The Experience Economy: Why Treatonomics is rewriting the rules of marketing

For decades, consumer spending followed a predictable hierarchy: buying a home, owning a car, building savings and securing the future formed the bedrock of middle-class aspirations. Dining out, holidays, fashion and entertainment were discretionary rewards. Advertising mirrored these priorities, selling both everyday consumption and the promise of a better future. That order is now changing, and with it, the entire playbook for how brands must plan, price and speak to their prospective buyers.

Across many markets, including India, people are allocating a growing share of their disposable income towards experiences and affordable indulgences rather than long-term asset accumulation. Young professionals are delaying home ownership instead of committing to decades of loan repayments. Many are choosing ride-hailing services over owning a car. Despite rising costs, restaurants remain full, tourist destinations stay crowded well beyond traditional holiday seasons, premium food and beverage brands continue to grow, and spending on wellness and personal development remains remarkably resilient. Digital commerce has accelerated the trend, and consumers are increasingly investing in memories as much as merchandise.

The Inchstone Economy

Kantar's Marketing Trends 2026 describes this as Treatonomics or ‘little treat culture’. The present generation increasingly celebrates ‘inchstones’—small everyday achievements that provide a sense of progress when traditional milestones like buying a home or achieving financial independence feel distant or unaffordable.

Consumer attitudes increasingly reflect this shift. Kantar's Global MONITOR research found that 36% are willing to incur short-term debt to spend money on things they immediately enjoy. They do not view these purchases as guilty pleasures but as essential tools for maintaining emotional wellbeing. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Financial Stability Report, more than half of unsecured loans disbursed by fintech companies are taken out by the under-35 age group, including instant personal loans, credit card debt and 'buy now pay later' schemes.

This financial behaviour directly fuels the rise of consumption driven by immediate rewards. Treatonomics spans a wide spectrum of choices, ranging from everyday treats to larger lifestyle splurges. On one end are the small but meaningful rewards—a Rs 600 speciality coffee, an impromptu dinner with friends, or a gold-class movie ticket—that punctuate daily life and provide instant gratification. At the other end are more substantial experiences such as luxury spa retreats or an international cruise costing several lakhs. Together, these decisions represent a significant reallocation of spending—from accumulating assets to enriching everyday life. Corroborating this, market surveys indicate that experiential consumption is heavily influenced by social media, while building an emergency fund has taken a backseat.

Marketing for the Experience Economy

These changing priorities require a different marketing philosophy. Campaigns built around distant aspirations become less effective when everyday emotional needs increasingly drive purchase decisions.

Brands therefore need to become part of customers' daily rituals rather than waiting for major life events. The opportunity lies in recognising thousands of small moments when people decide they deserve a reward.

Deloitte Digital's Marketing Trends 2026 complements Kantar's findings by explaining where these decisions are now being influenced. Shoppers increasingly discover products through AI-powered search, retail media, creator ecosystems, niche communities and personalised recommendations rather than through a single mass-media journey. Brands can no longer rely on broadcasting a single message across every channel. Instead, they must identify a handful of ‘must-win’ platforms for each audience segment while maintaining a consistent narrative that adapts naturally across media.

Further, social commerce has compressed discovery, desire and purchase into a matter of seconds. What once involved a lengthy funnel can now happen almost instantaneously, making speed, relevance and context more important than ever.

These findings also call for a rethink of influencer marketing. While 61% of marketers are projected to increase creator budgets in 2026, only 27% of creator content currently strengthens brand perception, suggesting that indiscriminate influencer spending is often ineffective. By contrast, tightly knit interest communities generate trust levels up to 40%—comparable to recommendations from close friends—making authenticity more valuable than sheer reach.

The New Language of Marketing

The implications extend far beyond media planning. Success in the Treatonomics era will increasingly depend on winning micro-conversions—those fleeting moments when a person books a resort stay,  buys a lifestyle product, orders an artefact,  or just decides, "I deserve this."

Brands must rethink not only where they advertise, but also how they design products, price offerings, and create customer delight. Affordable premium products, curated travel experiences, experiential retail, personalised wellness services and limited-edition launches all create frequent opportunities for individuals to reward themselves. Marketing budgets, too, must become more agile, shifting investment towards retail media, trusted creator partnerships, platform-native creative and commerce ecosystems capable of responding in real time.

Retail media—advertising placed on retailers' own digital platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit or BigBasket when consumers are already in a buying mindset—delivers 1.8 times the effectiveness of conventional digital advertising, according to Kantar. Equally significant, brands that challenged convention collectively created US$6.6 trillion in additional value over the past two decades, highlighting how much is at stake for those still optimising yesterday's media mix.

Even traditionally asset-led categories are changing. Housing advertisements, for instance, are no longer merely about owning a roof over one's head. They increasingly sell clubhouses, wellness centres, green spaces, walkable communities, co-working facilities and lifestyle amenities. The product is no longer just a home; it is a way of living.

The central question for marketers is no longer whether people are willing to spend—they clearly are. The question is where that spending is flowing. Increasingly, it is flowing towards brands that enrich everyday life rather than merely promise a better future. This demands more than smarter media buying. It requires a fundamental rethink of product design, pricing, customer experience and storytelling.

Brands built around ownership, accumulation and delayed gratification must learn to speak the language of the experience economy, reorganising their products, messaging and marketing investments accordingly. They must recognise that people are no longer postponing happiness until tomorrow. The future belongs not to the brands that promise a perfect life someday, but to those that make every day a little better.

(The author is a certified independent director who has held senior leadership positions across print, broadcast and digital platforms)