In the face of frequent market disruptions, brands are increasingly striving to balance their resources to deliver value through sustainability, digitalization, and customer experience. Understanding how consumers perceive these elements is essential for building brand resilience, relevance, and long-term trust. This research explores whether these three dimensions are meaningfully understood by consumers or simply regarded as popular marketing buzzwords. To explore this, the study adopts the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), a qualitative research method developed by Gerald Zaltman in the 1990s. ZMET is particularly effective in uncovering both conscious and subconscious consumer thoughts through metaphor and imagery. The research sample consists of students from a premier educational institution, chosen for their familiarity with contemporary brand narratives and digital trends. To investigate the themes of sustainability, digitalization, and customer experience, the study conducts one-on-one interview sessions following ZMET's six-step process. During these sessions, discussions are facilitated using images collected by participants that represent their thoughts and feelings. This ZMET-based empirical study revealed key metaphors that can be interpreted as themes expressing people's perceptions of brands in relation to sustainability, digitalization, and customer experience. Positive brand perceptions, as reflected in the images collected from participants, highlighted the importance of these themes in their memory. Further research is needed to understand the various stimuli that influence people's perceptions of sustainability, digitalization, and customer experience. The study identifies major themes for brand positioning. Understanding people’s perceptions through the deep metaphoric technique makes a significant contribution to execute various strategic decisions in brand-building. This study highlights that sustainability, digitalization, and customer experience are not just marketing buzzwords but reflect deeper societal values. Participants viewed sustainability as an ethical responsibility, digitalization as a necessary and human-centered transformation, and customer experience as essential to emotional and relational engagement. These insights suggest that brands must act authentically and responsibly in these areas to align with evolving public expectations and contribute positively to society. The study appears to be the first in-depth qualitative investigation into how people think about brands in the context of sustainability, digitalization, and customer experience