the other areas. We have large consulting engagements based in the UK, but we can tap them in and bring them into the market we’re working for and really augment the capability that exists here, “ explains Dimitriou.

A campaign curated by VMLY&R for Twitter allowed brands to talk with their users by integrating feminine Arabic into the experience, making Twitter the first social platform to create genuine inclusivity. It made brands rethink engagement strategies and led to commercial success.   

Through its connected commerce platform, the global creative commerce agency is also implementing the In Living Colour program, which celebrates diversity by gathering insights that go beyond understanding how a consumer feels. “We look at insights in an exclusive versus inclusive methodology, where we truly analyze consumers' behaviors in a place like Dubai which has so many nationalities blending together. The database really allows for us to kind of push the borders and strategize in a very collective and inclusive light,” adds Kaminkow.

With the increasing penetration of mobile devices in the MENA region, it’s no surprise that the media closest to a consumer is his mobile device.

This high level of accessibility is at the inception of the multiscreen phenomenon – people watch TV with their eyes and fingers on the screen of their mobile device, consuming different types of content simultaneously. This behavior has now evolved into multitasking – people are using their mobiles while reading a magazine, browsing through a newspaper, or while standing on the street and seeing an advertisement.

This creates a big opportunity for marketers to create enhanced and enriched ads. Such ads extend the life span of the advertising message, by turning the ad into an experience through which the consumer can interact with the brand.

For example, Shazam, a music-recognition application, allows users to interact with a brand through a quiz or contest by enabling the app during a TVC. Advertisers insert QR codes in their ads to provide further information and a richer experience to users viewing a print ad. Better yet, augmented reality provides consumers a more immersive experience than a simple poster.

All of these real-life experiences make the brand message more meaningful and have a higher likelihood of transforming a customer into a loyalist or even a brand ambassador.

Native Applications

However, marketers tend to forget that these experiences require applications that consumers need to install on their mobile devices. This is an obstacle for marketers as it makes the journey between the brand message and the target audience longer and more difficult. Brands should ask smartphone manufacturers to think of making these applications native or even embed AR and QR code readers in the mobile camera so that it is easier for a consumer to interact with a brand.

Enhanced Content

However, the fact that these applications aren’t native should not deter marketers. In order to successfully pull off providing an experience, brands should carefully select their targeted audience – consumers that are aware, influential and opinion leaders. They should be the ones who will share the experience on social networks, demonstrate the way it works and influence others to try it themselves.

To sum it up, all brands and marketers, should consider offering richer content to their target audience. Think of harnessing the power of the technology accessible to consumers and use of it to offer the best brand experience – whether it is via QR codes, videos, or augmented reality. Create inspiring hashtags to shape conversations on social media and create virality. Work on making your brand content meaningful and relevant because the richer a brand experience, the higher the level of engagement that follows.