Every day, we encounter hundreds, if not thousands, of adverts. Our social media feeds are filled with them, our TV shows are interrupted by them, and our high streets are an advertising battleground. Most of these ads pass us by, with just a small number either resonating or being remembered. Those companies have spent a significant sum to get noticed, and only a fraction of those who see the ad act upon it. Think about it yourself, can you remember the last five ads you saw on your Facebook feed or on TV?
Now think about the show you went to five years ago, or the pop-up event where the retailer gave you some free samples and made YOU the event, not the product. Both of these linger much longer in the memory and are much more likely to leave you with a positive feeling.
So, why, with all the advertising specialists spending millions of dollars, pounds or euros, do their carefully curated campaigns fall flat, whereas the low-budget one-off events stick with us? It’s all to do with how our brains process memory.
And this is something many marketers now need to drill down into if they want to stay ahead of the competition. Product success and customer retention are now built from experience rather than a jingle. We’ll look into why.
Why do we remember the experience, not the advertisement?
When we think of memory, we often think of things that we have purposefully stored in our minds. Our phone PIN, our laptop password, or maybe a random fact about cats. It is much more than that, though. It’s about encoding experiences. When multiple senses are involved, our brain creates strong memory traces that embed in the brain for long periods.
- Multi-sensory: Experiences that involve you directly, engage sight, sound, touch and sometimes taste and smell. These create richer memory networks that allow you to associate a specific sound, feeling, or taste with an event. An ad, on the other hand, will likely only stimulate one sense (normally visual), making it more likely to be forgotten.
- Emotional: It’s been shown that emotionally charged moments are recalled more easily and with much more detail than something that doesn’t make you “feel”. A clever brand slogan may sound smart, but it resonates with you much less than the event where you laughed, cried, felt inspired or achieved something.
- Context: Our brains are incredible machines and can link memories, places and actions easily. Popcorn probably brings back memories of the cinema, for example. An experience leaves these contextual hooks behind. Something unrelated can suddenly draw your mind back to that product activation or special event.
Why do we forget adverts?
Some might say it’s due to our necessity to consume content constantly. In this era of TikTok, we seem to crave something new in seconds, rather than minutes or hours. This doesn’t mean that traditional advertising is broken; it just needs to redefine itself. If you look at many ads on TV now, they’ve even adopted a format to replicate an Instagram or TikTok video. The audio even sounds like it’s been made to sound like it was filmed through a cellphone by an influencer.
So why are we forgetting ads even when advertisers try to satisfy our content consumption desires?
- Short-term attention vs long-term memory: Ads, by their nature, interrupt. They don’t immerse. Nobody likes interruptions; we take them as a negative invasion of our time. So by default, we block it out or avoid it.
- Saturation: As we mentioned earlier, we see so many ads that we become blind to them. It might be right in front of us, but we don’t “see” it.
- Irrelevant: Ads on TV, in print media and on social media don’t feel personal. In most cases, those ads will be there whether you want to see them or not. If the subject matter is irrelevant to you, your brain tunes out right away.
Now compare this to an experience or event. They aren’t just seen or heard. They are lived!
What role does experiential marketing play?
Brand experiences, when created by a brand experience agency correctly, have the power to tell stories that we personally become part of. We can examine a few events from global brands that have been held over the past few years and see how they become more than just brand building; they become memory machines.
- IKEA Sleepover: IKEA held sleepover events in-store. This gathering of IKEA superfans ensured mass exposure on social media, was picked up by news outlets and generated a unique memory for those taking part.
- Coca-Cola “Share a Coke” pop-up: Coke bottles, emblazoned with a name, are one thing, but being able to go to a stand and request your own is something else and adds an element of connectivity to the brand you don’t get when picking a bottle from the chiller or seeing an ad on TV.
- Spotify Wrapped: We all use Spotify (or most of us!), and we all look forward to our annual Spotify Wrapped. What if you could go in person though? Spotify held a live-streamed concert, with 2,000 superfans in attendance. Imagine retelling the story of you being among that select group of fans!
Storytelling through an experience
Our brains are set up to remember stories rather than isolated facts. The 30-second ad you see on TV might give you some brand insight, but it’s forgotten the moment the next ad spins into view. An experience, on the other hand, allows the consumer to become the story, or at least a major character in it.
Whether it’s puzzle-solving in an escape room activation or co-creating content at a festival booth, participation is what strengthens our emotional ties to the brand and event, fostering enhanced positivity about the brand.
How to create lasting experiences
If you want your next brand experience to resonate, you can go it alone and use this blog as a bit of inspiration, or you could benefit from the expertise an agency can offer. Either way, when it comes to outlining an idea or liaising with an experiential marketing agency, you’ll need to consider the following:
- Engage multiple senses wherever possible — sight and sound are good, but taste, touch, and smell create stronger anchors.
- Build emotional high points into the journey: the “wow moment” that people will retell later.
- Encourage participation through personalisation, creation, or interaction.
- Extend the memory digitally with photos, AR filters, or shareable moments.
- Craft a narrative arc: anticipation (teasers), experience (the event itself), and reflection (follow-up touchpoints).
When people relive an experience in conversation, social posts, or even just in their own minds, your brand lives on too.
Final Thoughts
A great ad might earn a glance. A great experience earns a place in someone’s memory.
For brands competing in a noisy world, the real differentiator isn’t just visibility — it’s memorability. By designing experiences that engage the senses, stir emotions, and invite participation, marketers can transform fleeting impressions into lasting stories.
After all, ads are easy to forget. Memories are hard to shake.
