Why are Branding Teams and UX Teams Separate?

I am looking back over my ecommerce work and wondering why the teams for branding and UX are separate.

For example when I was at GSI Interactive (now True Action), it did good interaction design but the companies that worked with GSI, such as Levis and Calvin Klein, turned to brand agencies in San Francisco or New York to develop their brand – not the GSI teams – at least not when I was at GSI Interactive.

This split doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not natural. From a user’s perspective, the experience of visiting a website is meaningful to them -or not. 


Experiences that are meaningful are designed by people in UX. Brand is about what is meaningful to users about a product and company. So UX is deeply involved in branding.

IOW: If UX, when its wings are fully out and waving about, is about creating experiences for users that are meaningful to them, then UX is in the branding game as well.

UX and Brand teams need to merge because brand and the experience of a site are merged for the user.