Strategizing in the experience economy: from functional value to emotional differentiation

This article explores the transformation of strategic management approaches in the context of the experience economy, emphasizing the transition from functional to emotional differentiation in business development. The subject of the research is the strategic modeling of emotional value creation for customer experience, while the object includes service-oriented enterprises operating in markets with high experiential intensity. The studyaims to develop an integrative strategy model tailored to the needs of companies shifting towards a customer-centric and emotionally resonant business logic. The methodology combines comparative analysis, design thinking, and interpretive modeling to analyze international and Ukrainians trategic consulting and service design approaches. The paper draw supon contemporary theories of customer experience management (CEM), service-dominant logic (SDL), and emotion-drivenbranding, integrating theminto a conceptual framework that applies to consulting practice. As a result, the author proposes a three-stage model of experience-based strategizing, comprising diagnostic, design, and implementation blocks. This model incorporates consulting facilitation, digitalco-design tools (suchas Microsoft 365 and Power BI), and KPIs for measuring emotional engagement, including Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and digital reputation indicators. A Ukrainian case of educational service transformation ispresented to illustrate the model’s practical relevance. The findings contribute to the the oreticalunder standing of strategic behaviorin the experience economy and highlight the evolvingrole of management consultants as facilitators of emotional value creation. The model has practical implications for service industries—education, hospitality, fintech, and creativesectors—seeking to embed experience design and clientco-creationin to their long-term strategic agenda.