Does Proximity Matter?

When brands cease seeking audiences, and instead go where people are already paying attention

The question marketers have been asking for years is: where do we locate our consumer? Television gave us houses, print gave us an audience, digital provided us with targeting, social media brought us communities, algorithms gave us accuracy, and now something interesting is happening. Brands are starting to go to places where consumers don’t have to be sold on getting together: the stadium, the concert, the marathon, the festival, the community, because they’re already there. More importantly, they care now. Could this be the next marketing frontier? Not finding another medium, but finding somewhere else that people already have a reason to care.

This is not just a change in marketing vocabulary. The money is following. India’s live-events market is now estimated at around ₹13,000 crore. A 2026 study by EY-Parthenon and BookMyShow found that 59% of live-event attendees remembered brands they interacted with on-ground, and 55% said their purchase intent increased after on-ground interactions.

More than half of the brands surveyed had already done experiential activations, and 88% of those that had invested said they would continue in a more structured way. KPMG has estimated the organised live-events economy in India to be at ₹13,600 crore and the commercial sports economy at ₹18,864 crore. In 2025, sports sponsorship alone accounted for ₹7,943 crore.

West Bengal’s 2025 Durga Puja economy is estimated to be worth ₹46,000-50,000 crore, with retail, corporate sponsorships, hospitality, transport, and consumer spending all contributing to the ecosystem. They aren’t festivals or events anymore. They are economical, and brands want to be in them. From buying attention to buying intimacy, this is where things get interesting in experiential marketing. Much of traditional advertising is buying attention. Experiential marketing tries to purchase proximity, not just physical closeness.

There are at least three types of proximity: physical presence, being where they are; emotional closeness, being available when something matters to them; cultural proximity, being aware of and participating in something bigger than the brand. A TV commercial can inform you a brand exists. A digital ad can follow you around your screen.

But a brand that enhances your concert experience, provides a useful service at a sporting event, supports a community festival, or solves a real problem at a massive gathering is doing something different. It’s not only about the attention. It’s trying to get in on the experience. Because no one goes to a Durga Puja for a brand.

They don’t go to a cricket stadium to see an advert. They don’t buy a ticket for the concert because there’s a sponsor inside. They go because it means something; the brand comes after. The consumer has already done the heavy lifting. Think about what a marketer usually needs to do. Create awareness, interest, make it relevant, be visible, and eventually produce action. Much of that work has already been done at a major cultural, sporting, or entertainment event.

When does involvement become interference?

This is where experiential marketing needs some humility. There is nothing wrong with a brand sponsoring a festival. A brand can pay for community infrastructure; it can be useful. It can lead to a better experience, help support artists, organisers, and local businesses. It can be a real contribution, but there is a limit.

When a brand enters a religious or highly cultural environment, it is entering something that was there before the brand got there and is going to be there after the brand leaves; therefore, the question shouldn’t be, how many people are going to see us? It should be, why are we worthy to be here? That question resonates even more in an environment full of religious sentiment.

A brand can be part of a gathering, but it cannot own the feeling behind it, or create a community, but has to be careful not to turn that community feeling into a media property. That is a small difference that can be felt by the consumer. Are we improving the experience or just putting our logo on it?

Close does not equal relevant by default

This is probably the biggest misconception of experience marketing. A brand can be there physically but not be there emotionally. It may be the biggest installation, but it’s still forgettable. It can have thousands of visitors and not develop any real relationship, and it can spend crores without building a single lasting brand asset.

That’s why the most successful experiential marketing isn’t about the biggest spectacle. It’s about connecting the right way, the right spot, the right audience, the right time, the right reason, and something really worth remembering. After that, the herd moves in. This is another risk. Everyone wants to get in when they see experiential marketing gaining attention, memory, and measurable results.

One brand is sponsoring the festival; another follows. Soon there will be branded gates, branded zones, branded selfies, branded stages, branded experiences, and suddenly the experience that made the environment valuable starts to get cluttered.

The irony is clear. Brands have entered experiential marketing to cut through advertising clutter; they sometimes end up making another kind of it. The biggest danger might not be brands spending too much on experiences. Perhaps they are spending because all the other guys are spending. That is not a strategy. That’s herd mentality with a media budget.

Also read: Dare To Break The Rules

Proximity Buying: Every experiential proposal should pass four-question tests:

1. Relevance – Is this a place our audience actually cares about?
2. Right to participate – Why are we here as a brand?
3. Experience – What are we actually adding?
4. Long tail – What’s left when the event is over?

If the first three answers are weak, the fourth won’t save it. But when all four are strong, something interesting happens. The brand is no longer a sponsor. It begins to be part of the story.

A Brand Custodian doesn’t wonder if the brand could get closer. The question is, should the brand? Because relevance can be proximity. Experience can be created by relevance. Experience can make memories. And memory, if well cultivated, can be a brand asset. Consumers don’t want another brand invading the spaces they love.

They need brands that understand those spaces well enough to contribute something worthwhile to them. So maybe the real question isn’t: does proximity matter? It does. A better question is, are we getting closer to our consumer? Or are we just following everyone else into the same room?