Brand experience is a combination of sensations, feelings and responses that are evoked by a brand.

These may be triggered by the visual brand identity itself, or by the brand packaging, advertising and promotions – or it may be from face-to-face service, website UX or major events.   

Why Brand Experience is Important

Whether a customer spends time or money with you will depend on both their perception of and their experience of your brand.  At any brand touchpoint or interaction with your business, they can decide to switch to a competitor and/or leave negative feedback, so taking time to design your brand experience in the right way is worthwhile. 

For service brands, such as hotels, where the journey can be complex, getting the brand strategy and brand experience right is especially important.  For Hub Hotels by Premier Inn for example, careful design of each brand touch point was critical.  

Brand experience vs. user experience 

Brand experience is the overall perception of a brand, shaped by interactions across touchpoints, including customers, employees, and the community. It focuses on emotional connections, reputation, and consistency.

User experience (UX) is specific to how individuals interact with a product or service, focusing on usability, functionality, and satisfaction.

The key difference lies in scope—brand experience is holistic, while UX is task-specific. A positive UX contributes to the broader brand experience, but brand experience encompasses more, ensuring the entire journey aligns with the brand’s purpose and leaves a lasting impression. Both are vital for success.

How to Create Brand Experience

Customer experience, guest experience, user experience, employee experience, as well as the interaction of partners, shareholders, suppliers and communities are all part of brand experience.  

In creating a brand experience, from initial market research and brand awareness to engagement, conversion and retention, your purpose is to optimise every touchpoint with your customers and other stakeholders.  A brand may have a superior product but still fail if it doesn’t resonate well with all users at all touchpoints. 

Brand Experience Journey Map

Mapping a brand journey from a customer centric viewpoint first makes the best sense; keeping it simple and gradually building on it over time. This customer journey can later be adapted for other stakeholders including employees and local communities. For example, an initial mapping of a hotel guest experience might look like this: 

Brand Experience Map

The above shows the critical brand touchpoints or moments of interaction with the hotel guest, in particular identifying basic opportunities to delight and add value as well as highlighting the most likely pain spots where smooth solutions to minimise friction are required.  

Optimising Brand Interaction Points

To enhance your brand experience:

• Map all interaction points: Include both digital (e.g., website, social media) and real-world touchpoints.
• Focus on impact: Identify opportunities to create wow moments or reduce friction—both can become unique selling propositions (USPs).
• Work as a team: Collaborate across channels to ensure a seamless experience, building strong relationships with stakeholders.
• Refine key stages:
  • Build awareness with digital tools like SEO, advertising, and PR.
  • Transition smoothly to conversion, service delivery, and retention.
• Prioritise consistency: Deliver a cohesive experience to nurture relationships, boost conversion rates, and secure repeat business.

Brand Experience Best Practices

Steve Jobs put it well for the world of technology over 30 years ago: 

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around. You can’t start with the technology then try to figure out where to sell it.” 

It’s the same whether you are designing or trying to improve a product, a service, style a website, an event or something else, you need to refer back to your purpose as a brand and the experience you want to deliver. 

Brand Experience Tips

The way customers experience a brand at any interaction point or at any moment in time will play a part in its success or failure. To stay focused on optimising the whole experience, below are 8 brand experience tips which are a helpful point of reference to keep at hand for brand development:  

1. Create a clear brand experience vision as part of your brand purpose.
2. Keep finding ways to improve the brand experience; give it edge.  
3. Understand all stakeholders. 
4. Stay on top of market trends and behaviour shifts. 
5. Create emotional connections as well as rational ones.
6. Develop the art of listening and capture feedback in real time.
7. Set brand standards for behaviour (you are only ever as good as your team)  
8. Listen to and act regularly on employee feedback.  

The Importance of Brand Experience

Brand experience is measurable and, over time, its qualitative aspects—like customer trust and reputation—are as significant as turnover and profit. These qualitative measures often predict new customers, repeat sales, and overall growth.

Key Metrics of Brand Experience:

• New customers
• Repeat business
• Channels/occasions
• Referrals
• Reviews
• Trust

An effective brand experience reduces churn, increases revenue, and saves costs. However, today’s customers demand more than profit-driven brands—they expect transparency, respect for employees, and environmental responsibility.

Brand Experience & Brand Purpose 

Brand values, tone of voice, and design shape reputation and stakeholder relationships. Whether understated or bold, a well-designed brand experience fosters trust and ensures customers, employees, and stakeholders feel valued, understood, and in control.

Purpose-driven brand experiences are proven to drive growth, as Unilever’s CEO highlights: 75% of the company’s growth comes from brands offering meaningful experiences.

Develop your Brand Experience with a Creative Marketing Agency

Our team of branding specialists would love to support you in developing your brand experience, and help to visually bring your business’ brand to life. Please contact us at hello@imlondon.co.uk to request a free proposal to start crafting your new brand experience.