Brand Core Values For Brand Success

Brand core values are the fundamental beliefs of a business or organization. These guiding principles dictate behavior and help people running the business understand the difference between right and wrong. They also help companies determine if they are on the right path and fulfilling their goals by creating an unwavering guide.

Like individuals, companies and brands should have a set of core values that govern how the brand behaves consistently in all situations. Just as values enable people to differentiate between right and wrong, brands would know how to behave in the right manner and keep up the promises they make to their customers.

Brand core values play an important part in a company’s brand strategy and in creating a unique and robust differentiating factor.

What brand core values are not

Core values are not descriptions of a brand’s product or service. They are not operating practices, business strategies, cultural norms, or competencies. They are principles that govern customer relationships, guide business processes, clarify what the brand is all about, articulate what the brand stands for, and explain why the business operates the way it does.

They are not marketing slogans or taglines. They are not there to make your brand look cool or to attract customers. They are the real reasons your brand exists.

They are not words that can be thrown around easily. They are an integral part of your brand promises and must be held with the utmost respect.

Operating practices are the daily methods of running a business and ensuring process safety. Business strategies are high-level plans for reaching specific objectives, and when they fail, the firm must change its approach or prepare to go out of business. Cultural norms are the shared expectations and rules learned from parents, friends, and teachers while growing up in a society. Competencies are abilities or attributes described in terms of behavior that apply across a range of jobs. Core values are none of these things. They sit beneath all of them, informing how each is carried out.

How brand core values help

Core values help brands make the right decisions. The ones that benefit the brand and its customers in the long term instead of short-term gains that may ultimately hurt the brand. When evaluating whether to enter a particular market segment, if one of the core values goes against issues related to that market, then the brand does not enter that market. If a core value has to be compromised or deleted for the sake of short-term gain, it is not a core value at all. Compromising core values will lead a brand to disaster, sooner rather than later.

Core values clarify what the brand is all about. It is not just about the products or services or making money. A brand should go beyond these things. It should stand for something. Standing for something that goes beyond revenue and profit is the hallmark of brands that stand the test of time.

Core values articulate what the brand stands for, and this does not change no matter the business situation or the economy. That articulation enables customers to align the brand with their world view. Articulating what your brand stands for is the foundation of a great messaging strategy.

How to determine your brand core values

To determine if your core values are robust, start with these questions.

Have you identified the specific, measurable objectives for your brand and how each objective links to the overall corporate vision? This helps you come up with a list of attributes that align with that vision. Then compare these attributes with your proposed values to see if they align.

Can your brand objectives be summed up in a simple, yet informative, brand mission statement? Compare the mission statement with your values to see if they articulate the mission.

Do your core values align with your brand promise? Often your core values and brand promise can be the same.

Do your core values align with your brand story? Watch out for any disconnect in the story. This can lead to your brand looking very inauthentic.

Common brand core values

If you are wondering what core values brands commonly adopt, they tend to cluster around a few themes.

Trust and reliability show up as dependability (committing to provide a service or product in a robust and reliable manner), loyalty (highly valued in the business world), honesty (something seriously lacking in many brands today), integrity, and genuineness.

Character and culture values include open-mindedness (which plays well with having a great internal culture), consistency (people love consistent brands), humility (a tough one to implement, and it can work against marketing campaigns that try to position a brand aggressively), and diversity (something a lot of the new generation relate to).

Growth-oriented values include innovation (ensuring the brand is always ahead), creativity (in any market segment, companies that embrace it come out on top), efficiency (if embraced to heart, this enables strong brand positioning), and leadership (not to be told in words but rather in deeds).

People-centered values include empathy (quite a difficult value to own but with great results), responsibility (ensuring the brand contributes positively to the world), being inspiring, collaboration (if communicated correctly it forms a great impression), community (every lifestyle brand needs this value), and passion.

The specific values you choose matter less than whether you actually live by them. A brand that claims innovation but ships the same product year after year will be seen as inauthentic. A brand that claims honesty but hides behind fine print will lose trust. Your core values are a contract with your customers, and breaking that contract has consequences.

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Need help defining brand core values that actually guide your business? Explore our brand strategy services or get in touch to discuss your brand’s foundation.