Why the next generation of growth won’t come from ads — it’ll come from experience.
In early October, Anthropic opened Claude Café in New York's West Village, a quiet space where people could slow down, write by hand, and think. No product demos. No hard sell. Just a thoughtfully designed room and an invitation to pause.
More than 5,000 people came through. Social posts and press generated 10+ million organic impressions. Cost: $50K. Compare that to a $50K billboard in Manhattan: 1.5 million impressions, fleeting glances, zero connection.
On paper, similar cost. In reality, completely different returns.
Here's what metrics miss: not all impressions are equal. Someone scrolling past an ad and someone spending 20 minutes in your space both count as "impressions," but the impact is worlds apart.
One builds customers who refer others and return. The other just counts eyeballs. Belief doesn't come from being seen; instead, it comes from being experienced.
BELIEF: THE BRAND METRIC WE'VE BEEN CALLING SOMETHING ELSE
Belief is measurable. It shows up in retention curves, referral rates, and customer lifetime value—the metrics that track whether someone comes back, spends more, and brings others with them.
Finance teams already measure these outcomes. They just haven't connected them to their source. When customers return quarter after quarter, that's a sign of belief. When word-of-mouth drives new pipeline, that's belief. When expansion revenue outpaces acquisition, that's belief, too.
THE PROBLEM WITH PERFORMANCE
So why aren't marketing budgets built around belief? Because performance marketing became the default, complete with shiny dashboards tracking clicks, impressions, and conversions. It defined success as a volume play, not an impact play. It's efficient at capturing attention, terrible at earning allegiance.
Traditional cost-per-customer metrics were built for an era of perfect tracking and captive attention. Then privacy regulations killed third-party cookies, algorithms splintered audiences across endless feeds, and AI made it trivial to flood the internet with content no one trusts.
What looks like efficient acquisition is often just decay: customers leaving faster, spending less, and generating zero word-of-mouth. When you're renting attention instead of earning belief, the numbers will always look better than the business actually is.
EXPERIENTIAL ISN’T A VIBE. IT’S A SYSTEM.
The answer isn't to measure less, as research proves. Real growth happens when community touchpoints, live activations, and storytelling loops collide, fueling belief long after the lights go down. It builds the kind of momentum no metric can capture.
- Customer retention: Hands-on experiences make people 85% more likely to buy compared to digital touchpoints alone, and 91% walk away with a better brand impression.
- Higher lifetime value: Experiential marketing can increase what customers spend over time by 20% to 50%, as immersive experiences deepen emotional connections and drive repeat purchases.
- Natural advocacy: Customer advocacy delivers $6.50 for every dollar spent, a 650% ROI that crushes traditional advertising.
Experience is the only growth channel that gets more efficient over time. Each moment compounds. Each participant becomes a node.
WHAT TO MEASURE (AND WHY IT MATTERS)
For experiential teams, measurement is what turns creative ambition into commercial value. Track belief through the metrics that matter:
Key metrics to track:
- Retention rate delta: Compare post-event or post-activation retention against baseline cohorts. Sustained retention signals emotional equity (not just awareness).
- Organic reach: Track earned mentions, reposts, and social velocity. Experiences that resonate amplify reach organically, far beyond paid channels.
- Depth within existing accounts: Are current customers engaging more deeply, using more features, or expanding contracts after experiences? This demonstrates belief translating directly into revenue.
- Advocacy efficiency: Measure how many new customers cite another customer, community, or event as their entry point. This captures the compounding power of experiential growth.
These metrics answer the questions finance should be asking:
- How much belief did that spend create?
- Does this brand have a system for compounding trust?
- Can their experience strategy make growth more efficient over time?
The next generation of brands will grow through belief. Finance will see it in retention curves and expansion revenue. Experiential teams will feel it in the room. That's how experience becomes growth.
Jenna Isken is the founder of Hey Isken, a brand and marketing consultancy specializing in bridging the gap between what companies say and what they do. She's an XP Council Member and speaker on connecting brand experience to commercial outcomes. She's conceived breakthrough experiences for HPE, Disney, PIMCO, and SoFi Stadium, launched products from quantum computers to Alexa-enabled vehicles, and helped scale a startup from 20 employees to IPO. She previously led the Experience practice at Siegel+Gale, solving challenges across Fortune 500 companies.
