"Each year, food brands pour small fortunes into experiential marketing programs that leadership can't confidently defend. Not because experiential doesn't workit doesbut because many still play by a 1999 playbook in a 2026 game. The result? Products reach consumers through poorly targeted, hard-to-measure activations that make experiential look like a PR spend instead of the conversion driver it can be."
"Savvy marketers are no longer making these mistakes. They've moved past the sampling is for awareness era, treating experiential as a measurable performance channel with targeting precision and closed-loop attribution. They're showing up to retailer conversations with proof that their sampling drives trips, lifts sales, and builds velocity. They're defending budgets with iROAS data. And they're winning. Four persistent myths account for this divide."
Many food brands continue using outdated experiential marketing playbooks, resulting in poorly targeted, hard-to-measure activations that function like PR spends rather than conversion drivers. Modern marketers treat experiential as a measurable performance channel, applying targeting precision, closed-loop attribution, and iROAS to prove sampling drives trips, lifts sales, and builds velocity. Retailer partnerships and new platforms enable complete tracking from sample to purchase, measuring sales lift, conversions, and new-to-brand acquisition. A multinational brewer distributed one million samples across venue types and recorded a 34% lift in purchase intent and 56% conversion among samplers. Four persistent myths explain the lag.
Read at www.fooddive.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]