72% of marketers confirm a gap exists between brand awareness and genuine brand belief – and new TFC research finds the channel most likely to close that gap predates the internet
Dallas, TX, June 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Freeman Company (TFC) today released Belief Gap™study, new proprietary research measuring how brand belief is formed, sustained, and lost – and what marketers can do about it. The research was designed by TFC, fielded and conducted independently by Harris Poll, and surveyed 506 U.S. marketing professionals. The study formally introduces and quantifies a problem the industry has long felt but never named: The Belief Gap.
The Belief Gap is the distance between brand awareness and brand belief – between a customer who knows a brand exists and one who genuinely believes in it enough to choose it, defend it, and return to it.
The findings are clear. 72% of marketing professionals say they perceive a gap between brand awareness and genuine brand belief among their own target customers. 74% of those marketers describe themselves as extremely or very concerned. And when asked to identify the single most cited cause, the answer was not budget, creative, or messaging. 45% named the absence of in-person or experiential touchpoints as one of the primary drivers of the gap.
What Closes the Belief Gap
When marketing professionals were asked to name the single most effective channel for building deep brand belief, not just awareness, but the kind of belief that drives purchase decisions, loyalty, and advocacy, experiential marketing emerged as the #1 trust-building channel, more than any other in the study, ahead of content marketing, digital advertising, social media, PR, and word of mouth. Nearly all respondents said events have a positive impact on brand discovery (93%) and build brand credibility and authority (90%).
The research shows that investment in live events is growing. 73% of marketers plan to increase event spending in the next 12 months, which is more than any other channel in the study.
Mickey Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer of TFC, said: “The Belief Gap is real, it’s measurable, and it’s costing brands more than most of them realize. Awareness without belief is just noise. It doesn’t drive purchase decisions, it doesn’t build loyalty, and it doesn’t survive competitive pressure. What this research makes clear is that live experience closes that gap in a way no campaign can replicate and no algorithm can manufacture. That’s not a channel strategy. That’s a business imperative.”
Events and the AI Discovery Layer
At a moment when AI is rapidly reshaping how buyers find and evaluate brands, marketers are identifying a channel that predates the internet as their most important signal for AI visibility. 97% of marketing professionals said events and event-generated content are important for brand visibility and inclusion in AI-generated answers – the highest agreement rate of any finding in the study.
The reason is structural. AI systems do not favor paid media or optimized web copy. They favor credible, third-party, human-authored content – exactly what events produce. Speaker coverage, session recaps, live testimonials, and real-time social proof are the signals that earn citation and an LLM response. For brands trying to stay visible in an AI-mediated discovery environment, events are no longer just a relationship channel. They are a search strategy.
The Measurement Problem
The tension in the data is that most marketers cannot yet prove what they already believe. 85% of respondents do not report using a formal KPI program to measure the impact events have on LLM visibility.1 The majority track outcomes informally or not all, which means the channel they trust most to build belief is also the one hardest to defend in a budget conversation.
Wilson added: “The most important shift in this data isn’t that marketers believe events work – most of them already do. It’s that they now have a name for what’s missing and a framework for understanding why. When you can define the gap, you can start to measure it. And when you can measure it, you can close it. That changes the budget conversation – and it changes how forward-looking marketing organizations think about events as a discovery strategy for the AI era.”
The data is clear. The brands that act on it — investing in live experience, building for AI visibility, and finding ways to measure the impact of that investment — are the ones best positioned to win.
Visit TFC’s website here to download the full report on The Belief Gap.
About the Research
Today’s Belief Gap™ study was commissioned by TFC and is the first independently validated study to answer whether marketers recognize a gap between awareness and belief in their own customers; which channels they trust to close it; and whether they have the measurement infrastructure to prove impact on LLM visibility. Conducted independently by the Harris Poll on behalf of The Freeman Company (TFC). Fieldwork conducted March 9-23, 2026, via 15-minute online quantitative survey among 506 U.S. marketing professionals. Respondents aged 18 and older. Data is unweighted; the sample is not designed to be representative of all U.S. marketing professionals but rather to reflect the perspectives of practitioners in relevant roles. Margin of error: ±4.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Today’s release represents the first study of this initiative, establishing a baseline with marketers. Future studies will track whether the gap is narrowing or widening over time, and whether the industry is developing the tools to close it. A second research study surveying B2B buyers directly will be published later this year.
1 85% derived from the Harris Poll finding that 15% of marketers report using a formal KPI program
About The Freeman Company (TFC):
The Freeman Company (TFC) is a collective of expert brands that deliver complex events, at scale. From global trade shows to flagship events and fan activations, TFC works with leading show organizers, brands, and sports leagues to create these high stakes moments. TFC’s brands include 3D Exhibits, Alford Media, BaAM, Color Gamut, Freeman AV Production, Freeman Events & Exhibit Services, mdg, Sparks, and Studio Blue. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Learn more at thefreemancompany.com.
CONTACT: The Freeman Company [email protected]
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