Charlie Hugill: Why the future of media is real, human and experiential
The Media Leader Interview
As brands grapple with declining trust in digital environments, Havas Play UK’s chief client officer talks about the rise of experiential, the importance of authenticity and why events are increasingly becoming the engine of integrated campaigns.
There is a real craving to get back to real — real understanding, real-world interactions and real connection.”
Havas Play’s acquisition of North American culture and sports marketing agency Archrival, announced yesterday, and the purchase of UK-based experiential outfit Bearded Kitten at the end of last year, signal the burgeoning importance of live experiences in broader media strategies.
Havas Play operates across four core disciplines: partnerships, content, social, and events. Because of its place within the holdco Havas, it has seen firsthand how live experiences fit into the broader sponsorship and marketing ecosystem.
For Charlie Hugill, the newly promoted chief client officer at Havas Play UK, the agency’s recent ‘pure-play experiential’ acquisitions are a natural extension of its existing proposition – expanding its strategic, creative, and production capabilities across sports marketing, fandom and event activation alongside specialist expertise in engaging youth audiences.
The wider significance, however, lies in how marketers increasingly view experiential. No longer treated as standalone activations, events have become trusted components of integrated campaigns.
“We don’t think about events in silo,” Hugill says. “It’s thinking about an event that can provide, or be the core to, a 360 ecosystem that then brings in partnerships, culture, media and creative voices, but with the experience at the core.”
That shift is being felt across Havas’ client base, with increasing demand for experiential to sit alongside other media.
“We’re definitely seeing more interest in bringing experiences into the wider media plan,” she says. “Clients increasingly want those things working together.”
Trust, authenticity and a return to the real
The momentum behind events is reflected in marketing investment (+14.7% in Q1 2026 compared with +1.4% in Q4 2025, according to IPA Bellwether), outperforming all other media and marketing channels. Hugill believes it’s because brands are responding to a profound shift in consumer behaviour.
“People are dealing with misinformation, fake news and AI slop,” she says. “They’re also dealing with huge volumes of content being thrown at them every day.”
The result is what Hugill describes as “choice paralysis” – consumers overwhelmed by options and increasingly selective about where they spend their time and attention.
Against this backdrop, live experiences offer something fundamentally different.
“Events allow brands to cut through and connect with consumers in a face-to-face, really real way,” she argues. “They enable brands to spend time with audiences, meet them where they are and build culture around the things they care about.”
For Hugill, the appeal of experiential goes beyond visibility or engagement metrics. It taps into a growing desire for authenticity and genuine human interaction.
“It’s a powerful tool to do that in a way that’s honest and human.”
Trust is a central part of that equation.
“I read recently that around 73% of consumers trust brands more after experiencing them live,” she continues. “Trust isn’t the only factor driving growth in events, but it is a really important one. There is a real craving to get back to real – real understanding, real-world interactions and real connection.”
That need extends beyond marketing. Hugill points to rising concerns around loneliness and social isolation, particularly among youth audiences.
According to analysis from the UK Parliament’s House of Commons Library, young people aged 16–34 are over five times more likely to struggle with chronic loneliness than those over the age of 65.
“We are hugely digitally connected as a society, more than ever before,” she says. “But at the same time, levels of loneliness are incredibly high.”
As community spaces continue to disappear and behaviours shift, she believes brands have an opportunity to create more meaningful moments of connection.
“Brands have a really good opportunity to step into that community space and create real human connection. Other media forms just can’t deliver on that in the same way.”
Why events are becoming marketing’s engine room
One of the biggest misconceptions about experiential, according to Hugill, is that its value lies solely in the people physically attending.
Increasingly, she says, events are being designed as content engines that generate value far beyond the live moment itself.
“It’s not just for the people that go; it’s for the masses that know,” she explains.
In practice, that means experiences are designed to fuel social content, partnerships, earned media and wider cultural conversations.
“The event sits at the core, but it fuels a whole ecosystem of other things.”
Recent Havas Play campaigns for clients including Adidas and EE have demonstrated how live experiences can become the foundation for broader storytelling and audience engagement strategies.
Technology also plays an important role, although Hugill is careful to distinguish between meaningful innovation and gimmickry.
“Tech can support that connection,” she says. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Hugill cites Havas Play’s work with EE at this year’s BAFTA Film Awards, where holographic technology enabled film fans gathered at EE’s Bath store to interact with celebrities on the red carpet at London’s Royal Festival Hall, in real time.
Showcasing cutting-edge HD holographic and 5G+ technology, fans appeared as life-size projections at the heart of the BAFTA action, interacting with talent, taking photos, and conducting virtual interviews with red-carpet hosts Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo.
Despite being 116 miles away in Bath, fans were able to view themselves on screen alongside the stars, creating a moment of genuine red‑carpet immersion. “Technology enhanced the real-life experience and made that connection possible,” she says.
However, she also cautions against deploying technology simply because it’s new. “It’s about giving tech a real role, so it’s not just there as a fad.”
Ultimately, Hugill believes the industry’s challenge is finding the right balance between innovation and authenticity.
Consumers, she argues, increasingly want experiences that feel human rather than overly polished.
“They don’t want the polish. They don’t want everything to feel perfectly finished. They want to see under the hood. They want to be invited into something that’s collaborative and evolving.”
For brands seeking meaningful connections in a fragmented media landscape, that may be the greatest opportunity of all.
As trust becomes harder to earn online, the value of real-world experiences will continue to flourish.
“There is a real need for face-to-face connection,” Hugill concludes. “Events create spaces where brands and audiences can genuinely connect around the things that matter to them.”