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Does the Brand Experience Start With Culture?

Survey reveals majority of marketing leaders believe organizational culture is very influential in enabling brand experience
April 2015

In today’s marketplace, where the customer experience is a major differentiator and competitive advantage, CMOs today find themselves at the intersection of the brand experience and their organization’s culture, exploring how inner workings translate into external engagement.


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While a seemingly nebulous concept, an organization’s culture — the shared values, beliefs and hidden assumptions that shape how work gets done — can have a tangible impact, spurring (or inhibiting) innovation, growth and customer satisfaction. To examine this issue, Spencer Stuart conducted a survey of more than 200 marketing leaders about the effect of the organizational and marketing cultures on the brand experience. Following are our findings:


Culture and brand are two key attributes that are encompassed in a successfully aligned organization — they work hand in hand as a set of basic tools that should be understood by everyone in the organization to give them a better picture of what the company does and how it operates.

– Marketing leader


In an organizational culture that is defined by the company's broader purpose and values, every touchpoint of the brand experience directly leads to delivering on the purpose, without compromise. Employees are always the best personification of the brand experience, so embedding values into the culture will translate into a meaningful brand experience for consumers.
 - Marketing senior executive