Brand Values: Your Marketing Superpower

If you’ve been within a stone’s throw of modern advertising, then you’ve probably heard about corporate commitments, brand storytelling, mission statements, brand positioning, brand visions, brand mission, and brand vision.

These foundational elements—brand mission, brand vision, and brand values—work together to shape your company’s identity and culture. While the brand mission defines your core purpose and reason for existing, the brand vision sets your future-oriented aspirations, and your brand values guide daily actions and decision-making.

Every business owner, but especially those in the startup world, is committed to finding their “secret sauce” that will set them apart from their competition. We all want a superpower that our competitors can’t match.

That sauce, that marketing superpower, is your brand values. Every success and failure of your company can, in some way, be traced back to how well you understand your brand values, how well you reflect them in your business, and how effectively you communicate them to your audience.

But why are they so important? Here are a few statistics to consider:

• 77% of employees consider company values before accepting a job offer, often forcing them to reject an offer with higher compensation.
• Only 40% of employees understand their company’s core values, yet companies with a strong culture have 4x higher revenue growth.
• Businesses with value-driven operations see 25% faster revenue growth than competitors.
• 82% of consumers say they are more likely to patronize a brand that shares their values.
• At least 88% of US-based employees say a strong company culture is what drives success at their company.
• Brands that have clear values and live by them have a 20% lower turnover rate than those that don’t.
• Approximately 61% of employees in the US say they would leave their job for a company with a better culture.
• Around 70% of employees feel more motivated when their company’s values are aligned with their personal beliefs.

What Are Your Brand Values?

Every company has brand values. Your company has brand values, even if you don’t realize it or ever thought about them.

Your brand values are those that guide your business (consciously or not). They don’t determine how you work or why, but certainly influence everything from hiring and manufacturing to customer support and more.

Some people call your brand values your “why”. And while they have many similarities, they are not quite synonymous. Your “why” might be the reason why you get up for work in the morning, but your brand values impact how you operate once you arrive in the office.

At Big Red Jelly, we call these your Core Values. We believe that the only way to have a cohesive and genuine message in all your brand marketing and communications is to have brand values that truly represent your goals, your passions, and your beliefs. Your brand’s core values are essential in shaping your brand identity and ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. When identifying these, we focus on discovering your company’s core values to ensure they are authentic and unique to your business.

The role of a good marketer is to correctly identify the values that are already present in your company and help your brand storytelling communicate them more effectively to your target audience. Guiding principles play a key role by translating your core values into daily actions and behaviors that reinforce your brand’s mission.

That’s why the first step in our Brand Core branding process is helping companies identify their core brand values.

Trying to advertise using values that your brand doesn’t represent or that you don’t believe in is one of the fastest ways to burn through your marketing budget with nothing to show for it.

Establishing brand values is a crucial first step in creating a strong brand, as it lays the foundation for all future branding and communication efforts.

A few of the common yet effective examples of brand values that we in modern brands include:

• Create with purpose
• Environmental responsibility
• Invite collaboration
• Be curious
• Social consciousness
• Stay proactive
• Community focus
• Balance
• Embrace ambition

When creating authentic brand values, it’s important to ensure they reflect your company’s unique identity and resonate with both your team and your customers.

The Worth of Brand Values

Not all brand values are created equal. The utility of brand values varies across industries, demographics, and time. Strong brand values are crucial for building a successful business, as they help establish trust, loyalty, and a clear identity in the marketplace. Your core values are what determine your company culture. And company culture is becoming overwhelmingly important to young professionals in recent years, with strong values contributing to a positive workplace environment and employee engagement.

Whatever values guide your business are the same values that have made it successful. Values that made other businesses successful in their own fields might not work for yours.

Identifying your brand values isn’t about figuring out which ones will attract the most customers, it’s about understanding the principles of your business and communicating those clearly to the people who share those principles. Strong core values play a key role in differentiating your brand from competitors and attracting the right audience.

Consumers today can sniff out a disingenuous or dishonest brand from a mile away. This may or may not influence the purchasing decision of the occasional customer, but identifying your brand with values you clearly don’t embody will certainly make everything much more difficult. Great brand values, when genuinely practiced, enhance your brand reputation and foster lasting trust with your audience.

After some internal discussions, you might realize that the values that guide your company are not some you would want to share with the wider world. That might be a discussion you’d rather have with your HR department or legal counsel instead of your marketing team! Remember, brand values are an essential part of your company identity and should be authentically represented both internally and externally.

That being said, honesty in your brand values is paramount. Core values matter for long-term business success, shaping not only your brand’s identity but also its relationships with customers, employees, and stakeholders.

How to Define Your Brand Values

Here at Big Red Jelly, we follow our proven process to ensure we identify the core values of a brand that will be most effective in communicating their value to customers.

This involves a collaborative workshop involving key stakeholders, industry insights, and exercises to uncover a company’s non-negotiable principles. To ensure everyone is on the same page, we involve the entire company in this process, fostering alignment and a unified understanding of brand values across all departments. We then use those values to craft a mission statement, vision statement, a guide to brand storytelling, and a brand promise.

You don’t need to do all that, however.

