Creating The Perfect Experience

Event production is often described as one of the most stressful jobs in America—but is stress really the right way to describe it?

In this solo episode, Mark Testa, founder of Mark Stephen Experiential Agency, takes a closer look at what actually makes producing live experiences so demanding. Drawing on decades of experience, Mark explores how great producers navigate complexity, uncertainty, deadlines, budgets, and the unexpected.

This episode we discuss:

• Why the event itself is often the easiest part of event production.
• How experienced producers prepare for uncertainty and solve problems before they happen.
• Why trusted teams, vendors, and partners are critical when things don’t go according to plan.
• How flexibility and experience change the way producers respond to pressure.
• Why “navigation” may be a better description of event production than “execution.”

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Dior George is a marketing executive with a career spanning Condé Nast, Nike, McDonald’s, agency leadership, and financial services. Today, she serves as VP of Marketing at Truist Bank, where she develops integrated marketing programs at the intersection of culture, community, sports, entertainment, and financial services. Named one of Event Marketer Magazine’s Top 10 Women in Events, Dior has built her career around creating experiences that connect brands with people in meaningful ways—and turning ambitious ideas into scalable programs.

This episode we discuss:

• Dior’s path from Condé Nast and Nike to McDonald’s, agency leadership, banking, and Truist.
• Why learning how to turn “no” into “yes” has been one of the most important lessons of her career.
• How Dior was using culture, limited-edition products, and influencers at Nike before social media transformed marketing.
• How McDonald’s community marketing evolved into large-scale national experiential programs.
• Why the best experiential work comes from specialized teams and agencies working together.
• How financial brands can move beyond transactions and build deeper relationships through culture, community, and experiences.
• Why marketers should define the desired outcome first—and how experiential KPIs are evolving beyond attendance and impressions.
• Dior’s advice for the next generation of marketers: stay open, find your strengths, and never stop learning.

Follow Dior at:

https://www.instagram.com/thatdamndior/

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at:
https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at https://www.instagram.com/markstephenagency/

Dior George is a marketing executive with a career spanning Condé Nast, Nike, McDonald’s, agency leadership, and financial services. Today, she serves as VP of Marketing at Truist Bank, where she develops integrated marketing programs at the intersection of culture, community, sports, entertainment, and financial services. Named one of Event Marketer Magazine’s Top 10 Women in Events, Dior has built her career around creating experiences that connect brands with people in meaningful ways—and turning ambitious ideas into scalable programs.

This episode we discuss:

• Dior’s path from Condé Nast and Nike to McDonald’s, agency leadership, banking, and Truist.
• Why learning how to turn “no” into “yes” has been one of the most important lessons of her career.
• How Dior was using culture, limited-edition products, and influencers at Nike before social media transformed marketing.
• Why agencies need to understand what they do exceptionally well instead of trying to “do everything.”
• How financial brands can move beyond transactions and build deeper relationships through culture, community, and experiences
• How experiential KPIs are shifting beyond attendance and giveaways toward relationships, follow-up, and long-term consumer value.
• Why brands need to move faster as social media, technology, and AI continue to accelerate culture.
• The importance of staying curious, continuing to learn, and being open to building a marketing career across different industries.
• Dior’s advice for the next generation of marketers: stay open, find the part of the industry that fits your strengths, and never stop learning.

Follow Dior at:

https://www.instagram.com/thatdamndior/

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at:
https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at https://www.instagram.com/markstephenagency/

What I Learned at Cannes Lions 2026

 [00:00:00] Welcome back to Creating the Perfect Experience. I'm your host, Mark Testa, founder and creative director of Mark Steven Agency, and today there's no guest, just me. I wanna talk about Cannes, Cannes Lions, that I went to for the first time this year. And I wanna talk about what I actually saw, not the highlight reels or the TikTok, but the version that I witnessed as an observer.

