August 10, 2026

A few weeks ago, I needed a new pair of running shoes. There is a store two minutes from my house that sells them for less than anywhere else. Instead, I drove twenty minutes to a Decathlon, let a staff member watch me jog on a treadmill to check my stride, tried on four pairs, and walked out having paid more than I needed to. I didn't buy shoes that day. I bought the feeling of being taken seriously as a runner, even though I run about twice a month.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of how brands are winning today. Amongst all the noise of brand building, the world's most successful companies are winning hearts before wallets.

Customers don't forget how a brand made them feel. A good experience earns quiet loyalty; a bad one gets told to everyone who'll listen. Delivering on that experience isn't just good manners, it is good business. It brings down the cost of serving customers, and it turns ordinary buyers into people who post about you on Instagram, recommend you to their family, and come back without needing to be convinced. Take Tata Group. Its consumer businesses have invested heavily in digital transformation, conversational AI, and support that follows the customer across channels, and it shows: Tata Motors was ranked the number one CX brand in the X Index India Report, with Tata CLiQ Luxury at second and Taj Hotels at fourth.

Walk into an Apple Store, order a coffee at Starbucks, or spend a day at Disney. Honestly, what are you really buying? It is no longer just a smartphone, a cup of coffee, or a theme park ticket. You are buying an experience: a careful, deliberate invocation of emotion that creates memories and builds relationships that outlast the receipt. This shift runs deep in the psyche of the Gen Z customer, and it marks the rise of what many now call the Experience Economy, where the experience itself has become a brand's strongest competitive edge. We live in an age of cloning, where products get copied, prices get matched, and technology gets replicated within months. An exceptional experience, though, is much harder to imitate.

Why Experiences Matter More Than Ever

Today's consumers expect a lot more from brands than they used to: to be understood, to be anticipated, and to be given something memorable at every touchpoint, not just the moment of purchase. Consumers are willing to pay a real premium for that kind of experience, and just as easily, nearly one in three will walk away from even their favourite brand after a single bad one. That is the trade-off brands are up against. Interestingly, even with e-commerce growing the way it has, more than half of consumers worldwide still say they would rather walk into a physical store, largely because they miss the human interaction and personal touch that a screen can't quite replicate.

I find it telling that most of us have stopped noticing how much of ourselves we hand over in the course of an ordinary day. My phone knows what I ordered for dinner last night, what size I wear, and roughly where I am standing right now. None of that feels alarming anymore, it feels like convenience. But there is a quiet condition attached to it: we hand over that information only for as long as the brand seems to deserve it. The moment that trust breaks, whether through a data leak or simply being sold something we never asked for, the convenience stops feeling worth it. Something similar is happening around sustainability. It used to be a footnote on a label; now it is starting to influence what people actually choose to buy, not because they are lectured about it, but because it has quietly become part of how they see themselves.

Indian brands seem to have understood this instinctively. Whether it's Tata Starbucks' café culture, Nykaa's beauty-and-tutorial combo, or Zomato and Swiggy letting you watch your food travel to your doorstep in real time, they are all, at their core, selling an experience wrapped around a product. Starbucks and CCD may be known for their coffee, but people show up for the ambience, the free Wi-Fi, and the permission to sit and do nothing for a while. Ask any college student or office-goer waiting for a friend, and they'll tell you the coffee was almost secondary. Even with an entire world of OTT content available at the tap of a button, often within weeks of a film's release, people still choose to go to the theatre. Because watching a film with the people you love, in a dark hall, away from your phone, is an experience no screen at home can quite replicate.

Good Experience gives value for Money

If I had to name a brand that has quietly mastered this, I would say APPLE. It not just products, it symbolizes your identity, sleek design, and minimalist status rather than just a piece of hardware. You do not simply buy a shelf there. The Apple retail stores sell brand experience rather than just devices. The customers can test gadgets freely, join its free educational Today at Apple’s creative sessions, and also get hands-on tech support at the Genius Bar without immediate pressure to make a purchase. My purchase of Apple i-pad was an awesome experience and although initially I was a little hesitant to switch over from another brand, the change was worth it. I also got a mini-keyboard from the store something I was looking for to carry along while traveling. Such was the experience!

Artificial Intelligence is only speeding up this shift, helping companies' sense what a customer might want before the customer has quite figured it out themselves. And when that customer then posts the moment on Instagram, LinkedIn, or wherever else they hang out online, the experience quietly turns into free advertising for the brand.

The most successful companies today no longer compete on the product alone. They compete on the experience around it. Experiences turn into stories, and stories turn into memories that outlast the thing you bought. So, the next time you pick one shoe brand over another, wait patiently in a line for a launch, or recommend a restaurant to a friend, it's worth pausing for a second to ask: did you buy the product, or did you buy the experience?

References

• https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/services/consulting/services/creating-effective-customer-experience-strategies.html
• https://www.tata.com/newsroom/business/digital-customer-experience-tata-group
• https://www.pwc.in/industries/retail-and-consumer/voice-of-the-consumer-survey-2024india-perspective.html
• https://business.adobe.com/blog/the-latest/new-study-finds-consumers-would-pay-more-for-better-cx-pwc
• https://www.adgully.com/post/12062/tata-motors-tops-x-index-2025-india-report-by-havas-cx-india
• https://www.ey.com/en_gl/newsroom/2024/07/ey-future-consumer-index-consumers-return-to-physical-stores-for-personal-service-even-as-ai-and-tech-revolutionize-online-shopping
• https://www.apple.com/in/shop/help/shopping_experience