Edward Boatman • Apr 19th, 2022
What makes a business stand out? Is it a flashy logo or a catchy slogan? Will an animated mascot help customers remember your brand? Or should you hire a witty social media manager to quip back and forth with Wendy’s on Twitter?
While these factors can garner attention, the most important element that distinguishes world-renowned businesses from the competition is a foundation of strong brand values, backed up by tangible actions showing the business truly lives by those values.
But determining your core brand values is easier said than done. To better understand the importance of brand values and how you can identify them for your company, we’ve created a full guide below.
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Brand values help shape your company culture and brand identity. But what exactly are brand values and why do they matter?
Brand values are guiding principles that shape all aspects of your business. They’re the beliefs that influence how your business operates, markets its products and services, and communicates with customers and employees.
Steve Jobs once said, “Marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world; it’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us.”
Jobs was highlighting the importance of brand values when it comes to influencing how people perceive your business. After all, it’s your company values that guide your decisions, and it’s those decisions that build your brand reputation.
Core brand values can help guide your company toward success if they’re clearly defined and well-thought-out. Some of the benefits of establishing brand values include:
These benefits outline why it’s crucial to establish brand values from the onset of your business.
Some of the most influential brands achieved their success thanks to the guidance of their core brand values. Below are some examples.
What started as two roommates struggling to pay rent transformed into a multibillion dollar company with millions of hosts worldwide. A major element that helped fuel Airbnb’s success was its strong core brand values. They include:
With these values, Airbnb tells a story and establishes a specific purpose. Their value to “be cereal entrepreneur” reminds stakeholders of a time when Airbnb’s founders sold cereal boxes to fund the company. The value “champion the mission” then reminds employees about the company’s unifying mission to “create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.”
In 1983, Howard Schultz visited Italy, where he fell in love with the taste of espresso and the romance of Italian coffeehouses. This experience inspired him to bring that same atmosphere to the U.S., where he would transform Starbucks into the largest coffee company in the world as its CEO.
Here are the brand values that helped the company every step of the way:
Starbucks is an example of a company that makes decisions that reflect its values. For example, Starbucks challenges the status quo by covering 100% of college tuition costs for eligible employees. They also create a culture of warmth and belonging with welcoming decor and emphasis on the customer experience.
Patagonia is another value-driven company that’s recognized around the world for its sustainability efforts and activism. Some of the company’s core values include:
Patagonia has a “Let My People Go Surfing” policy which allows employees to stop work to go surfing at the beach when waves are just right. The company also contributes 1% of sales to environmental groups to reflect its “use business to protect nature” value.
These values are likely contributors to the company’s employee satisfaction rate of 91% — 34% higher than the average satisfaction rate of American companies.
Google is one of the biggest companies in the world with over 156,000 employees and a market cap of over $257 billion. It has a well-known reputation for having a company culture that values employees, which is why it’s been featured on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list every year for the past decade.
Here are some of Google’s values from “Ten things we know to be true”:
One of Google’s values that contributes to its positive brand positioning is “you can make money without doing evil.” This value is reflected in Google’s partnerships with nonprofits and the company’s work toward pioneering new recyclable materials for products.
Brand guideline platforms can help identify your company’s brand values, but it can still be difficult. Our advice is, don’t rush the process. Take your time to choose values that make sense for you, your employees, your customers and your brand as a whole.
To help you brainstorm your brand values, be authentic, research other brands, talk to your team, know your audience and tell your brand story.
If you don’t resonate with your own business’s values, they aren’t going to be meaningful to your customers or your employees. Before you decide on your brand values, make a list of your own personal values. Think about where those values would fit into your business operations.
To get inspiration, engage in brand exploration. Take a look at the values of your competitors and jot down brand values you admire. You’ll likely start to see a pattern of recurring values that may fit with your brand.
Since your employees are crucial to the function of your business, you should include them when brainstorming brand values. Send out surveys, schedule meetings or talk to your employees one-on-one. Figure out which values matter most to them.
Look at the demographics and psychographics of your customers. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what they value most. From there, you can establish values that prioritize and resonate with your audience.
Think about how and why your company was founded, the times that you’ve gone the extra mile to help a customer and moments of triumph in your company’s history. Incorporate these key events into your values to help tell your story.
A good example of this is Airbnb’s brand value to “be a cereal entrepreneur.” This value emphasizes the importance of being a creative entrepreneur while recognizing the company’s humble beginnings.
After you’ve discussed ideas with your team and analyzed your audience, you can begin the process of making your brand values official by writing them down. Before you finalize your values, make sure they follow the best practices below.
Brand values should be easy to communicate to both your employees and your customers. This means removing any fluff. Choose five to 10 values that you can boil down to a couple of words each.
If your brand values aren’t unique, they will be less memorable and impactful to employees and customers. While you don’t need to avoid traditional values such as honesty and integrity, you should try to put a personal spin on them.
A great example of this is Airbnb’s value to “be a host.” This value represents being caring, open and encouraging, but Airbnb didn’t make their tagline “be caring, open and encouraging.” Instead, they found a unique way to tie these characteristics to their business model of good hosting.
The best values are actionable. If you choose “save the planet” as a brand value, that’s fine, but only if your company’s actions align with that value. If you own a clothing company, like Patagonia, this could mean using sustainable materials or paying fair wages across the supply chain even if it will yield lower profits.
Hold yourself accountable by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) that connect to each value. For example, if one of your values is to protect the environment, you might identify carbon emissions as a KPI you can reduce by X% year over year.
Values only have meaning when they’re backed up with action. This is why it’s important to integrate your values into the day-to-day operations of your business.
If your policies conflict with your values, employee and customer trust could waver.
Here are some tips on how to incorporate your values into your company’s daily culture.
When you educate employees about new company values, take things slow. If you try to change too much at once it can create overwhelm and ultimately be counterproductive.
Instead, consider having weekly or monthly training sessions that emphasize one value at a time. When you make incremental changes that reflect your values, they become easier to implement.
Look out for model employees that exemplify company values. When you see them doing great work, offer positive reinforcement and highlight that behavior to other employees. By rewarding employees who act accordingly, it gives their colleagues incentive to do the same.
Your values should be both accessible to every employee and consistent across communication channels. For example, if your values say one thing on your Instagram but something else on your website or in your employee handbook, it could be confusing and come off as disingenuous. This is where consistent brand guidelines become useful for making decisions.
The most successful companies are driven by strong core brand values. These values guide their employees' decisions, build company trust and spread brand awareness.
To manage your brand, help communicate your values and align your brand messaging, get started with Lingo today.