Most activations fail by using flashy technology like AR goggles as a gimmick, isolating rather than engaging. Cool tech grabs attention—but it doesn’t create human connection or lasting memories. The real game-changer? Using experiential design to expand interaction, turning passive viewers into active participants in a powerful human experience.
In today’s world, technology has become an integral part of how we experience entertainment, events, and everyday life. Innovations like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), motion tracking, touch technology and AR glasses can be used independently or in combination to create immersive, multisensory experiences.
However, the real key to using technology effectively is not just in its novelty but in how it enhances real human interaction. At Glow, we believe technology should be a tool to amplify experiences, not replace them. Whether it’s an interactive installation at a Comic-Con San Diego event, a brand activation or an immersive brand activation, our goal is to ensure that technology serves the brand story and deepens emotional connection rather than becoming the story itself.
A successful experience isn’t just about how advanced the tech is—it’s about how people connect with it and each other. Studies on consumer psychology and consumer behavior have shown that emotionally-driven experiences leave a far stronger impact on audiences than purely digital interactions. That’s why our designs always start with the human experience first, using technology as a seamless bridge to enhance immersion and audience engagement.
The Krusty Krab Effect:
Why VR Needs More Audience Engagement
One of the biggest challenges with emerging technology is ensuring that it enhances, rather than isolates, participants. VR, for example, creates a highly personal and immersive experience for the user, but what about everyone watching from the outside? At large convention center events like Comic-Con San Diego, where fans are eager to participate in brand activations and interact with SpongeBob characters, standing in a long line for a solo VR experience can be discouraging and disengaging.
This is a major industry challenge—brands want to incorporate cutting-edge technology, but when experiences are too individualized, they can unintentionally disconnect the larger audience. The problem isn’t the technology itself; it’s how it’s used. The future of experiential marketing lies in activations that engage not just the primary participant, but the crowd as well.
At Glow, we design experiences with both the individual and the audience in mind, ensuring that spectators don’t just observe but actively participate. A well-designed environment—strategically obscuring or revealing key elements—adds a sense of mystery and anticipation, making every activation feel like a shared event rather than an isolated moment.
By creating multi-layered experiences that blend the digital and the physical, we ensure that technology serves as an interactive bridge, rather than a barrier, to audience engagement.
Case Study:
The ‘Fry Cook Games’ at Comic-Con San Diego—A Model for Shared Engagement
One of our most successful experiential marketing activations was created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of SpongeBob characters. The goal was to immerse fans in the world of Bikini Bottom by recreating one of the most iconic locations from the show: the Krusty Krab restaurant at Comic-Con San Diego, one of the largest convention center events in the world.
However, instead of designing a passive, screen-heavy experience, we focused on turning participants into active, physical players in a high-energy, role-playing event that leveraged consumer psychology to maximize engagement.
How It Worked
1. Immersive Environment & Role-Playing
Upon entering, participants were dressed as SpongeBob characters, in a chef’s apron and a SpongeBob hat, instantly placing them in a familiar, nostalgic setting.
The physical set mirrored the show, reinforcing brand storytelling and maximizing customer engagement through an interactive, tactile experience.
2. The Gameplay—Physical + Digital Integration
Instead of relying on a purely digital challenge, we designed a real-world, hands-on Krusty Krab restaurant-themed competition using a combination of physical props and digital scoring.
Orders appeared on an iPad, listing a bun and four ingredients that needed to be stacked in the correct order.
A scanner checked for accuracy, ensuring that tech enhanced the game mechanics without replacing the physical interaction.
3. Creating Excitement & Engagement
The time pressure—75 seconds per round—forced players to think fast and physically interact with their environment.
The gamified two-player format encouraged friendly competition, increasing audience engagement through fast-paced action.
4. Spectator Engagement—A Crucial Design Element—A Crucial Design Element
A large countdown timer and live score updates kept spectators engaged, transforming the game into a crowd-driven event rather than a solo activity.