It's a place to learn and be inspired and connect, but it was a bit overwhelming. If you've ever been to Cannes Lions, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is one of the most recognized events in the marketing and advertising world. It draws brand marketers, agency leaders, media companies, and creators from all over the globe to the French Riviera for a week of sessions, awards, and deals.

And once I got there, the hierarchy became very clear to me and very fast. Brands are at the top, and the festival and the sponsors seem to [00:01:00] orbit around them. The conversations revolve around them. The beach activations, the yachts, and the parties are built for them. So if you're a brand, Cannes can make you feel like royalty, and honestly, that makes sense.

They're writing the checks. But what does that mean for everyone else? Agencies, designers, production partners. And in my opinion, you're either in service of the brand or you're looking for a seat at that table. So that was my first real lesson walking in. The second thing I noticed, and you couldn't miss it, was the amount of money that tech was spending.

Google, Amazon, Spotify, and the other major platforms were everywhere. Not just sponsoring sessions, I'm talking full-scale activations, immersive environments, hospitality spaces on the beach that cost millions. And the message was loud and clear. "We want your ad dollars, and we're willing to put up a show to get them."

What's [00:02:00] interesting to me as someone who lives in the experiential world is that these tech giants have fully absorbed the lesson that we've been teaching for decades, that an experience creates emotional connection that a media buy can't do alone. They're using our language and doing it to sell their platforms.

It's not a criticism, it's just a reality. When the biggest spenders in the room are competing through experience, it signals something important about where the industry is heading

So another observation, and this one I wasn't fully prepared for, was just how dominant the creator economy has become.

Creators, celebrities were everywhere. , Not as attendees, but as power players. Brands were actively courting them. Panels were built around them, and the conversation kept circling back to this theme: brands need creators to reach audiences, and the creators need brands to build scale.

It's a [00:03:00] relationship of mutual dependency. So what I found fascinating is the line between creator and brands were being blurred. The most sophisticated creators are operating as media companies, and the many brands are trying to behave like creators with a personality, with a point of view, and with a community.

And for experiential, this is actually an opportunity because when a creator or a brand wants to show up at a physical space, at a festival, a pop-up, or a cultural moment, they need our expertise. So Now let's get real for a minute. As a person walking through Cannes, not as a speaker, not as an award winner, just as a professional trying to connect and build, it can be tough to be noticed.

So if you're not a creator or an, you know, the athlete or the celebrity, it is difficult. Uh, so in my opinion, there are three currencies a panel, an award, or a connection. And it doesn't just go for creative agency. I [00:04:00] think it goes for anyone else who is, who is not a, a, you know, a brand leader.

Um, and without one of these currencies or awards or, or panel, um, you're networking to a sea of people who are all doing the same thing, all trying to get in front of the same decision-makers. And it's not a complaint. I just know the rules of the game, and the game is earn your visibility. You have to earn your way through there.

So another observation that that I noticed many times at the festival this year was AI, and I really, you know, expected to hear that. Um, but the take on it was, uh, slightly different. Everyone agreed that AI is here, and it's a tool. However, what I kept hearing over and over from brand marketers and agency leaders and creators was that people are starving for what's real.

In a world where content can be generated, where interactions can be automated, it's getting hard to tell what's human and what isn't. People are craving the [00:05:00] physical presence, eye contact, texture, spontaneity, the things that can't be faked or scaled This came up in panel after panel. The hunger for real human interaction is being driven in large part by the rise of AI, not in spite of it.

And I'll be honest, sitting in the room as someone who has spent many years building live experiences, I felt something close to a vindication because that's the argument we've been trying to make experience is irreplaceable. You can't automate the feeling of being in a room with some of the...

something that moves you. AI is making a case for us, and we just have to be loud enough to take credit for it. Which brings me to my next thought and why I wanted to even do this episode. Experiential work deserves to be recognized, particularly at Cannes, as a true form of marketing, not as a supporting category, not as a subcategory of something else, [00:06:00] but as a marketing discipline.

