Today’s brand paradigm is experiential, and experience continues to be one of the most influential and differentiating aspects that defines a brand. It’s often a unique brand experience that lures customers to purchase a product or service, whether it’s online or bricks and mortar. And if you can create an experience that is memorable, then you can cultivate customers who are more loyal to your brand. This is true from cars to clothes to coffee.

Atmosphere is huge in shaping a brand experience. Starbucks knows this well. From its inception, the coffee shop franchise transformed the consumption of a cup of Joe from mere caffeine fulfillment into a social aspect of everyday life. It introduced a coffee shop environment that became a stage for its support of the world’s environment. It’s store concepts provided an extension of its brand position, and made coffee drinking an experience, and that experience came with a higher price point that consumers still support today.

The evolution of the experience Starbucks is creating for consumers is just beginning. The next step appears to be the marriage of its brand with others. The blend has merit, and allows for the Starbucks experience to connect more deeply with local attributes its customers value.

The City of Austin, TX, has a brand with international appeal like Starbucks. Austin is among the first cities in the country to debut a new experiential concept of the Starbucks brand. The coffee house chain combined its unique passion with a city’s love for live music, art, and the environment. Stepping into the newest Starbucks in downtown Austin whets the appetite for coffee and an appreciation for a city that creatively expresses itself. The coffee experience greets you with the aroma of more than 40 types of brew, with a decor that exudes live music, native woods, repurposed materials, and local artistic expressions that declare you are in a place like no other. It’s a co-branded experience you won’t soon forget.

Proactively portraying your brand in an experiential fashion helps strengthen your positioning with customers, and creates memories that cultivate brand loyalty. It can be a real differentiator in a world where brands are battling for attention. What are you doing to make your brand a more memorable experience?