Brand experience is everywhere. From traditional ads and digital presence to customer-support experiences and word-of-mouth insight, brand experience exists—whether or not you choose to leverage it. 

While strategizing around brand experience sounds like a monumental task, avoiding it will likely lead to deep-rooted issues down the road. Prioritizing brand experience will give you a thorough understanding of how your business is perceived and how to best make decisions moving forward. 

Beyond Marketing

Brand is not synonymous with marketing. Marketing is a part of your brand, but brand reaches far beyond your advertisements and marketing collateral. It flows from leadership and strategists down through all channels, internally and externally. 

Brand experience touches everything and, while it can be intimidating to recognize, it’s also a powerful tool that can drive incredible change and alignment throughout a business. It is how your business comes to life. It is the composition of every genuine relationship that anyone—customers, advocates, team members, passersby, or leadership—has with your business, products, services, and team.

Brand Experience in Concept 

Understandably, it is difficult to grasp just how encompassing brand experience is. Yes, it includes digital and print advertising, as well as how your team interacts with your customers, but its view is from a much higher vantage point. 

Brand experience is the collective, comprehensive experience others have had with your brand, which means it is inherently based in emotion. It is the culmination of all the experiences and feelings people have about your organization.

Brand experience is the truth of your business, whether or not it’s the truth you understand it to be. That will come to light if you share content that immediately reads as disingenuous to your audience. No matter what you say, if it isn’t backed by the perception and experience of everyone who interacts with your business, then it’s not a true reflection of your brand. It’s your responsibility to harness that power and guide the narrative around your company. 

When Inconsistency Hurts

When a business uses genuine and consistent branding, their customers and audiences will slowly develop a relationship of long-lasting trust. Consistency is telling your audience that you're fulfilling the promise they believe you made. Inconsistency, on the other hand, is one of the fastest ways to deteriorate trust, increase miscommunication, and create brand confusion. 

Inconsistencies in values, messaging, visual communication, and voice will muddy how your brand is perceived, impacting purchasing decisions. Even if certain aspects of your business are helpful and communicative, an unpleasant encounter elsewhere can negate any efforts toward a positive experience. 

That’s why it is so important to prioritize brand experience through powerful brand strategies. It’s the greatest tool businesses have to guide the conversation around their brand, slowly building trust and loyalty while creating positive, collective experiences.

Brand Strategy for Manufacturers

Acuity and Strategy House are teaming up to empower manufacturers to take control of their brand and prepare their company for future growth. In this five-part series, we explore overall brand experience, how to align your brand for your customers, employees, and community, how to set a brand strategy, and where to start on your branding journey.