Author: Dr. Darren Coleman
Defining great brand values: Five practical pointers A surprising number of brands have values that are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. Seriously. They do. Unfortunately, this only becomes apparent when brands try to bring their values to life via the experiences they want to build. Things grind to a halt because their brand […]
Defining great brand values: Five practical pointers
A surprising number of brands have values that are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
Seriously. They do. Unfortunately, this only becomes apparent when brands try to bring their values to life via the experiences they want to build.
Things grind to a halt because their brand values simply don’t work.
All is not lost. Executives that do a good job of creating great brand values articulate values that are unique, specific, active, deliberate and balanced.
This post will show you how to do the same.
Unique values
Unique values are powerful because they facilitate the delivery of unique brand experiences.
During the qualitative insight stage for a large government-backed savings bank in Southeast Asia, being humble emerged as being an important value. This felt refreshingly different to other financial services brands that had a strong commercial edge.
Quantitative insight then confirmed being humble resonated deeply with local market sensitivities. In another project, a healthcare brand understood the importance of being attentive.
Subsequent research confirmed being attentive got to the heart of what patients wanted from a healthcare brand because it inspired confidence and trust.
It also went further than the usual values of being patient-focused or caring, which can sound clichéd at times.
These examples contrast sharply with values such as quality, innovation and professionalism. These kinds of values are depressingly generic.
This is problematic because when such values are enabled through employee behaviour, communications or design, they result in generic experiences. And that’s about as useful as you know what.
Specific values
Specific values help bring your brand to life in the way you intended. Specific values reduce ambiguity and narrow the scope for internal and external misunderstanding. If you have specific values this will:
Consider the ‘values’ of quality, innovation and professionalism further. The scope for interpretation of such ‘values’ is very broad.
This is problematic.
Your colleagues’ or agency’s understanding of quality, innovation or professionalism could be drastically different to yours.
That could result in hiring the wrong recruit, delivering communications that miss the mark or the delivery of disappointing creative work.
Potentially expensive mistakes that don’t become apparent until it’s too late.
Active values
Framing your values actively means they focus on cause, not effect, to compel behavioural change. Quality, innovation and professionalism are not values: they are behavioural outcomes that stem from values. To solve this problem you could reframe:
‘Teamwork’ is another classic example. It’s not a value but a behavioural outcome of values such as being empathic, emotionally intelligent or collaborative.
If you focus on the behavioural outcome, not the value, you won’t get to the root of things. As a result, you’ll struggle to foster the behaviours you seek to engender as part of the experiences you build.
Deliberate values
Your brand values should be related but not overlap. That way they serve a purpose and won’t become repetitive and so redundant.
It may be useful to think of your values as a family of closely-knit brothers and sisters, but you want to steer clear of identical twins (apologies to my lovely twin cousins!).
A brand ideation session we ran for a corporate law client teased out preliminary values of being insightful, honest, supportive, diligent and sociable.
Can you spot the odd one out? It’s unlikely you’d select a corporate law firm because they’re sociable. That’s not what they’re paid to be and it doesn’t feel related to the other values.
They wanted to convey they are easy to do business with and are non-threatening. Sociable was reframed as approachable. Problem solved.
At the other extreme, overlap can be an issue. An urban fashion brand client had values of being confident, inventive, vibrant and fun.
We didn’t feel there was enough daylight between being vibrant and fun, so we traded in fun for selfless to give the brand more empathy.
Subsequent insight revealed that a youth brand that is confident, inventive, vibrant and selfless felt more relevant to the goals and sensitivities of their Millennial generation customer base.
To create deliberate values you need to define them carefully. Until you have defined your values the extent to which they align or overlap may not be apparent.
It may sound academic and like semantics but will be time well spent. Another common problem is to include the value you are defining in the definition of that value. Not a great idea as this creates a circular logic.
Balanced values
Once you’ve created values that are unique, specific, active and deliberate, you need to come up for air and reflect on how balanced your values are.
To do this you need to explore your values from core, peripheral, functional and emotional perspectives (read Professor Lesie de Chernatony’s work for more detail).
It’s important your brand values have balance. If all your values are core your brand may lose relevance as the market evolves.
If all your values are peripheral your brand will be a moving target, so stakeholders won’t know how to relate to it.
All your values are functional, you won’t appeal to stakeholders’ emotions, and if all your values are emotional your brand may not deliver the basics.
Doing this will help you manage the difficult balancing act of appealing functionally and emotionally to your customers today, tomorrow and in years to come.
Summing up
Defining values that are unique, specific, active, deliberate and balanced will save you time, money and possibly even heartache when building brand experiences.
Adopting this approach will help you brief your agencies more accurately; challenge communications work you feel isn’t on brand more objectively; and help HR to recruit people who can deliver your desired brand experience in natural and authentic ways.
This list continues but one point is clear.
By clearly defining your values, you’ve laid the cornerstone for building brand experiences. And that’s far more useful than a chocolate fireguard, for sure.
Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Twitter
Author Profile
No results available
The articles, video and images embedded on these pages are from various speakers and talent.
These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.
Veteran business writer Theodore Kinney interviews Dane Jensen and shares his takeaways from The Power of leading under Pressure for strategy+business. Pressure is a goad. Whether it arrives in the guise of a burning platform or a project deadline, a strategic goal or a performance target, a high-stakes deal or an aggressive competitor, pressure can […]
Thinking of Self Care When Burned Out as i was Heading to Dallas from Kansas City recently, I heard the familiar tone of the voice over the intercom start up: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve got a full flight to Dallas today…” Travel is BACK and flights are almost always full again, so I couldn’t be […]
Extreme explorer, Cipla Foundation trustee and ambassador, David Grier, the First person to run The Great Wall of China in both directions and fellow extreme athlete, Andrew Stuart have passed the half-way mark of their gruelling 70-day, 4200 kilometre journey across the Great Wall of China. This challenge is a feat that Grier already […]
Do You Have Blinders On? | Confirmation Bias is a term we’ve heard a lot over the last few years as science has become a debate topic and you hear qualified experts providing completely opposite interpretations on the same topic. But what role does it play in your life if you aren’t doing studies and […]
An observation on kitchen size and what is the best. The house we live in is on the market and people are coming to view it. The kitchen is quite small and some potential buyers have commented on the size, with a sigh. When I thought about this I remembered how in our previous home, […]
IT’S A NORMAL DAY ON ALIWAL SHOAL. ABOVE TWENTY DEGREES CELSIUS, BLUE WATER WITH SMALL PARTICLES, A LITTLE BIT OF A CURRENT PUSHING, WE DRIFT ALONG WITH IT, WAITING FOR THE SHARKS… (THIS IS THE STORY OF MY FIRST EVER FREEDIVE WITH SHARKS) It’s a clear blue sky, warm air and a slight breeze- […]
Are you hiring employees of the past or employees of the future and Do You Need People Analytics? How we think about employees and what they value has changed drastically over the years. Decades ago, employees were there to punch their time cards and climb the corporate ladder. Even just a few years ago, employees […]
I was fantasising about a new Outlook feature today. No really, I am that sad! Here was my fantasy, Stop inviting everyone whenever you create a new meeting event, there is a little box showing the estimated meeting cost. This cost should double as you double the length of the meeting and also double when […]
No results available
Our Mission
© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME