Making your brand values more meaningful
Posted by: Richard Marriott - 10.10.22
OUR PHILOSOPHY
They say it’s the little things that make a difference. And this is never more true than when it comes to marketing.
That’s why we developed Ride in 5: a series of bite-sized, five-minute reads that break down industry challenges, insights and trends providing oodles of inspiration for new ways of thinking and doing – helping ambitious marketers make their life easier.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
If your visual and verbal identity is how your brand looks and talks, your values are how your brand behaves. Externally, they let customers and prospective employees know what you’re like to do business with, internally they guide everything from decision-making to culture.
Values are important to your brand strategy, even though they can often get underestimated or ignored – and can be off the table when it comes to any kind of brand development.
This might be because they’re not owned by the marketing team, or they’re plastered all over the reception. But, we’d say if your values include any of these terms, you need to rethink.
Innovation, Quality, Excellence, Collaboration, Accountable, Respect, Integrity, Trusted, Diverse
All these values bring us back to the age old saying: don’t tell me you’re funny, tell me a joke. We see them time and time again, qualities that should be implicit but somehow make it into your guidelines – who wants to buy a product from a business that can’t be trusted?
How to do it
A strong set of values, beliefs or behaviours that inspire and capture the imagination will strengthen your brand and unite your people:
- Differentiation in the recruitment market: what you stand for could be why a good candidate chooses your job over another
- They help you connect you with your customers. Aligned values help people get you and buy into what you do and how you do business
- Drive desired behaviour around the business and guide decisions that will help you actively deliver on your unique purpose, proposition and culture
- They make sure your brand is built from the inside by setting out ways your people can ‘live and breathe’ your brand on a daily basis. Creating clear expectations and tangible actions for employees, which they can be held accountable to.
WHY IT MATTERS
A strong set of values, beliefs or behaviours that inspire and capture the imagination will strengthen your brand and unite your people:
Get inspired
Lush
Their beliefs haven’t changed in 25 years. You see it in how they develop their products, how they pay their staff and how they manage their supply chain. You hear it when you chat to their overly enthusiastic shop assistants. Customers who are fully bought into Lush’s brand values happily pay a premium to invest in their products and brand. Just ask Ride Shotgun Senior Brand Stategist Kat McSweeney:
“I have tolerated a 300% increase on my moisturiser over a number of years because I love LUSH products and 100% buy into their brand values.”
Innocent
They strike the right balance between commercial and ethical thinking. They’re not afraid to talk about being successful, but demonstrate this doesn’t have to come at the cost of doing the right thing.
And they demonstrate behaviours so people get how they impact on their everyday and bigger picture strategic decision-making.
“Leave things better than you find them – in the kitchen, the business or the wider world.”
Gym Shark
So simple, yet so effective. We get who the business is, what matters to them and what it’s like to work there and do business with them. Their Tone of Voice is authentic and entirely relatable. They say:
“Our values are invaluable. We lose them, we lose everything.”
Yes Gym Shark. Yes!
Need a hand?
Our strategy and creative teams have some of the world’s best businesses strengthen their brand, unite internal teams and create more distinctive employer brands.
Let’s chat about how we can help hello@rideshotgun.co.uk