Definitions

➜ What is a ‘brand experience’?

A brand experience is a brand’s action perceived by a person. Every interaction between an individual and a tangible or intangible brand artefact can be seen as a brand experience. Such interaction might be the opening of a bottle of lemonade, the visit of a website or branch as well as a glimpse on a billboard in the public space. Those places of interaction are called →touchpoints. Hence a brand experience can include one or more of a recipient’s five senses and cause any kind of response.

In addition to a direct interaction an indirect one – such as friends, experts or celebrities sharing their perception of a product or service – can be considered as a brand experience as well. A person’s perception of brand, her or his brand image, is often determined by a number of brand experiences over a period of time including one or more →touchpoints.

Other definitions:

The US-american consultant Marty Neumeier gives a shorter definition of a brand experience:

“Brand experience: all the interactions people have with a product, service, or organization; the raw material of a brand”
— Marty Neumeier in ‘The Dictionary of Brand’ [1]

In 2009’s May edition of ‘Journal of Marketing’ a brand experience was described as the following:

“Brand experience is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications, and environments.”
— J. Joško Brakus, Bernd H. Schmitt, & Lia Zarantonello in ‘Brand Experience: What Is It? How Is It Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty?’ [2]

➜ What is a ‘touchpoint’?

A touchpoint is a place, artefact or interface where a person experiences a brand.

Other definitions:

Brand expert Marty Neumeier delivers this definition of a touchpoint:

“Touchpoint: any place where people come in contact with a brand, including product use, packaging, advertising, editorial, movies, store, environments, company employees, and casual conversation”
— Marty Neumeier in ‘The Dictionary of Brand’ [3]

The service designers Marc Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider give a shorter, but similar definition:

“Touchpoint: every contact point between a customer and the service provider”
— Marc Stickdorn & Jakob Schneider in ‘This is Service Design Thinking’ [4]