What is the Brand Experience?

There seem to be as many definitions of brand experience (BX) as web pages do!

According to an article from Bernd Schmitt at the Center on Global Brand Leadership from  the Columbia Business School in New York https://rdcu.be/cXp9P

“Brand experience is defined as subjective, internal consumer responses (sensations, feelings and cognitions) as well as behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications and environments.”

This is a complex definition, difficult to differentiate from the customer experience. That’s why we’re taking the time to explain Maïeutyk’s positioning on the concept and to clarify this strategy’s goal for your company.

The Brand Experience (BX) according to Maïeutyk?

An optimized brand experience results from the interaction between an organization and its ecosystem. At Maïeutyk, we tend to categorize the brand experience (BX) as the sum of two principal axes:

The promises you make

The first axis of brand experience is the positioning of the organization in its ecosystem. It’s the sum of the promises made by your marketing, your communications, and potential customers’ interactions with your sales department: your brand DNA. In other words, your brand DNA articulates your mission, vision, values, core purpose, the value you bring to your customers, and positioning.

At Maïeutyk, our approach to facilitating the process of articulating your brand DNA is through co-creation workshops. These workshops allow you to use your team’s vast knowledge. The facilitation tools in these workshops provide a reliable way to define your brand’s DNA. The result is a tangible and embodied way to determine your positioning.

What differentiates you from your competitors? What problem does your product or service solve or meet? How do your customers buy, and how does this impact your business strategy?

Your Business Ecosystem

The second axis understands your business ecosystem. Another terminology we use to name the brand experience is the business experience (BX).

Organizations need a solid understanding of their business environment to be well-positioned. More specifically, they need to know their business and digital ecosystem.

Your business ecosystem is the interaction between your internal strengths and weaknesses, market opportunities, trends, and the competitive, technological, market or financial threats you face — the good old SWOT analysis.

Each of these elements interacts with digital realities. Your customer has a life on the internet, on social networks, and on other digital media. Your company needs to understand how the consumer navigates these platforms to gain a competitive advantage.

Without a good knowledge of your market and its trends, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to seize opportunities. This is why a market analysis, in-depth or not, is necessary to understand the trends that are impacting your organization entirely.

In summary, an optimal brand experience strategy emerges from an excellent knowledge of your organization and the opportunities identified according to your company’s objectives and the market situation. These insights fuel your strategic planning and create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Why develop your brand experience through co-creation?

Mobilization

A brand experience strategy defined in a co-creation workshop with your team ensures that your vision is shared. A shared vision creates mobilization. Mobilization ensures that objectives are realized. Your employees are incredibly well-positioned to understand your brand – they know your customer and market. As such, they are the best people to help you define it! The role of a facilitator is to facilitate the workshop, make sure that everyone has a voice, and keep the creative process flowing.

Change Management

Co-creation involves your teams in the development of the brand experience strategy. It also helps to support the implementation of the strategy through a precise plan of action. In addition, involving your team at the beginning of the process allows you to minimize the need for change management.

In conclusion, an optimized brand strategy will allow your team to surprise customers by communicating the added value of your products/services homogeneously across all of your communication channels. Don’t hesitate to contact us for a personalized diagnosis of your current brand and business experience.

Where does the brand experience end?

As previously shared, the brand experience (BX) begins before a customer enters into a relationship with your organization. It is the sum of the feelings, sensations, and emotions that consumers have towards your organization before they get to know you. As soon as a customer enters into a relationship with an organization, the brand experience ends, and the customer experience begins.

The same is true for a potential candidate. As soon as a candidate contacts the company, the brand experience ends and is replaced by the employee experience.

I invite you to read our previous blog posts that explain our definition and clarify our positioning on the customer experience and employee experience.