At ADWEEK’s South by Southwest event in Austin on Sunday, marketers from Pinterest, PopSockets, Grillo’s Pickles, and more gathered for a group chat on what it means to build a brand in the experience economy.
In a crowded session, ADWEEK reporter Kathryn Lundstrom moderated a panel that brought together Judy Lee, senior managing director of global brand and creative at Pinterest; Brandon Lentino, chief creative officer at Viral Nation; Jiayu Lin, CEO of PopSockets; Mark Luker, CMO of Grillo’s Pickles; Ty Stafford, founder and CEO of Hello Party; Winnifer Thomas-Cox, consumer goods and services lead for North America at Accenture Song; and Carly Van Sickle, vp of global brand marketing at Starwood Hotels.
Together, they argued that brand experience should resemble an operating system rather than just a physical space.
From activations to operating systems
The panel largely agreed that experiential, as a standalone concept, is giving way to something broader. Thomas-Cox framed the shift most directly: Brands must now build the infrastructure through which consumers experience them at every touchpoint, not just at a pop-up.
“It is more now an operating system,” Thomas-Cox said. “We have to be intentional and thoughtful about how we build that, how we allow people to experience our brands.”
Lentino described a three-layer framework his team uses: the in-the-moment, physical experience; the shareable social moment; and the cultural conversation that outlasts the event itself. The era of spectacle, he said, is over.
“It has to be, no longer, ‘Come look at this and how cool it is,’” Lentino said. “It has to be, ‘Come feel this, experience this.’”
Earning the right to show up
Knowing where your brand does and doesn’t belong emerged as a recurring theme.
Lin described PopSockets’ approach as finding the intersection of brand identity, product functionality, and consumer truth. For the phone accessories company, that intersection comes alive at music festivals, where its grips, straps, and power banks solve a genuine problem for concertgoers.
“If you just pop up once at one place, it’s still very fleeting in today’s world,” Lin said.
Lee said Pinterest activates at Coachella for a similar reason: its users are already on the platform planning their festival looks before they even arrive.
“People are planning what they want to wear and then they can measure it up while they’re there,” Lee said.
The measurement question
When Lundstrom asked how brands prove ROI on in-person experience, Luker was disarmingly direct.
