Live experiences are the best way to build trust

Trust economy

Spiro’s Experiential Marketing Impact Report (EMIR), a proprietary study of over 2,000 consumers attending live CPG and tech events, revealed trust isn’t a soft metric. It’s one of the strongest predictors of purchase intent: over 90% of attendees who reported increased trust in a brand post-event went on to make a purchase. Where trust didn’t increase, purchase intent dropped to just 34%.

And trust is a controllable factor you can strengthen with strategic experiential design. For example, clear, honest messaging helps drive trust. For attendees who described an event as ‘transparent’ and ‘real,’ 91% expressed purchase intent – nearly three times higher than those with a neutral experience, according to EMIR.

In an era where consumers are suspicious of polished digital narratives, in-person proof points matter more than ever. McKinsey’s State of the Consumer 2025 report reinforces this dynamic, noting that while social media influences discovery, trust remains low. Thirty-six percent of US consumers and 56% of UK consumers rank it as their least trusted source for brand recommendations.

Translation: in a noisy, skeptical marketplace, people trust what (and whom) they can see, hear, and shake hands with.

Seeing is believing

In the age of AI content mills, the ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ mantra has evolved into ‘show me in real life, or I won’t believe it.’

At a live event, attendees aren’t relying on your press release, your ads, or even influencer partners. They’re forming opinions in real time, watching your leadership speak unscripted, testing your product in their own hands, and hearing other customers’ stories without a content filter.

That sensory input? Impossible to fake at scale. A deepfake can replicate a voice. It can’t replicate the feeling in the room when a founder answers a tough question with candor, or when a customer tries your product and lights up with genuine excitement.

But EMIR’s findings demonstrate that trust built through live experiences doesn’t just make attendees feel good. It multiplies every other outcome:

• Recommendation rates skyrocket: 96% of tech event attendees and 94% of CPG event attendees who reported increased trust said they’d recommend the brand.
• Purchase intent jumps: attendees who felt that trust boost were 264% more likely to say they’d purchase compared to those who didn’t.
• Amplification expands: social sharing rates peak when events feel authentic – and sharers were nearly twice as likely to buy.

In a noisy, mistrustful marketplace, trust doesn’t just get you a seat at the table – it gets you the business.

Designing for trust

For brand and event marketers, the takeaway is clear: design for trust from the start. Firstly, make access real: give attendees face time with leadership, creators, and teams. Secondly, be visibly consistent: align tone, visuals, and message before, during, and after the event.

Thirdly, embed purpose: make your brand values a lived part of the experience. And finally, enable honest feedback: let attendees ask unfiltered questions and shape the conversation.

Gartner’s 2024 Marketing Predictions report further validates the need for trust, forecasting that by 2026, 60% of CMOs will deploy tools such as content authenticity technology, brand-endorsed user-generated content, and real-time monitoring to safeguard their brands from deception driven by generative AI.

That’s not a niche response. It’s a signal that trust has become a top-tier strategic priority. And your live events are trust accelerators.

Strategic experiential design, built around your audience’s needs, behaviors, and priorities, moves them through the funnel – from attention to engagement, connection, belief, and finally, action. Belief, the trust stage, is the inflection point where curiosity turns into commitment.

If your customers have only seen you online, where any image or statement could be manufactured, skepticism can win.

But if they’ve immersed themselves in your experience, engaged with your brand and people, and touched or tried your product, you’ve already won the important battle: they’ve seen it, experienced it, and believe it. And, as EMIR’s findings highlight, when they trust you, they’re more likely to purchase.

In a marketplace where trust is a rare currency, live experiential can be your insurance policy and revenue driver.