There were a number of discussions and talks geared toward live marketing championed by individuals at XP Land and the head of events at Canva, which were amazing. They were designed and produced live experience that were moving people, that create memories, that build community around the brand. That is creative.

That is strategic. That has measurable impact. And yet at a festival built around celebrating marketing creativity, the live experience often 

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Alicia Richardson is the co-founder and managing partner of Crowd Access, the first independent measurement company creating a standard for experiential marketing. With 18 years of experience across advertising, media, sales, and measurement, Alicia has held roles at Undertone, OpenSlate, DoubleVerify, and Essence Ventures, where she helped lead sales across a powerful portfolio including Essence, Beautycon, Refinery29, and Afropunk. Today, through Crowd Access, she is helping bring clarity, accountability, and common language to an industry that has long relied on applause, attendance, and glossy recap reports instead of true performance measurement.

This episode we discuss:

• Alicia’s path from advertising and media measurement to building Crowd Access.
• Why experiential marketing has outgrown the language it borrowed from digital.
• The problem with measuring live events through attendance, applause, and surface-level engagement.
• Why brands need to define what success looks like before an activation is built.
• How Crowd Access is creating the first independent measurement standard for experiential marketing.
• The role of the Experiential Power Index, or EPI, in evaluating events and sponsorship opportunities.
• Why transparency, common language, and real-time measurement are critical to the future of the industry.
• How experiential teams can move from post-event “autopsy reports” to actionable insights while an event is still happening.
• Why agencies are often unfairly tasked with proving ROI without the right tools or shared metrics.
• How better measurement can help brands justify larger experiential budgets to CMOs, CFOs, and leadership teams.

Follow Alicia and Crowd Access at:
https://www.crowdaccess.co/
https://www.instagram.com/crowdaccess/

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at https://www.instagram.com/markstephenagency/

In this episode, Mark Testa explores why the renewed excitement around live events is both an opportunity and a challenge for brands. Budgets are coming back, audiences are gathering again, and the energy around experiential marketing is real—but popularity alone does not make an event effective. In this SoloCast, Mark breaks down six key considerations every event marketer should keep in mind when investing in live experiences, from defining clear objectives to designing moments that create lasting impact.

This episode we discuss:

• Why the current momentum around events does not automatically translate into meaningful results.
• The importance of starting with clear objectives before investing budget, time, or creative energy.
• How audience alignment can make or break an event’s effectiveness.
• Why every dollar needs a strategic purpose—and how to avoid spending driven by ego or pressure.
• The difference between building a setup and designing a true brand experience.
• How live events should connect to a larger marketing strategy before, during, and after the moment.
• Why content, amplification, and follow-up are essential to extending the life of an event.
• How brands can think beyond attendance numbers and measure deeper forms of success.
• The role of emotion, relevance, and human connection in creating experiences that resonate.
• What event marketers should consider now as live experiences become a larger part of the marketing mix.

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at:
 https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

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Erica Boeke is the founder and creator of XP Land, a platform dedicated to connecting, elevating, and defining the experiential industry. With a background spanning journalism and brand strategy at Condé Nast and Fast Company, Erica has built some of the most influential experience-driven platforms, including the Fast Company Innovation Festival, Wired Store, and Teen Vogue Summit. She sits at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and community, helping shape how brands use experiences as a core business driver—not just an add-on.

This episode we discuss:

•  Erica’s path from journalism to building some of the industry’s most influential experience platforms. 
•  Why experiential is no longer an “add-on” but the most powerful marketing channel today. 
•  The shift from events as media support to standalone revenue-driving businesses. 
•  The importance of community, fandom, and shared experiences in building brand loyalty. 
•  The lack of connection, measurement, and structure in the experiential industry and how XP Land aims to solve it. 
•  Why agencies need to get honest about their specialties instead of trying to “do everything.” 
•  How collaboration not competition is the key to unlocking bigger opportunities across the ecosystem. 
•  The role of experiential in a world saturated with AI-generated content—and why real experiences are the new source of truth. 

