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ABSTRACT The purpose of this doctoral research is to show that the customer’s participation to the service delivery process makes the related service experience the core of the formation of service brand image. The central hypothesis suggests that, besides communication and the number of lived experiences, the way of living these experiences impacts the strength and the nature of brand image. The methodology is based on two main studies: the first one is an exploratory qualitative study. It has been conducted with 8 costumers of IKEA according to the verbal protocol method. The second one is a confirmatory quantitative study. It is based on a sample of 2716 individuals knowing the IKEA brand. The main contributions of this research are the conceptualisation of service experience from customer’s point of view and the illustration of the interest of its integration into service brand strategies.