Brand strategy V. brand experience

The world of brand – like any part of business – is littered with jargon. One element that causes confusion is the difference between brand strategy and brand experience.

In short, the brand experience is an element of the overall brand strategy.

A brand strategy is the topline and long-term, setting out how you want to position yourself in the minds of your audience to differentiate yourself from the competition and support your business objectives. At its heart is a framework that articulates your mission, vision, values and audiences. And from that, various elements are created, such as key messages, tone of voice and visual guidelines.  

Brand experience is one of these components. And while many companies stop before they get there, they do so at their peril.

A well-defined brand experience is extremely valuable to helping to create a consistent and authentic brand. The overall brand experiences the sum of all touchpoints, so it’s important to also drill down into individual channels, so that everything is working hard towards the same goal.

The key is to start with a simple and clear brand framework, and then work backwards, becoming more and more granular as you get through it. Based on your framework, what are the core principles you want to establish in your overall brand experience? And then map out individual channels and decide how that experience manifests in each.

Once you have this, you are ready to create a roadmap of specific activities that will help to deliver the brand consistently (and appropriately) across all channels. A plan that – if done correctly – helps to build brand equity and deliver on key business KPIs at the same time.

READ MORE: How to build brand equity every day