The Experience Strategy Podcast · 2026-04-22 · 19 min
For the first time on record, experience-based tenants - spas, gyms, wellness studios, entertainment venues - are outpacing traditional goods retailers in leasing shopping center space, with wellness and fitness leading the charge. Joe Pine, Dave Norton, and Aransas Savas unpack what this shift actually means: it is not just a retail story, it is confirmation that the transformation economy Joe predicted more than two decades ago has arrived. The conversation traces the arc from malls to experiential anchors, examines why some brands (Red Bull) rode the wave and others (Nike) missed it, and lands on a provocation for any company still selling goods: if you want to sell products today, sell experiences. If you want to sell even more products, sell transformation. Key Takeaways The bifurcation is accelerating. Post-COVID data from high-end luxury shows goods flattening or declining in price while experiences shot upward. The Economist's October feature on high-net-worth luxury quietly re-labeled "services" as "experiences" in its TikTok follow-up - a small edit that tells the whole story. Experiential venues are the new anchors. The old mall anchor was a department store.
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