Experience the Brands | july '17

If you've ever wondered if it was possible to actually rank brands based on consumer experience and data, you're not alone. WPP's Group XP unit has been curious too and now they have some answers.

According to a new report, Group XP's The Experience Index, which considered revenue, branding, store design, content, online presence and data from Millward Brown and BrandZ, Pampers ranks No. 1 when it comes to brand experience, with Disney, Paypal, DHL and Facebook rounding out the top five (see full list below). 

As we head into 2017, the millennial generation is now the largest domestically and worldwide, outnumbering even the Baby Boom generation from whose loins they sprung, according to Pew, which tracks such things.

So it's more important than ever to be sure that your customer service practices and customer experience design are ready to serve these young customers the way they want to be served. The time to get this right is short; the millennial generation, also known as Gen Y, has a purchase power as well that will soon equal and then eclipse that of the Baby Boomers. To compound the effect, it’s not just consumer (B2C) dollars they’ll have under their control. These young customers are also becoming decision makers at major corporations, thus controlling purse strings that affect the success and failure of those of you with B2B companies as well.

Experiential marketing has had a huge year, largely due to the rapid development of new technology and a millennial driven experience culture.

Related trends are evolving daily and experiential marketing has very much become an individual and personal experience, often driven by virtual reality (VR) or multi-sensory campaigns. Consumers are now demanding experiences which incorporate the brand’s story with their own, creating shareable and, arguably more importantly, relatable moments.

For us, 2016 has proved that it's not enough to use tech just for the sake of using it. It can add huge value, but if its use is not amounting to an authentic and personalised experience, it's not worth doing.