Marketecture: Get Smart. Fast. Episode 166: Alicia Richardson, Winner of the Marketecture Start-up Showcase, on Experiential Marketing and Whether Cannes Is Worth it
Mar 27, 2026
Alicia Richardson, co-founder and managing partner of CrowdAxis, a measurement-focused experiential marketing operator. She breaks down how brands choose live activations. She explains why measurement is inconsistent, presents CrowdAxis’s standardization approach and Experiential Power Index, and debates whether big festivals like Cannes justify the spend.
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Experiential Is Physical Brand Contact
- Experiential marketing means putting the brand in direct physical contact with consumers, from pop-ups to trade shows and immersive activations.
- Alicia Richardson framed experiential as in-person moments that create vibe and momentum but lack standardized measurement.
Measurement Is The Missing Infrastructure
- The industry measures experiential mostly by attendance and borrowed digital metrics, leaving ROI unclear for CMOs and CFOs.
- Alicia says there's no central standard to predict what an event will deliver versus alternatives like Cannes or Markitecture.
Standardize With An Experiential Index
- Standardize event scoring so marketers can compare events apples-to-apples rather than relying on gut or attendance.
- CrowdAxis proposes an index to create expectations and enable better budgeting and evaluation.