5. Social Media Amplification—A Built-In ‘FOMO’ Factor
A QR code system allowed participants to instantly retrieve and share their photos, extending the experience far beyond the event itself and fueling create marketing to social proof.
By designing the Fry Cook Games in a way that encouraged audience participation, physical engagement, and a seamless blend of digital tools and real-world action, we created a shared experience that resonated far beyond the activation itself.
Designing for the Larger Audience
The best activations and event activations don’t just cater to the participants—they actively engage the surrounding audience. The more interactive and visually compelling an activation is, the more likely it is to attract attention, generate excitement and organically encourage social sharing and brand storytelling.
When designing experiences, we always consider:
- Line Engagement: Keeping people entertained while they wait, turning idle moments into interactive ones.
- Key Emotions That Drive Social Media: Encouraging spectators to cheer, react, or even influence the experience in real-time.
- Memorable Takeaways: Providing tangible or digital souvenirs that extend the experience beyond the event, a key factor in customer experience management.
How SpongeBob Characters and Event Marketing Drive Emotional Connection
Great experiential marketing isn’t just about entertainment—it’s about creating a neurologically and psychologically compelling experience that engrains itself in memory, evokes emotion, and drives consumer action. The Fry Cook Games activation was successful because it leveraged proven principles of consumer psychology, sensory marketing, and social engagement to create a lasting impact.
Why It Worked
1. Emotion Creates Stronger, Longer-Lasting Memories
Neurological research confirms that emotionally charged experiences are more likely to be remembered because they activate the amygdala and hippocampus, the brain regions responsible for processing emotions and encoding long-term memories. Studies have shown that emotionally engaging experiences enhance memory recall and influence decision-making more effectively than neutral or purely rational stimuli.
By tapping into nostalgic joy, competition, and consumer behavior, the Fry Cook Games triggered emotional arousal, which not only increased engagement but also strengthened memory retention. Participants didn’t just play a game—they lived out a moment of childhood fantasy in a fully immersive, high-energy competition.
2. Multisensory Engagement Strengthens Brand Recall
The human brain processes multisensory experiences more deeply than single-sensory ones, leading to greater emotional and cognitive impact. The combination of visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli in the activation made the experience more immersive and neurologically stimulating, increasing brand retention and audience engagement.
- Visual Immersion: The meticulously recreated SpongeBob characters activated recognition-based memory, reinforcing brand identity.
- Physical Engagement: The hands-on burger-building competition engaged haptic memory, which is closely linked to spatial awareness and problem-solving.
- Auditory Reinforcement: The use of sound effects, countdown timers, and audience cheers leveraged associative learning, reinforcing the competitive excitement and amplifying social contagion.
3. Competition and Social Interaction Amplify Engagement
Humans are wired to respond to social validation and competition, as these dynamics release dopamine and oxytocin, increasing both motivation and emotional connection to the experience (Lieberman, 2013). The two-player format and live scoring system of the Fry Cook Games created a shared emotional experience, making participation more rewarding, memorable, and inherently viral.
Spectator participation also transformed passive observers into active participants, strengthening the psychological concept of consumer sentiment index—where people derive behavioral cues from group dynamics (Cialdini, 2021). This led to:
- Increased engagement as spectators became emotionally invested.
- Stronger key emotions that drive social media through word-of-mouth and online shares.
- A more memorable brand association due to the contagious nature of group energy
4. Narrative-Driven Interactions Deepen Emotional Ties
The power of brand storytelling in marketing is well-documented—narrative-based experiences activate more areas of the brain and increase emotional investment in a brand (Zak, 2015). The Fry Cook Games leveraged the pre-existing cultural narrative of SpongeBob, allowing participants to step into a familiar story world rather than passively consume content.
This brand story immersion led to:
- Stronger emotional connection through role-playing and identity association.
- Higher participant motivation to complete the experience as part of a meaningful storyline.
- Increased memorability, as people recall story-driven experiences more vividly than isolated brand interactions.
