Build the moment: 2026 is all about brand aura

By Conall McAteer, Creative Director, M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment

This article was first published in Campaign UK on 20 February 2026

People keep talking about the death of big agencies. The flattening of creativity. The endless scroll of sameness.

But maybe the problem isn’t creativity. Maybe it’s the format it comes in. And maybe what’s really at stake is brand aura, that less tangible sense that a brand genuinely matters in culture.

For years we’ve divided ourselves into neat lanes: TVC, OOH, social, experiential, PR. As a creative director in sport and culture, who didn’t come from "advertising", it’s wild to me. As if audiences experience things in those tidy boxes. Of course they don’t.

Fittingly, Charli XCX’s mockumentary The Moment lands in UK cinemas today (20 February) a timely reminder of just how central "the moment" has become in culture. Audiences experience moments. And increasingly, those moments are live. In a culture of constant exposure, brands aren’t just fighting for attention – they’re fighting to matter. Not just reach or likes, but that harder-to-pin-down sense that something actually meant something. The feeling that you had to be there.

Seemingly, every other thought piece proposes we’re living through peak optimisation. Feeds are engineered for efficiency, not emotion. Algorithms reward volume, not memory. That might drive reach, but it rarely builds aura. In that world, live experiences become the last unskippable format. Because while you can scroll past a post, it’s harder to ignore something you’re part of.

That’s why so much of the energy for me right now isn’t "content" at all. It’s environments. It’s programming. It’s how we build the moment in the real world and curate – for those online – the feeling of being there.

The shift is already happening.

Look at entertainment: immersive and live formats are booming, IP owners building real-world experiences that extend fandom beyond screens. HBO’s Industry hosting a Boiler Room link-up. A24 pushing deeper into physical experiences and permanent venues tied to its brand.

Look at fashion. Moncler didn’t just share its AW26 collection, it staged a spectacle around it, at the highest altitude.

Look at beauty. Brands like Rhode are literally taking their worlds to the slopes, packaging their product into a scene people want to be part of.

Look at sport. The Sidemen sell out Wembley stadium. Creator boxing outperforms traditional fight cards. Lego reimagined the Miami Grand Prix drivers’ parade with life-sized, driveable F1 cars.

These aren’t because the world needs another "campaign", they’re designed to give people a reason to care. Different categories, same principle: they don’t just publish content, they produce experiences that make the content easy.

Looking back if the last few years were all about brand vibes, 2026 is all about brand aura. Because brands aren’t just chasing numbers any more: views, likes, shares. They’re chasing that harder-to-measure sense of something that matters to the audience they want to reach. Brand aura is powerful, but it comes from proximity. From scarcity. From people being able to say: "I was there when that happened and it was sick."

From where I’m standing, here’s what this means for brands:

1. Create for participation

If our audience doesn’t have a role to play, it’s not a moment, it’s a press release. When the live moment is the product, the content stops being the goal and becomes the proof.

2. Build between categories

The most culturally resonant ideas are hybrids: sport x creators, gaming x entertainment, fashion x spectacle. Culture doesn’t move in silos and neither should we.

3. Treat experiential as infrastructure

When it becomes the system, everything else falls into place: social has something to talk about; PR has something to report; creators have something real to react to; audiences have something to participate in.

Ultimately, moments drive culture and culture amplifies moments. Experiential used to be about a space you built. Now it’s about the ripple effect you create.

So maybe the future isn’t more content. It’s more moments. Moments with programming. Moments with a role for the audience. Moments built to travel. If the last decade was about filling feeds, the next one will be about filling rooms, and letting everyone else feel part of it.