New year, new brand experience opportunities
January 2026
Dry January, Veganuary and wellbeing resolutions – the New Year is ripe for health, fitness and travel brands.
Raising the profile of your brand through product sampling and experiential marketing during this time can have a huge impact on what happens in the year ahead, kick-starting your sales and creating loyal brand ambassadors.
Want to hear our predictions for the top trends in 2026 and how experiential marketing can help your health, fitness and travel business to grow?
Personalisation and community
With digital technology and AI becoming increasingly prevalent in our daily lives throughout 2025, we believe that this year people will crave a more human-centric experience when it comes to approaching and managing their health and fitness.
We know that 2026 will be saturated by AI trainers and virtual classes, but our research suggests that gym-goers and run club members will crave real-world experiences that feel unique to them and connect them with like-minded people.
Our guerrilla gym sampling campaign with GetPRO demonstrates how meeting people outside the gym at the peak of their post-workout ‘high’ helped reach consumers at the right time, with the right message and enhanced their usual routine.
The GetPRO sampling campaign revealed that 99% of consumers enjoyed the experience, which drove human interaction between sampling staff and gym members, counteracting digital fatigue with a tangible, tactile and sensory experience (talking to an energetic human and tasting a delicious protein-fix).
Educated Wellbeing
2026 will see a crucial shift in consumer psychology, moving passive consumption to active, educated wellness. As health bio-optimisation becomes mainstream, consumers will no longer accept vague health claims, they’ll demand transparency and research-backed knowledge of a product and its ingredients.
The DIRTEA in-store sampling campaign that we recently delivered at 100 Vitamin Shoppe locations across the USA, including Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, Miami and Austin, set out to ‘demystify adaptogens’.
DIRTEA didn’t just hand out samples of its functional mushroom gummies, we used wellness savvy brand ambassadors to engage in deep conversations with consumers about their specific benefits, with consumer interactions lasting an average of 3-5 minutes.
Living a planet-positive lifestyle
Veganuary has been around for more than a decade and in 2025 alone more than 1,480 new vegan products and menu options were launched for Veganuary globally.
So, ‘joining in’ is nothing new, but we predict that the way people participate will change. Next year, vegan brands will focus on reframing people’s mindsets from what you ‘can’t eat’ to ‘what you can’ and the impact that becoming a vegan has, not only on your personal health, but also on the planet.
Our Alpro Planthouse campaign demonstrates how brands have evolved Veganuary from a niche dietary challenge into a natural food focused and lifestyle-led movement. This shift in focus will be key to converting those that experiment with Veganuary into long-term plant-based advocates in 2026.
Healthy living, better life
Over the past few years, we have seen a growing mass market normalisation of non-alcoholic and sober lifestyle choices, championed by influencers and celebrities such as Jamie Laing, Scott Thomas and Demi Lovato.
In 2026, Dry January is all about the benefits of giving up booze, from boosting your fitness goals and resetting your relationship with alcohol to improvement of physical symptoms such as insomnia, liver stiffness and acid reflux.
The Heineken 0.0 Grand Central Terminal Sampling campaign was evidence of this shift in alcohol-free advocacy; it wasn’t tucked away in a health food corner, it made a bold statement in the heart of New York City, demonstrating that the brand belongs at the ‘centre of USA-culture’.
By sampling 108,892 cans at Grand Central Terminal, Heineken proved that the biggest barrier to adoption is accessibility and trial. In 2026, successful Dry January campaigns will focus on ‘Mass Trial at Scale’ in non-traditional environments to show that an alcohol-free beer is an equally viable choice for a Tuesday afternoon commute, or Friday night out.
We’re very excited to be working on our next campaign with Heineken 0.0 in Miami and Santa Monica this month! Watch this space for more info.
Explore exciting brand opportunities in 2026!
Discover more about Purity’s experiential marketing, sampling and staffing services and how we can support your growth this year and beyond.
