It’s a familiar scenario most of us have experienced. You’re rushing through a train station or weaving down a busy city street, when someone hands you a free soft drink or a muesli bar. This is sampling, and while it’s great for quick reach, it’s not the same as brand trial. Sampling gets products into hands while trial get products into minds, and if executed well is a powerful lever for brand growth.
The difference might sound subtle, but it’s critical. Sampling is a tactic. It’s fast, broad, and often unforgettable if it isn’t relevant or not branded in a way that sticks. Trial, on the other hand, is an outcome. It happens when someone experiences your product in a moment that means something, and at its core should be an always-on strategy to spark memory, build brand codes and drive real-world usage.
Marketers often confuse sampling and trial, but in doing so miss one of the most powerful drivers of brand growth. The best marketers know that sampling isn’t the goal. It’s just the start. When designed well, it becomes a pathway to true trial, an experience that creates memory, meaning, and momentum.
Design for impact, not just reach
The best brands don’t just chase volume, they design trial for impact. In categories where parity is high and loyalty is low, trial is how you recruit new buyers and trigger future sales. It’s how you embed memory structures that make a brand easier to recall, and easier to buy. As Byron Sharp has shown, growth doesn’t come from squeezing more out of existing customers, it comes from reaching new and light buyers.
Trial, done right, is how you bring consumers into the brand’s world. But to do that, it has to go beyond the transactional. It has to genuinely be an authentic brand experience, and it has to be emotional. Recently I was treated to two, very simple examples of trial, both of which drove curiosity and connection.
Make it personal, make it felt
At Cantina OK!, (a mezcal bar) and barely the size of a pantry in Sydney’s CBD, my husband and I were guided through a tasting. Each pour came with handwritten notes on bar coasters that doubled as souvenirs. ‘Try now’, ‘we drank Felipe Cortes’, I walked in a mezcal novice, and left with a new favourite and a feeling that someone cared enough to walk me through it.
Then, at a well-known hostelry in Annandale, while I wasn’t looking for whisky, the ‘Winter Warmers’ menu and a rugged Talisker enamel cup got me (and no, it didn’t come home in my handbag!). The promise of warmth and the tangible storytelling, nudged me into a hot toddy, and an upsell.
Trial is about lowering the barrier, igniting curiosity, and giving people a reason to say yes. One was intimate and educational, the other emotional and seasonal. Both made me feel something and that’s the alchemy all brand marketers should all be chasing.
When mass reach won’t cut it
For premium or niche brands, where mass sampling isn’t feasible, high-touch branded experiences, like masterclasses, invitation-only tastings, or co-created kits, can be even more powerful. Whether it’s a 24-hour test drive or a 100-night mattress return policy, high-consideration brands use experience and reassurance to drive conversion.
For example, Kia Australia attributes much of its success in 2024, where it sold more than 80,000 cars placing it fourth in the market, to a focus on experiential brand marketing as part of its sponsorship of The Australian Open. Its general manager of marketing, Dean Norbiato, told The Australian’s The Growth Agenda: “When [we] turned the focus on experiential and brand, moving away from retail, we did find that the glow of success extended through January, February, and even into March, in terms of the level of inquiry and interest to website sales, as opposed to having more of a retail focus. And using it as a platform to build the brand we’re finding is having a much bigger long-term impact on the Kia badge.”
Consistency creates memory
But trial needs to be consistent. Red Bull doesn’t just hand out its products, they curate the experience and stay on point every time. Attention to detail matters: the perfectly chilled cans are always opened for you, and always served with the label facing towards you. While it may sound simple and more of a sampling opportunity, the way it’s executed makes it memorable and drives loyalty.
The smartest brands no longer treat trial as a stunt. They’re building ecosystems designed to deliver it meaningfully and repeatedly, leveraging brand ambassadors to educate, using emotional triggers like seasonality or nostalgia to spark relevance, and offering low-friction incentives that ease the leap from sample to shelf. Just as critically, they’re designing trial moments that earn attention, crafted for sharing by creators, influencers, and media alike. Because in today’s landscape, what people post is as powerful as what they experience. Nearly 80 per cent of marketers now say earned media is more effective than traditional advertising for creating a point of difference. And real-world trial delivers that proof; visible, shareable, and trusted.
Trial isn’t just about first taste. It’s about first impressions. It’s the entry point to mental availability and future consideration. When designed well, trial doesn’t just drive sales, it builds salience, affinity, and fame. Because in the end, people don’t just buy what they try. They buy what they remember.
