Pro to Pro

7 Questions with Lauren Austin: Why We Should All Stop Trying to Quantify Love

As we gear up for the next XLIST, we’re revisiting members of last year’s class—taking a closer look at how they think, work, and shape the industry. (You can stay in the loop on nominations and announcements here). XLISTER Lauren Austin has spent more than 20 years in experiential, almost all of them at MKG, where she's now Chief Creative Officer. You've probably seen some of her work — she recreated a resort in Thailand for HBO Max's White Lotus and turned the Barbie x Stanley collab into 3.6 billion press impressions. But you may not be as familiar with her hot takes. She has a few. We chatted with Austin about why measurement is overrated, generosity is underrated, and where she thinks experiential goes from here. Geraldine Campbell: You've been in this industry for more than 20 years. How do you even define experiential at this point? Lauren Austin: It's such a catch-all. Pop-ups, B2B events and trade shows, sponsorship activations earned media stunts... Experiential has become synonymous with anything weird, anything out of the ordinary, anything live. Netflix just did that Apex stunt with Charlize Theron. That's technically experiential. GC: Given how broad experiential is, what does MKG...