Experiential marketing is being questioned today in ways it simply was not a few years ago.
Spends have gone up, but confidence has not. Live events, influencer-led moments, and on-ground activations continue to multiply, yet brand teams are increasingly unsure of what they are really getting back. After the build is dismantled and the content is published, familiar questions return. Did people actually engage. Did anything stay with them. Or did brands simply borrow attention for a brief moment.
From where I stand, this discomfort is justified.
The way people move through cities has changed dramatically, and experiential marketing has struggled to keep pace. Urban life today is fragmented and constantly in motion. People move between work, social plans, errands, and entertainment, often within the same day. Commutes are long. Waiting is routine. Transitions occupy more time than destinations themselves. Yet most brand experiences are still designed as fixed points, built on the assumption that people will arrive intentionally and stay focused.
That assumption no longer holds.
In practice, people do not pause their lives to experience brands. They encounter brands while living their lives. When experiences are designed as destinations, they automatically filter out large sections of the audience. Only the most motivated arrive. Everyone else moves on.
This is where mobility becomes impossible to ignore.
Mobility is an admission of how behaviour actually works. When an experience moves, it stops asking people to change their routines. It enters routines that already exist. Commutes. Waiting zones. Spaces outside venues. Time before and after events. These moments are not empty. They are simply under-designed.
Industry data supports what many practitioners see on the ground. GroupM’s This Year Next Year India report continues to show growth in experiential spends, alongside rising pressure to justify outcomes beyond reach. Kantar’s India research consistently highlights stronger engagement when experiences feel relevant to everyday life rather than constructed for spectacle. The FICCI–EY Media and Entertainment Report points to sport, music, and culture spilling out of formal venues into neighbourhoods and informal social spaces.
The comparison with digital is instructive. Platforms did not move to mobile-first because it sounded progressive. They did so because desktop-first thinking no longer reflected how people lived. Physical brand experiences are now facing a similar correction. Destination-led thinking is giving way to formats that follow people rather than wait for them.
Nowhere is this clearer than in sport and large cultural events. Anyone who has attended a major match or festival knows that the real experience is not limited to what happens on stage or on the field. It unfolds in queues, conversations, arrivals, and exits. Yet most activations only exist for peak moments. The rest of the time is ignored.
Mobile experiential formats fill this gap. They offer seating, shade, conversation, and shared space. They give people somewhere to be, not something to be sold to. In doing so, they often create stronger memory than louder, more expensive builds.
Sport is a particularly telling case. India’s sports economy has expanded far beyond stadiums. Fan culture lives in streets, cafés, parking lots, and neighbourhoods. While a large share of experiential budgets is still spent inside venues, many of the most genuine fan interactions happen outside them. Mobility allows brands and leagues to participate in these moments without permanent infrastructure.
There is also an operational reality that cannot be ignored. One-time builds are inefficient. They are expensive, stressful to execute, and discarded almost immediately. Teams repeat this cycle with diminishing returns. Mobile platforms behave differently. They move across cities and contexts. They evolve over time. Familiarity builds instead of resetting with each campaign.
Behaviour matters as much as economics. Mobile experiences are less scripted by design. There is no forced flow or prescribed journey. People engage briefly or for long stretches. They come and go. This lack of control is not a weakness. It is what makes the experience feel real.
Public spaces offer a useful lesson. Parks, promenades, and transit hubs succeed because they allow people to use them in their own way. Their value lies in flexibility. Experiential marketing is beginning to absorb the same logic. The most effective brand experiences today behave more like infrastructure than installations.
This does not mean creativity matters less. It means it must work harder. Creativity now lies in understanding movement, timing, and shared presence. In knowing when to stay out of the way. Measurement must evolve as well, moving beyond footfall to consider quality of time spent.
Mobility is not a trend layered onto experiential marketing. It is a correction.
As brands look ahead, those that continue designing for idealised behaviour will struggle to prove impact. Those that design for how people actually move, wait, and gather will build experiences that last. The canvas has already shifted to streets, transitions, and overlooked spaces of everyday life. Brands that accept this reality will shape what experiential marketing becomes next.