Follow Erica at:

https://www.instagram.com/xpland/

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 https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

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Lash Fary is the founder of Distinctive Assets and the visionary behind celebrity gifting as a global marketing platform. Known as the “Gift Guru,” Lash has spent decades creating high-impact brand moments tied to the biggest stages in entertainment — from the Grammys to the Emmys and beyond. By transforming product placement into a cultural strategy, he has redefined how brands connect with talent, media, and audiences at scale.

This episode we discuss:

• Lash’s path to building and defining the celebrity gifting industry.
• How gifting became a strategic marketing channel, not just a perk.
• What brands often get wrong when trying to connect with celebrities.
• The importance of timing, curation, and cultural relevance in brand placement.
• How to create moments that generate real visibility and lasting impact.

Follow Lash at: 

https://www.instagram.com/swagassets/

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https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

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The Experiential Exchange is a special speaker series within Creating the Perfect Experience, designed for marketing professionals building experiential programs and brand activations. Each session brings together industry leaders, strategists, creative directors, producers, and brand innovators, for practical insights, real-world lessons, and behind-the-scenes perspectives on what it takes to deliver meaningful live experiences.

A trusted leader in business development and experiential strategy, Staci Hallmon has spent over two decades helping brands build innovative live event platforms that drive connection and growth. As founder of SHB Enterprises, she has led revenue-generating programs for Fortune 500 companies, media brands, and nonprofits, with leadership roles at Endeavor | IMG | On Location and BET Networks, alongside a deep commitment to community impact through Project Morry.

Adrianne Mellen, Owner and Lead Planner of Propeller US, began her career in publishing at Vogue and Real Simple before launching her event planning business in 2009. Today, she leads a purpose-driven company empowering women and recently expanded into bespoke experiences at New York Fashion Week.

With more than 25 years in the industry, Mark Testa is a leader in experiential design and production and the Founder and Creative Director of Mark Stephen Experiential Agency. His work spans global activations and large-scale cultural moments, including Essence Festival of Culture and Beautycon, grounded in curiosity, empathy, and innovation.

This episode we discuss:

• Staci, Adrianne, and Mark reflect on the career pivots and early creative roots that shaped their paths in experiential production.
• The importance of building experiences with intention—where audience connection, brand purpose, and community impact align.
• Adrianne shares how her background in publishing informed her approach to planning bespoke, high-touch events, including her newest work at New York Fashion Week.
• Mark and Staci unpack what it takes to scale major cultural moments, from sponsorship strategy to long-term brand partnerships.
• A candid conversation on leadership in live events—trust, collaboration, and knowing when to say “no” in order to protect the work.
• Advice for emerging professionals: stay curious, embrace feedback, and remain open to starting over as you grow.
• The value of mentorship, active listening, and building strong creative teams rooted in honesty and shared standards.

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at:

https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

https://www.instagram.com/markstephenagency/

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Yvonne McNair is a veteran event producer and behind-the-scenes leader shaping high-stakes live experiences across entertainment and culture. As Founder and Executive Producer of Captivate Productions, she brings over 20 years of experience navigating complex productions, high-pressure environments, and the realities that live behind the curtain. A two-time Emmy-nominated producer, Yvonne is known for her operational rigor, calm leadership, and ability to carry ambitious visions through uncertainty with integrity.

This episode we discuss:

• Yvonne’s path into live production and the moments that shaped her leadership style.
• What really goes into producing large-scale cultural events beyond the creative vision.
• Why learning when to say no is critical to risk management and long-term sustainability.
• Navigating financial exposure, stakeholder pressure, and public scrutiny.
• The emotional labor of leadership in experiential production and how to recover after setbacks.

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at:
https://www.markstephenagency.com/podcast

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at https://www.instagram.com/markstephenagency/

Thanks for tuning in. Check us out at https://www.instagram.com/markstephenagency/