Experiential marketing spending surpasses pre-pandemic levels.

Investment in this area is forecasted to hit $128.35 billion in 2024, a 10.5% increase from last year.

Dive Brief:

.Global experiential marketing spending is expected to reach $128.35 billion in 2024, rising above pre-pandemic levels for the first time, according to recent research PQ Media shared with Marketing Dive.

.The expected 10.5% jump in experiential marketing spend this year outpaces the 9.7% growth seen in 2023. Strong investments from both B2B and B2C companies over the past couple of years has set experiential marketing spending on a path to surpass the $121.87 billion spent in 2019.
*B2C experiential marketing spending is predicted to reach $90.32 billion in 2024, a 10.3% increase over 2023. B2B marketing is on track to put up an 11.1% increase to $38.03 b.

Dive Insight:

Following a few fallow years, experiential marketing continues to recover from the pandemic and remains a key tool for marketers in both the B2C and B2B space, according to PQ Media’s Global B2C & B2B Experiential Marketing Forecast 2024-2028. The United States remained the world’s largest market in 2023, reaching $52.80 billion in spending and commanding 45.5% of global spending on experiential marketing.
“Experiential marketing is becoming a more important part of marketing campaigns because of better metrics and engagement with customers,” said Patrick Quinn, CEO of PQ Media in a press release.
When social distancing shut down in-person events and activations, experiential marketing became much more difficult. The lack of in-person events made interacting with consumers more challenging for both B2B and B2C marketers. While many in the industry turned to internet activations, such as the metaverse, the usual channels of sports, live events and conferences were mostly out of the picture. The return of major live events over the past couple of years has been a large contributor to the spending rebound by B2C advertisers. Live events was the fastest growing channel in the B2C space, up 9.6% in 2023.
According to the survey, the category for B2C experiential marketing captured a 67.1% share of the market, demonstrating the enthusiasm for the return of live sports. Marketers saw the 2024 Paris Games as a great chance to get people excited about live events.
In the future, B2C marketers should anticipate concentrating on in-person events like music festivals. Spirit companies like Smirnoff Ice have already benefited from the festival season by building more intimate connections with customers.
Conferences and other industry events have proven beneficial to B2B marketers, particularly when professionals look for new AI tool demonstrations. This is supported by data, which shows that exhibit space leasing fees will increase by 11.8% to $20.93 million in 2023. The cost of attending the event as well as renting an exhibit booth has gone up.
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