Brand experience is the overall perception that consumers have of a brand, whether or not they become customers.
Brand experience represents the broadest, most holistic impression of an organization. It can be distinguished from customer experience, which only considers those who have purchased products or services. It is also distinct from user experience, which focuses on engagement with specific products or services.
Brand experience reflects the complete brand journey from discovery to decision with touch points that include:
Whether searching online, visiting a website, an in-person visit, or interacting with employees, every consumer impression contributes to overall brand experience.
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People believe in authentic brands. Authentic brands build trust with your target audience – a quality that 88% of consumers say is just as important as price and quality when choosing a brand.
This is a step many brands get wrong, according to Forbes. Instead of focusing on their brand’s values and purpose, they try to “adapt who they are to make the customer happy.” The result is a diluted brand that tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing no one.
The better approach is to decode your brand’s DNA to identify its values and purpose, unique value proposition, mission and vision. Decoding brand DNA starts with a brand audit that provides a structured approach to define objectives, address shortcomings, and pinpoint new opportunities.
To elevate your brand experience, start with your brand’s purpose and values. Purpose and values create an authentic brand that stands for something beyond making a profit.
Identify your target audience. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, successful brands focus their appeal to specific audiences through brand positioning. Begin by understanding what kinds of people – or what kinds of businesses – are interested in your product or service. Learn as much as possible about their needs and wants, where they live, how they shop, and more.
The next step is to ensure your brand is aligned with your target audience, both with products and services and with values and culture. An MIT Sloan study reports that the strongest brands are those that “most accurately represent a consumer’s cultural identity.”
Combining your brand’s values with your target audience’s needs and wants allows you to develop a brand personality to connect with them on a human level. Brand personality lets consumers identify with the brand – or even to aspire to it.
Customers as brand advocates. Author Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Building brand experience through connection and a sense of community builds emotional bonds that a “hard sell” can’t match. Every happy customer can be your brand advocate and brand ambassador. Focus on delivering above and beyond to your current customers. It will have a smallballing effect.
Develop a brand community. The age of “digital fatigue” creates an opportunity for brands to facilitate human-to-human real connection. According to an article in The Drum, brands are under pressure to provide “moments that feel human.”
The Harvard Business Review also suggests building communities centered around the brand’s products and services. Whether in person or online, these communities can drive customer loyalty.
Bring people together. The goal is to create experiences that invite people to engage. For brands with physical locations, that may mean live events, pop-up stores, or participation in the local community. For online brands, it may mean streaming events, live chats and podcasts, and other occasions that encourage participation. Creating AI experience design (AIXD™) that prioritizes human interaction and experience adds to brand equity.
Most consumers today want greater “emotional connection and joy in their brand experiences,” per Harvard Business Review. “Joy is not a fleeting trend: it is a new standard of brand equity.” Brands that find ways to deliver joy through “delight, surprise, or meaningful connection” will succeed in promoting loyalty and driving long-term growth, the author says.
The author cites examples including a beauty brand that went viral by opening pop-up stores in Jiffy Lube locations, offering full spa treatments during oil changes.
Or a chain of cookie shops that drove growth with open kitchens that let customers watch cookies being baked. The brand also features oversized pink boxes that turn “a box of cookies into a social occasion that friends post about, tag, and talk about.”
This “sparking joy” approach takes small pleasures and “elevates them into experiences that feel bigger than the product itself.”
Another benefit of focusing on your brand’s purpose and values is that “the right people will be attracted to you,” as Forbes writes. That includes the right employees, who can be advocates for the brand.
According to the Forbes author, “Employees who are invested in your purpose are your brand’s biggest ambassadors.” They also provide outstanding customer service and want you to succeed: “If you’re able to attract and hire the right people who are aligned with the brand, they’ll deliver a more naturally authentic brand experience.”
As the faces of the organization, company founders and leaders also have important roles to play. Their experiences can humanize authentic stories of their personal journeys and brand messaging. That’s why at 10 Plus Brand, we build leadership personal brands for founders and CEOs, as well as their companies’ business brands, as a complete package.
Brand storytelling. Connecting with consumers through personal experience is where storytelling comes into play. Stories create emotional resonance that facts and slogans can never match. Stories also provide more opportunities to bring brand values and purpose to life in an immediate and engaging way.
Brand experience is the impression your brand makes from discovery to decision, and beyond. Brands that emphasize purpose, values, and community have an advantage that engages consumers far beyond features and price. If you would like to learn more about brand experience and brand building, please contact us.
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Joanne Z. Tan is the Founder & CEO of 10 Plus Brand, Inc. Joanne is a globally recognized brand strategist, thought leadership coach, content & branding expert, and speaker. She helps founders, CEOs, executives, board members, leaders, entrepreneurs, and organizations decode their Brand DNA, elevate merely successful businesses to become powerful brands in the AI age. Joanne was trained in law and business, and had a liberal arts education from Brandeis University before earning a law degree. Her coaching emphasizes comprehensive strategies, business modeling, multidisciplinary thought leadership and high authority content creation, brand building, culture, GTM, user experience design, and AIXD (AI experience design). A former journalist, award-winning photographic artist, Joanne is also a poet, writer, and an avid wilderness backpacker.
© Joanne Z. Tan, 2026. All rights reserved.
