When thinking about sponsorship opportunities on behalf of your brand, it’s important to choose wisely. After all, making the wrong choice can not only damage your reputation, but it can also result in the loss of valuable customers.

Experiential marketing is on the rise. More and more brands are looking to drive sales by creating truly memorable experiences for consumers. But simply following a trend doesn't guarantee success -- your brand has to have purpose.

Having trouble growing your brand? Combining experiential and influencer marketing strategies might just be what your campaign is missing. Marketers have long segmented events and social, allotting each a distinct budget and entrusting the roles to different teams. But they are even more powerful when combined.

As experiential marketers, we’ve long understood the value of making one-to-one connections with consumers. By getting closest to the customer, we’re able to educate and engage in ways that some other forms of marketing simply cannot. However, while the value of experiential has always seemed rather intuitive, it has been challenging to quantify its impact to brands. In this infographic, we take a look at consumers’ growing desire for live experiences and why experiential should be part of your marketing mix.

In the past decade, there has been a massive shift in consumer behavior. Instead of buying things, consumers are increasingly choosing to invest in experiences. If there’s any doubt, just think about the massive popularity of engagements like Refinery 29’s “29 Rooms” or the Museum of Ice Cream.

Yesterday, our founder and CEO, Jeff Snyder, was published in The Marketing Insider. In this piece, "Your Branding Secret Weapon: User-Generated Content,” Jeff shares his expertise and a number of tips for brands to employ to get consumers talking — and posting — on their behalf.

We’ve all heard about the death of retail. Malls have turned into ghost-towns as iconic department stores are slowly withering away. This year alone, almost 4,500 U.S. store closures have been announced, while only about half that have opened. Analysts attribute retail’s downfall to a number of factors: the effects of the Great Recession, technology (mobile and the rise in e-commerce), increased competition from Amazon, and a shift in consumer spending habits - primarily, investing in experiences over goods.

As a lifelong hockey fan, I’ve always felt a tinge of jealousy about the NHL being less popular than the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Why don’t people love my sport?

Recently, Blue Apron announced a series of pop-up events that will be happening nationwide. These include a retail location in New York with cooking classes and panels, mobile activations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, and culinary-inspired movie nights in Minneapolis, Dallas, and Austin.

What do Cadillac, Old Spice, and Lego all have in common? They each have had to make a significant business decision that would change the future of their respective brands and put them back into the hearts and minds of consumers.