Brand values are the core principles and behaviors that define how a brand operates and interacts with its audience. They reflect the brand’s commitment to its mission and serve as a moral compass for decision-making. Brand values are the actionable guidelines that help ensure consistency in the brand’s identity, communication, and customer experience.
Brand Values: Why They Are Important
Brand values are essential for creating trust and credibility with customers and employees. They define the brand's beliefs and set the tone for how it interacts with its audience. Strong values help a brand maintain authenticity and integrity, ensuring that every action aligns with its mission and positioning. Without well-crafted values, a brand risks losing direction, which can result in a lack of connection with its customers.
How Your Brand Values Can Contribute to a Clearer Brand Strategy, Better Brand Recognition and Higher Customer Loyalty
Brand values provide a framework that guides a brand’s decisions and actions, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. This consistency helps to reinforce the brand’s identity and messaging, leading to better brand recognition. When customers see that a brand consistently lives by its values, they are more likely to develop trust and loyalty, resulting in stronger emotional connections and long-term customer relationships.
Brand Values: What Is Their Function?
The function of brand values is to guide the behavior of a brand, ensuring that it stays true to its mission and identity. They act as a set of principles that influence the brand’s decision-making process, ensuring that all actions and communications align with its core purpose. Brand values also serve as a benchmark for measuring the brand’s performance, particularly in areas such as customer service, innovation, and corporate responsibility.
Brand Values: A Real-World Scenario
Patagonia’s brand values of environmental responsibility and sustainability are evident in every aspect of its operations, from product design to marketing campaigns. Patagonia’s commitment to these values strengthens its brand positioning and fosters a deep sense of loyalty among its customers, who appreciate the company’s consistent efforts to protect the environment. Patagonia doesn’t just talk about sustainability; it actively integrates it into everything it does, which builds trust and loyalty with its audience.
How to Define Your Brand Values
To define your brand values, begin by reflecting on your brand’s core mission (Why) and how it aims to differentiate itself (How). Identify the specific behaviors and principles that reflect these elements. Make sure your values are actionable, meaning they can be demonstrated through your brand’s operations and interactions. Craft a set of 3 to 5 values that uniquely represent your brand’s identity and commit to living them out in every aspect of your business.
Brand Values: Best Practice
A best practice for defining your brand values is to ensure they are specific, actionable, and directly tied to your brand’s mission and positioning. For instance, Zappos’ value of "Deliver WOW Through Service" is not just a slogan but a commitment to go above and beyond in customer service. Zappos demonstrates this by providing exceptional customer support, even if it means going out of their way to ensure customer satisfaction. This value sets Zappos apart from competitors and is lived out daily in their interactions with customers.
Brand Values: What to Avoid
Avoid creating generic or overly broad values that don’t differentiate your brand from others. Values like "integrity" or "quality" are important but often too vague to be meaningful unless backed by specific behaviors that make them unique to your brand. For example, instead of stating "customer service" as a value, specify how your brand will deliver exceptional service in a way that sets it apart, like "Proactive Customer Engagement."
When to Define the Brand Values in the Branding Process
To ensure perfect alignment, the Brand Values must be defined before the Brand Attributes, and after the Brand Positioning.
