Brand Worlds: A Guide to Creating Holistic Worlds of Brand Experiences Through Communication

The brand communication landscape is changing rapidly due to changing market, communication, and social and demographic parameters. Many companies aim at creating strong holistic brand worlds in order to anchor the brand as an important element in consumers’ lives. From the companies’ point of view, successful brand worlds promise a clear, distinctive, and long-lasting positioning of the brand and an increase in customer loyalty. However, it is important to note that consumers expect the brand world to make important and sustainable contributions to the consumers’ feelings, memories, and experiences, that is, authentic contributions to consumers’ lives. Communication plays an important role in the development of successful brand worlds. This chapter first describes the components and functions of brand worlds. Afterward, the focus is on the strategic and operative conception of brand worlds. Readers will find that this chapter serves as a guide with a detailed checklist that can be used to examine whether the intended brand world matches the brand and recommendations for the visual and multisensual communicative implementation of the brand world. Finally, multiple practical examples are used to draw attention to the necessary coordination of social media activities with the brand world. The chapter concludes with ethical considerations on brand worlds.