If you’re looking to identify your own brand’s values, there are only two steps you need to follow:

1. Ask your customers
2. Ask your employees

When identifying your values, consider selecting many values that reflect the diversity and unique qualities of your organization, rather than focusing on just one or two. This approach helps ensure your brand values genuinely represent the full spectrum of your company’s experiences and beliefs.

Ask your customers. The people who frequent your website, buy your products, and visit your stores are the only ones who will be able to tell you the things that convinced them to spend money with your company. So, be direct and ask them what it was that finally helped them make that decision.

Did they do any research into your company before buying? What other things does your company do that they care about? Did they switch from a similar product or service? Why? What negative experiences did they have that brought them to your brand? Understanding your brand story can also help you identify what makes your company different and why customers connect with you.

Ask your employees. Every day, your employees choose to come and work for your company. And while compensation is the most important factor when it comes to job satisfaction and retention, brand values are among the most important things that influence how dedicated employees are once they’re at their desk. Aligning your brand values with employees’ personal values can also attract potential employees who share your company’s beliefs and are more likely to become engaged, long-term team members.

Do they see any important values reflected in the way the company operates? Do they share any common principles with their team or department? What kinds of unspoked understandings do they have with other employees?

Asking straightforward and clear questions like these is the most effective way of identifying what values your brand embodies. This is the foundation of brand positioning and highlights the difference authentic brand values can make in how customers perceive your business.

How to Use Your Brand Values

While we understand the desire to shout your brand values from the rooftops once you’ve identified them, we usually recommend our clients refrain from doing so. Brand values shape the overall brand experience for customers, influencing every interaction and touchpoint.

Instead, use those values as a guide when crafting your messaging. Consistency in brand communications is key to building trust and reinforcing your values across all platforms.

If one of your values is integrity, for example, don’t waste time telling your employees to be more honest or bragging to your customer how honest your company is. Share stories with your employees about how leadership lives and operates with integrity. How have they made hard decisions when their integrity was on the line, even if it wasn’t the best decision for the brand? These stories also demonstrate how your business practices reflect your core values in action.

Advertising works the same way. Integrating your values into your brand strategy helps build trust and ensures your messaging aligns with your core principles.

Your values shouldn’t BE your message, but they should determine HOW you tell your story. Brand guidelines play a crucial role in ensuring alignment across teams and maintaining consistency in how your values are expressed.

Don’t spend money trying to look like an eco-friendly brand if one of your values is sustainability. Customers aren’t falling for “green-washing” anymore. Be transparent with your customers and show your process. Authentic values enhance your brand image and customer experience, strengthening how your brand is perceived.

When you engage with customers, focus on building strong customer relationships. Clearly articulated values help establish brand loyalty and foster ongoing brand loyalty by aligning with your audience’s beliefs.

Shared values influence customers to purchase products that reflect their own beliefs and connect with your brand on a deeper level, leading to meaningful engagement and advocacy.

Internally, demonstrate your values through day to day work, ensuring your company culture is a true reflection of what you stand for.

The Pioneer Valley Dental Example

One of our clients, Pioneer Valley Dental, is a good example of a company truly embodying its brand values. They had been part of Utah’s community since the 1980s, but their website hadn’t been updated in over a decade. It lacked clear calls-to-action, and didn’t reflect their values, updated office, premium services, or their large hispanic client base.

Worse of all, none of their online messaging made it clear they were specialists.

They needed messaging that reflected their values and made their brand more accessible to their community. That’s where Big Red Jelly stepped in.

1. We focused on their most important brand values: professional speciality, Utah-centric heritage, community-oriented, and quality as a core value.
2. We guided them through our Brand. Build. Grow. process, starting with a brand audit to identify messaging gaps. We rebuilt their brand with a Utah-inspired visual style, strengthened their specialty positioning, and provided a few examples of how these brand values were put into action.
3. We built a new site that reflected their professionals, not general dentistry. The new site now invites visitors to take action, find information quickly, and trust the brand from their very first click.
4. We helped them clarify their positioning as a specialty dental provider, not just a general dentistry practice. Developing their own brand identity was crucial, and we incorporated heritage storytelling to highlight their 40+ years serving the community.
5. Finally, we blended educational content, brand storytelling, and personal introductions, on their social media to make their feeds informative and personable, building trust with the community and future patients. This content included:

• Parallel content for Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn aligned with their brand voice.
• Educational posts explaining services and specialty expertise.
• Brand-focused content to highlight values and heritage.
• Brand values examples shared on their blog and social media.
• A new series featuring dentist interviews and behind-the-scenes content.
• Patient advocacy and organic sharing.
• A dedicated blog post highlighting their brand values.

When comparing their approach to industry leaders, even large brands like Coca Cola serve as inspiration for how to consistently communicate and live out core brand values.

These strategies are not just for big companies—any small business can apply these principles to define, communicate, and live their brand values.

Brand Values: Conclusion

Finding your brand values shouldn’t change how your business operates. They should reinforce how you are already operating. 

You might not think about them every day, and you might not even understand their real value, but you live your brand values every day whether you want to or not. 

Appreciating which values are guiding your brand is among the most important things small businesses owners can do that will have an oversized impact on their brand’s success.

If you are struggling to find coherence in your messaging or settle on a strategy that resonates with your customers. We’re here to help. Our proven process can not only help you identify your values, but turn them into useful collateral and brand marketing.