The Battleground for Brand Supremacy Is In Service Design

25 September 2025

When we redesigned the booking engine for Peninsula Hotels, the cost of the project was repaid within three weeks. That moment proved what we have always believed: well-designed experiences create immediate, measurable value.

And yet the question still remains: is the value of UX truly understood?

Brands spend billions of dollars every year on media to drive qualified customers into their funnels. We believe billions are wasted worldwide each year by satisfying a definition of “acquisition” that isn’t real: traffic is driven, but value is lost at the point of experience. The tragedy is that we lack a tool to properly quantify this waste. If the scale of value lost through poor experiences could be fully measured – abandonments, drop-offs, disengagement – priorities across the industry would shift overnight.

This isn’t because service design fails to deliver. It’s because its importance remains underestimated in the mix. Media and acquisition dominate budgets because they’re easy to measure. UX and service design – the places where brand promises are tested, where relationships are won or lost – remain underfunded, under-attributed, and misunderstood.

UX: The Missing Link in Measurement

Digital is the most measurable medium we’ve ever had. Yet, paradoxically, attribution remains incomplete. Dashboards hum with KPIs, impressions, and cost-per-acquisition. But measurement often stops at the hand-off: media did its job; the funnel is full.

What happens next?

  • Did the customer convert?

  • Did they spend more than expected?

  • Did they return, recommend, or become loyal?

  • How did they feel about the interaction? Delight, trust, or frustration?

Without attributing value to the experience layer, brands celebrate acquisition while ignoring where value is truly created or destroyed.

The ROI Is Staggering (When You Invest)

The business case is clear.

  • Every $1 invested in UX returns $100, a 9,900% ROI (UXCam, 2025).

  • Design-driven companies enjoy 32% higher revenue growth and 56% higher total return to shareholders than peers (Eleken/McKinsey, 2024).

  • Improving UX can boost conversion rates by up to 400% (Baymard Institute).

  • Retaining just 5% more customers through better experience can increase profits by 25–95% (UXtweak, 2025).

These aren’t incremental gains; they’re transformative. Failing to prioritise UX isn’t a minor oversight; it’s a structural misallocation of resources.

Billions Wasted at the Point of Experience

Consider that 88% of users are less likely to return after a bad digital experience (UXCam, 2025). Or that a one-second delay in page load can reduce conversions by 7% (Plerdy, 2024).

These failures don’t just frustrate customers; they directly burn money. Qualified customers arrive, only to abandon journeys that should have been seamless. The media investment that brought them there evaporates.

Imagine putting a global dollar figure on this waste. It would dwarf many of the marketing budgets that continue to underfund UX.

From Data to Action

It’s not a lack of data that holds brands back, but too much of it. Companies are drowning in analytics: bounce rates, heatmaps, time on page. The problem is identifying what matters and acting on it.

Hyper-personalisation gets the headlines, but the bigger opportunity lies in continuous improvement. Every click, scroll, and drop-off is a signal. Service design isn’t static. It should evolve as behaviours change, as markets shift, as expectations rise. The brands that win are those that treat experience as a living system, improving relentlessly.

Proof in Practice  

Real-world examples underscore the point:

  • Virgin America redesigned their digital travel experience and saw a 14% rise in conversion rates, a 20% drop in support calls, and double the bookings across devices (Linearity.io).

  • GE invested in a UX centre of excellence and unified design practices, saving $30 million in costs while doubling developer productivity in the first year (Toptal).

  • Bank of America nearly doubled online enrolment completions the week after redesigning their sign-up flow (Toptal).

These are not abstract benefits. They are direct returns from prioritising service design.

From Claim to Commitment  

Here’s the essence: UXUI is where customers truly meet the brand.

It’s the moment of truth where promises made in advertising are tested in practice. It’s where rational needs (ease, speed, clarity) collide with emotional expectations (trust, delight, belonging).

A brand is not what it says. It is what customers experience. Service design is the bridge that turns claims into commitments.

The Strategic Spine

Design is no longer a subset of strategy – it is strategy. In commoditised markets, where products and prices blur, the differentiator is experience. The booking engine, the app, the checkout flow, the loyalty platform…these are the arenas where futures will be won or lost.

Research shows that design explained 25% of the variation in competitive advantage across companies in a 2024 study (ResearchGate). And over a decade, design-driven companies outperformed the S&P index by 228% (DesignRush, 2025).

This is the clearest signal yet: service design is not an accessory. It is the spine of modern organisations.

Executive Signals

In early 2024, Airbnb’s Chief Design Officer Alex Schleifer summed it up simply:
“Design is no longer about how something looks, it’s about how it works across the entire journey. If you don’t get that right, nothing else matters.” (Fast Company, March 2024)

That shift from design as decoration to design as system is exactly where the battleground lies today.

The Addiction to Immediacy

One reason UX continues to be undervalued is the corporate addiction to immediacy. Executives crave instant results – numbers they can take to their boards tomorrow. Media delivers that fix: impressions, clicks, conversions. But too often those numbers are surface-level, short-term, and ultimately meaningless if the experience fails.

This short-termism comes at the expense of long-term value. Service design delivers slower but deeper rewards: loyalty, lifetime customer value, advocacy. These are harder to measure in the moment but far more powerful in the long run. Until priorities shift from immediacy to impact, billions will continue to be wasted.

Conclusion

The evidence is overwhelming. UX and service design deliver ROI, conversion, loyalty, and long-term advantage. Yet they remain underestimated compared to media spend.

The battleground for brand supremacy is not in impressions or slogans. It is at the point of experience, where brand promises become commitments and where value is either created or destroyed.

Until priorities shift, billions will continue to be wasted on acquisition that isn’t real. But for those who recognise service design as the true battleground, the rewards will be immediate, measurable, and lasting.