Strategic Branding and User Experience: Bridging the Gap Between Brand Experience and User Interaction

By Alejandro Rodríguez (UX/UI Senior Designer)

Welcome to the 6.0 marketing paradigm, where organizations are challenged with creating not only engaging online experiences but also meaningful offline interactions that build trust, loyalty, and a lasting emotional connection with consumers. While Brand Experience (BX) is focused on the perceptions, emotions, and sensory impressions consumers have about a brand, User Experience (UX) hones in on how they interact with a product or service. At TIF Agency, we specialize in creating strategic branding solutions that weave these two experiences together, providing a holistic approach that goes far beyond the digital screen.

A Step to Understand: User Experience throughout history

The importance of user experience dates back far beyond the digital era. In fact, studies about how early humans interacted with their environment and their ability to perform simple tasks were key pillars in human evolution and societal growth. From the creation of stone tools to the invention of writing, early writing systems like Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform script exemplify how information design has influenced communication and knowledge transmission through the centuries.

The development of the printing press in the 15th century marked a significant milestone in the history of UX by making books more accessible and legible to the masses. This democratized access to knowledge and altered the way people interacted with information and with characteristic products and services of those times.

Digital revolution and modern UX

With the advent of computing and the web, UX became a more formalized field of study. Designers began to focus on usability, navigation, and interaction, creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and adopting design standards that enhanced the user experience. This was linked to conventional design practices, such as editorial publications.

The popularity of mobile devices and social media elevated UX, integrating it even further into our daily lives. Mobile apps allow us to perform everything from banking transactions to online shopping with just a few taps on the screen. Social media has transformed the way we communicate and share information, creating new forms of interaction and community.

The rise of mobile devices

The consumption of smartphones and tablets has radically changed our interaction with technology. Mobile UX became crucial, and designers had to adapt to smaller screens and touch gestures, a practice now known as Mobile First. 

The Era of personalization

UX became more personalized with the collection of data and creation of user profiles. Personalized recommendations, virtual assistants, and dynamic content adaptation have become part of our daily experience. Additionally, the capabilities of artificial intelligence currently provide significant support in developing strategies for experience, navigation, and interfaces for various digital products.

The Intersection of Brand and User Experience

Brand experience has become a significant concept in recent years, due to increased competition, market saturation, and shifts in consumer preferences and expectations. According to Brakus et al. (2009), it is defined as “the subjective, internal consumer responses and behavioral responses that arise from both direct and indirect interactions with a brand” (p. 53).

Furthermore, it encompasses various dimensions that cover sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral aspects. These dimensions can be measured using scales such as the Brand Experience Scale (BES) developed by Brakus et al. (2009) or the Consumer Brand Experience Scale (CBES) proposed by Iglesias et al. (2019).

In this sense, it offers multiple benefits for both consumers and businesses. For consumers, brand experience can generate satisfaction, loyalty, trust, engagement, identification, and well-being. For businesses, it can lead to competitive advantage, differentiation, reputation, profitability, and sustainability. Similarly, user experience includes various components that involve similar aspects in relation to the interaction and sensations that a specific product/service can emit.

User and brand experiences have significant implications for both users and designers. For users, the user experience can influence their satisfaction, trust, loyalty, motivation, and learning. For designers, it is tied to the ability to process, store, and convert information so that the market continues to grow constantly, and consumers keep consuming products and services through various media.

These concepts have become fundamental pillars for understanding the interaction between consumers and businesses. However, most research has focused on the online realm, overlooking touch points outside the screen, from a simple food sample stand to a promotional event.

Back to Basic: Brand and User Experience in offline environments

Brand experience in offline environments refers to how consumers perceive and experience a brand through physical interactions such as store visits, brand event participation, or customer service contact. These experiences can be as impactful as online ones and even more memorable due to their tangibility and the emotional connection they generate.

A study by Smith et al. (2019) examined the influence of offline experiences on brand perception, finding that consumers who had positive interactions in physical environments showed greater affinity toward the brand and a greater willingness to recommend it.

Bringing It All Together: Integrated Experiences

In the age of multichannel interactions, the key to success is integration. Consumers don’t distinguish between online and offline experiences; they see a brand as a unified entity. That’s why at TIF, we combine storytelling, UX research, and design thinking to deliver seamless experiences across both digital and physical platforms.

Therefore, it is essential that companies provide consistent and complementary experiences at all touchpoints. Recent studies, such as the research by Chen and Wang (2022), have shown that brands that achieve effective integration between their online and offline channels have a greater impact on consumer perception and, ultimately, on their purchasing behavior. 

The integration of communication, awareness, and research tools (Storytelling, UX research, Design thinking, etc.) serve as means of processing information regarding user and brand experience, allowing a real approach to what people seek through both conventional and digital media.

Influence on daily activities on and off the screen

In our simplest activities, we are constantly consuming and experiencing sensations through our senses. These types of experiences can be appreciated beyond a digital device, although in this technological era, this has not been marked as a trend. Below are some examples of experiences both inside and outside the screens:

1. Web Navigation: UX affects our online navigation. A well-designed website facilitates finding information, purchasing products, and communicating with others.
2. Mobile Applications: Mobile apps have transformed how we perform everyday tasks. From ordering food to managing our finances, the experience affects our efficiency and satisfaction.
3. Social Networks: UX on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter influences our social interaction. Usability, privacy, and personalization are crucial.
4. Virtual Assistants: UX of assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant has changed how we search for information, set reminders, and control devices.
5. Buying/Selling: From buying clothing, furniture, and even selling these items, everything is linked to how we experience through the senses what is best for the consumer/seller.
6. Testing/Trying: The ability to taste food or try a product or service determines our compatibility as users with that product/service. UX even in what we consume or test.
7. Learning: In schools or universities, each course/subject has a specific methodology to deliver information to users, in this case, students, where one can experience through different physical or mental activities various sensations when receiving and processing what the teacher transmits with his knowledge and tools.

Shaping the Future with Strategic Branding and User Experience

Brand experience and user experience are not limited to the online world; offline interactions also play a crucial role in building strong relationships between brand and consumer. It is essential for companies to adopt a comprehensive approach that considers all touchpoints, both online and offline, to deliver coherent and meaningful experiences that generate loyalty and trust from consumers.

For TIF, the ability to turn these types of experiences into reality is part of the corporate and structural value of the company. Drawing a new and broad horizon through experience and sensations beyond a simple click adds value to internal work and can lead to exponential growth for both the organization and its clients, increasing interactions with their target market across products and services, boosting sales, and establishing optimal methodologies that enable organizational functioning beyond the conventional, among other ways that demonstrate the capabilities of organizations in today’s market.