Sharvani Saxena, Co-Founder, Oneiric Lifestyles, discusses how design and brand experience are not aesthetic choices but strategic ones, especially for cement companies as they rely on branding to built trust.

In this interview, Sharvani Saxena, Co-Founder, Oneiric Lifestyles, challenges the cement industry to stop treating identity, user experience, and storytelling as separate investments and start designing complete customer journeys. She argues that visibility without consistency can help build awareness but not loyalty.

In industries such as cement, where products are similar, how can design and brand experience become a decisive factor in influencing customer preference?
When products become similar, customers stop choosing products and start choosing certainty. That certainty is built through design and brand experience. Not because a better logo changes the product, but because every interaction shapes how people perceive its quality before they ever experience it. Design is often misunderstood as something that makes a brand look better. In reality, it makes a business easier to understand, easier to trust and easier to remember. It influences how clearly information is communicated, how intuitive digital experiences feel, how consistently a company presents itself, and ultimately how confident customers feel in choosing it.
In competitive markets, differentiation is rarely created by saying more. It’s created by making every interaction feel intentional. When a brand consistently delivers clarity, confidence and professionalism across every touchpoint, it earns preference long before the purchase decision is made.

As consumer journeys become increasingly digital, how should brands integrate identity, user experience, and storytelling to build stronger market presence?
Most brands still think of identity, user experience and storytelling as separate disciplines. Customers never do. To a customer, a brand is simply the sum of every interaction they have with it. The advertisement they see, the website they visit, the ease of finding information, the way a product is presented, and the conversations they have with the company all become one continuous experience. Identity creates recognition. User experience creates confidence. Storytelling creates meaning. Individually they have value. Together they create something far more valuable than awareness. They create trust.
As more buying decisions begin online, brands need to stop designing individual touchpoints and start designing complete journeys. The companies that will lead tomorrow are the ones that create consistency across every interaction, because consistency is what turns first impressions into lasting relationships.

What distinguishes brands that achieve long-term relevance from those that rely solely on visibility and advertising spend?
Visibility gets attention. Relevance earns loyalty. Advertising can make people notice you, but only experience can make them remember you. The strongest brands understand that every campaign eventually ends, while every customer interaction becomes part of the brand’s reputation.
Long-term brands don’t ask how they can reach more people. They ask how they can create more value for the people they already reach. They invest in consistency, customer experience, product innovation, and meaningful relationships because these are the things that compound over time. The most valuable brands in the world weren’t built because they advertised more than everyone else. They were built because every interaction reinforced the same promise. That’s what creates trust, and trust is the most sustainable competitive advantage any business can build.

For traditional sectors like cement, how can strategic design and branding transform a functional product into a trusted and memorable brand?
One of the biggest misconceptions in traditional industries is that branding only matters for lifestyle products. I believe the opposite is true. The more functional a product is, the more important trust becomes. Customers may compare technical specifications, but they also evaluate credibility, consistency, expertise and confidence. Those qualities are communicated through design just as much as they are through engineering.
For a cement company, branding isn’t about making concrete look exciting. It’s about making reliability visible. It’s reflected in how technical information is communicated, how digital platforms simplify decision making, how dealers represent the business, how projects are showcased, and how every customer interaction reinforces confidence. The future belongs to companies that understand they are not simply selling products. They are shaping trust. In markets where products become increasingly comparable, trust often becomes the deciding factor.

• Kanika Mathur