5. Digital Integration Bridges Physical and Virtual Worlds
Modern event marketing isn’t just about physical engagement—it’s about seamlessly connecting digital interactions to real-world actions. Research on gamified experiences suggests that consumers find hybrid engagements more novel and engaging, leading to higher brand affinity and longer engagement times (Grewal et al., 2020).
The Fry Cook Games succeeded by combining digital scoring, QR-code-powered social sharing, and interactive elements to:
- Extend the activation beyond the physical event, increasing online engagement.
- Reinforce participation through instant digital feedback, making the experience feel dynamic.
- Encourage user-generated content, leveraging SpongeBob meme culture to expand brand reach organically.
The Fry Cook Games was not just a fun activation—it was a masterclass in event marketing graphics and experience design rooted in neuroscience. By strategically leveraging emotion, sensory engagement, customer engagement, consumer psychology and digital integration, the activation maximized brand recall, increased participant investment and drove organic amplification.
The Future of Experience:
Why Human Connection Will Define the Next Era
Experiential marketing is at a turning point where technology alone is no longer the differentiator. The brands that will succeed aren’t those with the flashiest tech but those that seamlessly integrate it to enhance customer engagement and emotional connection. Audiences are moving away from digital gimmicks and seeking deeper, more participatory experiences that feel immersive, emotionally resonant, and authentic.
For years, many experiential activations have leaned too heavily on technology as the main attraction—VR headsets that isolate users or AR activations that exist only for novelty. But research consistently shows that technology is most effective when it enhances human interaction rather than replaces it. Brands that continue prioritizing tech-first approaches will lose ground as consumers gravitate toward interactive, shared, and tactile experiences that resonate with consumer psychology and consumer behavior.
Future-Proofing Experiential Marketing
To remain relevant and impactful, brands must shift from one-off stunts to scalable, emotionally-driven experiences that engage both participants and spectators. Activations should be designed with audience engagement in mind, encouraging interaction beyond just the primary user. Whether through gameplay, competition, or collaborative brand storytelling, the goal is to make engagement intuitive and rewarding.
Technology should be a tool, not the focal point. AR should add depth to an experience rather than act as a digital overlay without purpose. AI should personalize interactions without making them feel artificial or overly curated. The most effective experiential strategies will make technology feel invisible until it’s enhancing the moment. AI in marketing will continue to shape customer experience management, ensuring that activations are adaptive and relevant to evolving audience expectations.
Beyond the event itself, brands must build experiences with longevity in mind. Shareability should be a core consideration, with activations designed to live on through digital content, interactive extensions, or exclusive online communities. This ensures that event marketing doesn’t end when the activation does.
Personalization will continue to evolve, but brands must strike a balance between customization and scalability. AI-driven experiences that are too rigidly curated can feel impersonal. Instead, brands should create frameworks that allow for semi-customized interactions, offering choices that make the experience feel tailored without being overly programmed.
Common Pitfalls That Undermine Experiential Marketing
Many brands fall into the same traps when designing experiences. Over-engineered activations that require excessive instruction lose momentum before they even begin. Isolated, single-user VR and AR experiences disconnect audiences rather than engage them. Ignoring spectators turns potential social amplification into a missed opportunity. And focusing on technological novelty instead of emotional impact results in fleeting interest rather than lasting brand affinity.
Human Connection as the Future of Experiential
As digital fatigue reaches new heights, audiences aren’t looking for more screens or automation. They’re looking for experiences that bring people together, create lasting memories, and foster a sense of belonging. Leading brands like Nike, Disney, and Red Bull have already set the standard by blending digital and physical experiences, involving consumers as active participants, and leveraging social engagement to create viral moments.
The future of experiential success lies in designing human-first, technology-supported activations that connect digital and physical spaces. The brands that master brand story integration and audience-driven engagement will forge stronger consumer loyalty, deeper emotional connections, and a lasting impact.
The question is no longer whether your brand should invest in experiential marketing—it’s whether you can execute it in a way that is meaningful, participatory, and built for the future.
What This Means for You
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