For two decades, marketing has been built around the idea that attention can be bought, delivering more impressions, more reach, and more content across every moment of a consumer’s day. What the industry didn’t anticipate is how consumers have adapted.

According to data highlighted byeMarketer, 93% of consumers skip or block ads whenever possible.In response, brands have done the opposite of what they should be doing – they produced even more content, creating a cycle where visibility increases but attention continues to decline.

The result is a marketing landscape defined by noise. What brands are beginning to realize is that attention alone was never the real goal; connection was. And increasingly, that connection is happening in the real world.

Trade shows represent one of the most significant and publicly visible investments in your marketing calendar. Yet many brands still approach their booth strategy the same way they'd tackle an internal presentation: a few stakeholders and a tight deadline. The “We can just do this in house,” philosophy often signals the beginning of a logistical nightmare.

Brands are spending more than ever on digital media, yet consumers are noticing less of it. Let's face it, most people can see an ad coming a mile away and skip right past it. The over-proliferation of irrelevant, boring, and overtly promotional content has trained consumers to simply ignore it. Then advertisers wonder why performance keeps getting harder to sustain.

Budgets are lean and marketing leaders are consistently asked to do more with less. And, when it comes to experiential campaigns some brands look internally first or turn to PR partners because, on the surface, events might feel like public relations.

You convinced your CMO to invest in a brand experience at a music festival. You built the booth, made the investment in the merch, and stocked the samples. Some people showed up, picked up a few samples, left the swag, and...walked away.

Most brands think they’re doing experiential marketing when they launch an Instagrammable pop-up or hand out free samples at a sporting event. But the truth is: tactics without strategy are just noise. They might create a quick spike in awareness, but it’s rarely anything that lasts.

Experiential sampling is one of those wildly underrated tactics that everyone thinks they understand because they once grabbed a free cheese cube at a warehouse club. But that kind of mass sampling is the marketing equivalent of yelling into a megaphone at strangers. Sure, people will hear you…but they’re definitely not remembering your name.

Loneliness isn’t just a fleeting feeling; it’s a growing problem in the U.S. that’s shaping the way consumers engage with each other and with the world around them. According to The Cigna Group’s 2025 Loneliness in America Report, nearly 58% of U.S. adults report feeling lonely, with Gen Z (67%) and Millennials (65%) leading the way. As the holiday season approaches, expectations around what we’re supposed to be feeling and social media posts showing how much fun everyone else seems to be having can amplify those feelings even more. Surprisingly, beyond feeling disconnected, loneliness can have far-reaching impacts, including how they build trust and choose brands.

2026 is shaping up to be a year where food isn’t just what we eat. It represents who we are, how we feel, and how we connect online and in real life. From the flavors we crave to the experiences we seek, food is becoming a mirror of identity, intention, and imagination. What will replace this year’s protein hacks and fluffy Japanese pancakes? We’re starting to see some emerging trends that will shape CPG marketing in 2026: here are five hot takes.

Why treat your brand activation like a one-night stand when it can be the beginning of a long, meaningful story? When you build your experience around a clear, ownable idea, you’re setting yourself up with content that can fuel your marketing all year long. We connected with our content strategists to offer 10 ways to deliver content that continues to build the relationship beyond the activation.