For the better part of 20 years, I have witnessed business leaders grappling with the concept of brand. Some are more concerned with their image than the value of their offerings, while others believe they don’t need to invest in it at all.  

The gap in understanding presents an opportunity for those who understand the importance of branding and can create a meaningful experience that fulfills the promise. This is important because the battleground for market share is here and we are all living in what Joseph Pine and James Gilmore refer to as The Experience Economy.  

While the competition is fierce in this new economy, your organization can still thrive! I believe in you … especially if you keep on reading.  

A great brand without the experience design to back it up will fall flat every time. A great experience that no one knows about and can’t articulate, share, or interact with will hit very limiting growth ceilings.  

This is why we like to think about brand tenets being established with your prioritized audiences in mind and then leveraging design thinking to ensure the end-to-end journey lives up to what your humans (notice I’m not calling them “users” or “customers”) expect to experience.  

Creating Your Story

One of the most common things I’m asked for by new clients in this vein is a narrative to share with their peers to help drive this alignment, so that’s what I’m going to give you today.  

We first need to establish brand principles with our target audience in mind and utilize design thinking to ensure that every step of the journey reflects the experience we want our customers to have.  

To illustrate, think of a brand as a story and the experience design as the way the story is written and presented. 

The story is the core of the book; it’s what the book is all about. It includes the plot, characters, and themes that make the book unique and engaging. 

A brand is the core of a company; it’s what you stand for, your values, mission, and promise to the humans interacting with you (humans you should know and understand beyond titles like “employees, users, and customer” by the way). It’s the identity that distinguishes your brand from others. 

The way the book is written and presented refers to the writing style, the structure of the chapters, the cover design, the font, and even how the book feels in your hands.  

In the same way, experience design is about how the brand is brought to life through customer interactions, the design of the product or service, the quality of customer service, and the overall user experience. 

Just as a book’s story needs to be well-told and effectively presented to captivate and satisfy readers, a brand needs to be consistently and thoughtfully delivered through its experience design to fulfill its brand promise and satisfy customers. 

If the story (brand) is strong but the writing and presentation (experience design) are weak, readers (customers) might lose interest or feel disappointed. Conversely, if the writing and presentation are excellent but the story is weak, the book (brand) may not leave a lasting impression. 

Sharing Your Story

In essence, the brand is the story you want to tell, and the experience design is the way you tell it. Both need to work together seamlessly to create a compelling and memorable experience for your audience.  

You don’t have to be a genius to figure this out and you don’t have to blow up your budget. Pinky swear! 

You do need to understand what this new reality looks like and you do need to drive alignment among your leadership team.  

This is where we come in. 

Our team is here to help you and your leadership team get clear on what your brand promise is, how to empathize with your personas, and then effectively create the experience to service the promise. 

If you’re ready to dive in, get in touch!