I was having coffee with my good friend, Mark Tomaszewicz, Chief Experience Officer at Bulldog Drummond. Mark was sharing with me this idea that at the intersection of brand promise and brand experience is authenticity. Mark recently wrote a blog about it.
What I like about this Venn diagram Mark shared in his blog is how clearly it shows the power of authenticity is in relation to your brand promise and brand experience. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the greater the overlap of your brand promise and experience the greater your authenticity… and if there is no overlap in what your brand is promising and the actual experience that you deliver to your customers then you lack authenticity (ouch!).
The idea of brand promise and experience was a theme in The Customer Experience Revolution. Here it is states that ‘the experience you deliver is proof of your brand promise.’ This is the continuum of brand experience through customer experience and the products and services that you deliver. All of these need to be aligned to deliver on your promise… And you are making a promise with your brand regardless if you are aware of it or managing it. I think Mark states this best:
Brand experience encapsulates everything a company does and how it is aligned in support of the experience promised to people—consumers and employees… The challenge for organizations is squarely on aligning the activities of the organization to the brand promise.