Summary & key ideas Be Distinctive Everywhere – Experience Edition

Three implications from the paper

• 71% of brand value is created through experience, not through paid media. Brand budgets that do not reflect this are investing away from where the effect happens.
• Differentiation is built in the product and the experience, not in the campaign. 62% of what makes a brand distinguishable comes from product and experience, only 20% from communication.
• Without repetition and distinctive assets, even a good experience evaporates. People believe what they repeatedly do themselves, not what they are told. Clear, consistent distinctive assets are what attach a strong experience to the brand in the first place.

71% of brand value is created through direct and indirect experience – only 28% through paid media (source: Kantar Connect, 917 projects, base 1,161,369).

Brands that improve their customer experience are 2.5 times more likely to grow market share (source: Kantar BrandZ).

Brand experience (BX) beats the message

A story can persuade someone to try a product. To believe in a brand, people have to do something themselves: use an app, unpack a product, stand in a store. The brand is the promise; the experience is the moment it proves itself.

That works in both directions. Trustpilot ratings in advertising raise purchase intent – yet many consumers switch brands after just two bad experiences.

This is why differentiation decides more about growth than communication does: only 20% of what sets a brand apart from its competitors comes from communication. 62% comes from product and experience (source: Kantar BrandZ 2023, Saïd Business School Oxford).

The four building blocks of growth through BX

People do not believe what a brand tells them. They believe what they experience. Brand growth therefore needs four elements that build on one another:

1. A belief shared between brand and audience
2. A distinctive expression of that belief
3. A distinctive experience that confirms the belief through active participation
4. Consistent repetition across every relevant channel

The more often someone takes part, the stronger the belief becomes.

A shared belief creates affinity, and affinity almost doubles the repeat purchase rate (50% against 25%).

More than 50 years of data show that brands with a strong shared belief grow considerably faster (source: Kantar Blueprint for Brand Growth, 2024):

9× higher volume share
2× higher price achieved
4× more likely to grow value share

Take Nationwide in UK banking: the shared belief that „banking should be fairer, more human and easier to trust“, paired with an experience to match, delivered the category’s biggest gains in account switching in 2025.

Distinctive assets as a memory aid

A strong experience is worth little if nobody attributes it to the right brand. Distinctive assets – colours, shapes, recurring rituals – lead people back to the brand when they want to repeat the good feeling. They have to be clear, consistent and used again and again. Heinz turns this into a system: the product ritual, the recognition, the packaging – everything confirms that „it has to be Heinz“.

And it pays off measurably. Value growth over 12 years by distinctiveness (source: Kantar BrandZ, Brand Imprint Index):

Most distinctive third: USD 1,987bn
Middle third: USD 1,267bn
Least distinctive third: USD 881bn

Clear feelings grow faster

Not every experience produces a clear feeling. That is precisely what separates strong growth from weak growth: brands with strong emotional impact gain additional pricing power in 34% of cases, brands with weak emotional impact in only 23% (source: Kantar BrandZ, 2020–2023).

Revenue growth in 2025 by feeling: OpenAI (possibility) +128%, Oura (knowledge) +100%, Strava (connection) +50%.

Every category works differently

Choosing a bank is guided by other people’s experience; buying a car by your own. In financial services, access and control count above all: the brand app and the website beat even the branch (source: Kantar Connect, 124 projects).

ING in Australia and Aldi in the UK have led their categories through exactly this kind of experience – not through classic CX strength.