Leading Car Brands Are Pouring Millions into Experiential Marketing—and the Trend is Accelerating

We’re delighted to share our latest insights into the experiential marketing trends that continue to drive the Automotive industry forward.

Our research shows the perspectives from interviews with 15 C-suite executives, and comprehensive surveys with over 750 senior brand marketers across more than 12 industries.

The complete study, which features expertly visualized data and thorough analysis, will be soon available on our website. For the meantime, we've created an exclusive preview specifically focused on the automotive industry.

Budget and Resource Allocation for Experiences and Events

Experiential marketing is now a core strategy for high-budget brands, not just an add-on. It enables the execution of extensive and immersive campaigns, which can be crucial in the automotive sector where customer experience is essential.

64% of companies allocate between 11% and 30% of their marketing budget to experiential marketing initiatives (an estimated investment of approximately $2 million).
An additional 8% of companies allocate more than 50% of their budget to experiential, indicating that experiential marketing might even serve as a primary engagement strategy for some brands (an approximate $1 million investment).
Experiential budgets are trending upward, with 88% reporting increases. 33% even reported significant increases.

Together, this highlights a growing industry confidence in the value of experiential marketing and an understanding of its potential to create impactful brand experiences.

What’s more, none of the respondents in the study reported significant decreases, showing a positive general outlook on experiential investment.

Musa Tariq, former chief brand officer and head of marketing at Ford, says: “There is probably the greatest pressure on everyone to succeed and succeed fast. The money I’m investing has to deliver in the short term.”

Experiential Marketing Strategies in Automotive

In the automotive industry, well-rounded approaches to experiential marketing are favorable in order to strike a balance between digital and physical experiences.

Data plays a significant role in guiding this strategy, although intuition is also valued.

The automotive sector emphasizes in-retail rituals more than the general market (63% vs. 51%), likely due to the importance of physical product demonstrations that allow consumers to experience vehicles first-hand—what the industry often refers to as getting 'butts in seats.'
When compared to the general market, building an emotional connection is more critical to the automotive industry (49% vs. 39%), reflecting its unique position as a high-stakes, emotionally driven industry where brand loyalty and customer connection are paramount.
Automotive places slightly less emphasis on influencer content (45% vs. 52%) than other industries. As product interaction is crucial, direct consumer experiences may be preferred over influencer-led narratives.

At present, final-stage integration of experiential marketing in automotive is around 4.50% more common when compared to other sectors. This is likely intended to enhance the tangible aspects of campaigns that are close to execution.

Due to this, there is an increased desire for earlier and more holistic integration of experiential marketing in automotive, indicating that many companies aim to make it a core element of campaign development.

Automotive’s ROI from Experiential Marketing

When it comes to experiential marketing, automotive companies prioritize tangible financial outcomes, with sales as the most important ROI metric for success.

66.67% of those in the automotive industry prioritize sales as the most important ROI metric, against just 53.19% who work in other industries.

As automotive companies tend to focus on high-ticket items, this may explain their stronger emphasis on direct financial outcomes. This contrasts all-industry data, which places more emphasis on awareness (36.48% vs. 26.19%).

Many other sectors sell products at lower price ranges, where brand perception through exposure and reach can be a significant growth driver.

Furthermore, the automotive industry also places a slightly higher importance on earned media value, social engagement, and follower growth, allowing them to maintain a robust digital footprint that complements in-person brand experiences.

Although many companies are satisfied with their ability to measure ROI from experiential initiatives, a minority still see room for improvement.

Challenges to Experiential Marketing Within Automotive

The key experiential challenges for the automotive industry relate to measurement, collaboration, and the justification of ROI. These align with a broader industry focus on accountability and cross-functional integration in marketing efforts.

Measurability of experiential marketing is the top challenge for the automotive industry (63.27%), whereas it places second for all industries (52.05%).

This may be caused by longer sales cycles and the complex, high-value nature of automotive purchases, which are harder to directly attribute.

Being able to prove ROI is a key concern across the board, but a higher demand in automotive (53.06% vs. 48.24%) stresses the need for reliable data to make decisions in a competitive, high-cost market.

Collaboration is also of high importance both internally and externally, with stronger processes and tools needed to facilitate teamwork and alignment. Additional concerns include budget allocation and scalability.

Integrating Experiential Marketing with Other Channels

Automotive companies prefer a multi-channel approach to create a strong brand presence, increase reach, and maximize engagement.

Influencer marketing (57.14%) and brand content creation (51.02%) are the most commonly integrated channels with experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing in the automotive industry will often leverage influencers and custom content, enabling brands to reach new audiences and increase brand visibility through social and digital engagement.

Retail integration, although less common in automotive, can create a targeted focus on physical spaces to reinforce brand connections with the consumer.

Automotive Industry Case Study: Gradient’s Experiential Marketing Campaign for Lincoln

The challenge

Lincoln, the American luxury car brand, aimed to reposition itself as affordable to younger audiences by bringing their Navigator model to life in an experiential setting.

The idea

Gradient crafted a unique experiential event to win over the hearts of visitors through earned social content and get 'butts into seats' of their iconic SUV.

The solution

We created a ‘summer house by the sea’ by transforming a shipping container into a luxurious lounge with stunning decor and immaculate fabrication, all inspired by the Lincoln Navigator itself.