Why automotive brands are wasting the most valuable energy at live events
By Laurence Kemball-Cook, Founder and CEO, Pavegen
27 January 2026
Live events generate massive attention - but most brands waste the most valuable asset in the space: human movement. This piece explains why, and how automotive brands can turn participation into lasting value.
For the last decade, I’ve spent a lot of time standing in the middle of live automotive activations.
City centres. Motor shows. Fan zones. Urban takeovers.
And everywhere I go, I see the same thing.
Millions of people moving through these spaces - walking, queuing, celebrating, competing - while an extraordinary amount of human energy simply disappears the moment the event ends.
It isn’t captured.
It isn’t measured.
And it rarely contributes to anything beyond photos and footfall counts.
I call this the Participation Gap.
Automotive brands invest heavily in live experiences - but leave the most valuable asset in those spaces untapped: human movement.
Access is not the same as participation
Sponsorship buys access to attention.
But attention alone doesn’t build connection, memory, or long-term brand value.
The real question every live experience should answer is simple:
What is the audience being invited to physically do?
When people participate - not just observe - something fundamentally changes:
- Memory formation increases
- Emotional connection deepens
- Behaviour becomes measurable
- The experience becomes personal
That’s why the most effective automotive activations don’t sit beside the crowd.
They sit under their feet.
Participation needs a reason
Human movement is everywhere - but participation is not automatic.
People don’t engage just because something is interactive.
They engage because the idea is worth stepping into.
This is where the Participation Gap is either closed - or exposed.
The strongest automotive experiences don’t ask people to move for movement’s sake.
They give movement meaning through a clear, intuitive big idea, then pull people in through play, challenge, and reward.
This is where gamification stops being a novelty and becomes strategy.
big ideas that turn movement into participation
Over the years, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself when participation truly works: a simple idea people instantly understand, whether it's a physical activation that mirrors the brand story, or a gamified experience that makes participation irresistible.
- Ford – Putting the Brakes on Climate Change
A familiar EV insight made physical.
Regenerative braking becomes regenerative energy — step on the floor, generate power.
Driving behaviour translated into embodied experience.
- Kia – Make Your Move (Australian Open, Melbourne)
Tennis, competition, and movement fused into an interactive game.
Over 7,000 gameplays, amplified by the presence of Rafael Nadal.
Spectators didn’t just watch sport — they played it.
- Volvo Cars – Ocean Race: Race to Net Zero
A global energy challenge spanning 13 countries.
Tens of thousands of participants generating millions of joules — each step revealing Volvo’s net-zero commitments.
Sustainability communicated through collective effort, not explanation.
- Mercedes-Benz – Stress Inverter (SXSW, USA)
A pressure-release concept made physical.
Participants jumped, moved, and laughed — turning stress into energy inside an experience designed for release, not display.
In every case, the technology didn’t lead.
The idea did.
why movement is the missing asset
Automotive brands sell physical products.
They operate in physical environments.
They invest heavily in physical experiences.
Yet performance is still largely evaluated through digital abstractions:
Clicks. Views. Likes.
There’s a growing disconnect between how people experience brands in the real world and how success is measured.
That disconnect is the Participation Gap.
Real human effort, energy, and intent - left unmeasured and unused.
turning participation into value
Pavegen exists to solve one specific problem:
How do you capture human movement and turn it into something measurable, meaningful, and reusable?
By converting footsteps into:
- Live interaction
- Real-time feedback
- Behavioural data
- Visible energy generation
- Social and sustainability outcomes
Movement stops being passive and starts becoming productive.
from moments to measurements
Most brands analyse experiences after they’re over.
We measure participation as it happens.
Every step reveals:
- Where people choose to engage
- How long they stay
- How actively they participate
- How collective energy scales
This turns live events from creative gambles into real-world test environments.
Participation isn’t just felt — it’s understood.
turning live events into long term assets
Live events are expensive.
They’re temporary.
And most leave nothing behind except content.
Kinetic infrastructure changes that.
Because it can be redeployed, scaled, evolved, and benchmarked, brands stop running one-offs and start building participation systems.
A sponsorship becomes a testing ground.
A city activation becomes a data set.
A fan experience becomes a benchmark.
making sustainability physical
Sustainability claims are easy to say - and hard to prove.
When people power an experience themselves, sustainability becomes tangible.
Seen.
Felt.
Generated.
For EV and future-mobility brands, this aligns sustainability with behaviour — which is where credibility is built.
making sustainability physical
The next era of automotive marketing won’t be won by bigger screens or louder messaging.
It will be won by brands that understand one truth:
Attention gets you seen.
Big Ideas get you remembered.
Participation gets you valued.
Human movement is the most underused asset in live automotive marketing.
The Participation Gap is the value brands leave behind when they fail to give people a reason to move.
At Pavegen, we exist to close that gap by turning powerful ideas into physical participation, and participation into lasting brand value.
Not as a gimmick.
Not as a one-off.
But as infrastructure for participation.
This matters if you are:
– An automotive brand investing heavily in live events or sponsorship
– A marketer under pressure to prove experiential ROI
– A team responsible for sustainability, EV, or future-mobility narratives
If this thinking resonated, explore how participation works in practice. Talk to us about participation strategy.
For more information about how Pavegen kinetic technology is helping pave the wave for a more sustainable future, contact press@pavegen.com.
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About Pavegen
Pavegen is a purpose-driven technology business that helps power change and generates positive outcomes for people and planet. Laying underfoot inside buildings, public spaces and at events, Pavegen Kinetic Paving harnesses the power of people’s footsteps, creating not only a small amount of energy – but also imaginative, interactive experiences and data, to help educate, engage and enable meaningful actions around sustainability and Net Zero intent. Pavegen calls this Citizen Impact; powered by Pavegen.
Pavegen helps power Kinetic Street Furniture applications such as USB charging, LED lights, and Green Wall irrigation systems, whilst data from the system can be used for public educational purposes on digital display screens. Kinetic Brand Experiences at live events, expos, festivals and public spaces produce data to provide gamified experiences that help brands engage meaningfully with consumers.
The company was founded in 2009 by Laurence Kemball-Cook who invented the Kinetic Paving technology that can now be seen in over 37 countries around the world.