Walt Disney had it right: the customer experience is a “stage,” where customers are “guests” and service employees are “cast members.” Armed with this critical insight into the customer relationship, Disney and other service leaders avoid the commodity death spiral by recognizing that they’re in the business of creating rich, compelling experiences.In the vernacular of the former C.E.O. of the Scandinavian Airline Systems, Jan Carlzon, it’s the “moments of truth” that make or break a brand. He argued that the SAS brand is a product of the 50 million moments of truth his customers experience every year. Carlzon sent all of his front-line personnel to training, gave them more decision-making power, and designed new uniforms for them. He inspired, taught and empowered employees to send customers a consistently positive message about the brand. He recognized that every moment of truth is a microcosm of the brand. It’s like a hologram. No matter how many small parts the hologram is divided into, each piece still contains the whole picture. Every contact with a company represents the entire company to the customer.

Who are today’s brand experience leaders? With the American Customer Satisfaction index stuck at a lower level than in 1994, there hasn’t been much progress. Starbucks comes to mind as a great exception. While all Starbucks stores aren’t identical, there’s the same unmistakable smell, look, feel, and irresistible service from frontline employees who are pampered with good training and completive compensations and health benefit packages. What other examples do you have of consistent brand experiences?

Fortune’s Most Admired list is out. It’s perhaps the most high-profile ranking of corporate brand reputation. The study is frequently attacked for being a lagging indicator of companies’ stock performance and, yes, it does reflect the assessment of a narrow constituency, top executives, outside directors and financial analysts. Nevertheless, it’s always an interesting barometer of the corporate zeitgeist. This year, Toyota became the first non-US based company to overcome American xenophobia and make the 10-ten list. What a case study of savvy brand management that is! While Ford and GM are spreading brand budgets thin on a plethora of product brands, Toyota has just three: A hip young brand (Scion), a value brand (Toyota), and an aspirational brand (Lexus). While their American-based competitors are locked into a commodity death spiral of discounting, Toyota is creating a differentiated customer experience. And while the competition is trying to position themselves as environmental leaders with PR hype and advertising, Toyota is doing it through a growing line of hybrid cars. As result, Toyota made more profit last year than the next 12 carmakers combined and is set to overtake GM as the world’s largest car maker before the end of this year. Brand managers of all industries should take notice.