Bridging the Brand Experience Gap

Brand and experience are becoming increasingly intertwined, creating a powerful intersection to which organisations must pay attention. An explicit understanding of the role of customer experience (CX) and its impact on brand equity and growth is needed to build strong brands.

This paper introduces Brand CX Forces, Ipsos’ integrated measurement system that enables organisations to bridge any gap that may exist between what a brand promises to deliver and how people interact with the brand through CX.

Brand CX Forces brings together two of Ipsos’ leading assets – Brand Value Creator (BVC) and The Forces of CX – allowing organisations to ensure their brand building and CX activities are working harmoniously to drive the critically important business goal of achieving and maintaining brand growth.

Key takeaways include:

• Brands need to pay attention to customer experience and its impact on brand equity and growth, especially as consumer expectations are increasing and becoming more liquid across different product and service categories.
• If there is a gap between what a brand says and what it does, customer expectations are violated, and attitudinal and behavioural adjustments can follow. When brands consistently fail to deliver on what they promise, customer relationships begin to erode, and can fail over time.
• For brands to become strong and successful, they need to deliver on their promise. Ipsos’ Brand CX Forces assesses all brands on the delivery of the brand promise, clearly showing which brands have successfully synchronised their brand communications and their CX, and which need to close the gap.
• Knowing precisely how to forge the strongest bonds with customers, whilst ensuring the delivery of prime customer experiences, will not only enable brands to better retain existing customers but also to better acquire new customers.

Accounting for the powerful intersection between brand building and CX in brand performance measurement is needed in a world of ever-growing competition and continually evolving customer expectations.