The price of values

Quick test: what are your brand values? If you or your team can’t remember them, then chances are they have no value.

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Words are cheap

Brand strategists espouse the value of brand values, and rightly so. When done well, they have real strategic currency. They guide decision making and create genuine and tangible brand differentiation.

When done poorly, the process is just a box-ticking exercise. A feel-good list of stuff-we-like that goes into the brand manual, into the filing cabinet, never to be thought about again. Things like:

‘integrity’, ‘teamwork’, ‘quality’, ‘customer first’, ‘respect’, ‘excellence’, ‘innovation’, ‘ethical’, ‘fun’, ‘courage’, ‘impact’

And the universal favourite ‘authentic’.

Yep. You and everyone else, buddy.

In a world where fakery is everywhere and peoples BS detectors are going off constantly, arguably the most valuable asset to any brand is authenticity.

But ‘authentic’ is not another generic value to add to your list. Other will decide whether you've earned it.

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The price of values

The real test of values comes is when they come at a cost.

What have you had to, or are willing to, sacrifice? What have you paid or what are you prepared to pay in money, time, blood, sweat and tears because it matters to you?

Anyone can claim a value when it's convenient.

Ethical sounds good until it's more expensive.

Customer-first is nice to have until it takes longer.

Innovation is interesting until it means doing things differently.

Your values are worthless unless you show the proof, or bear the scars. 

These decisions— the commitments, actions and sacrifices—are what differentiates a brand in an individual’s mind, making them relevant, respected and desirable.

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Values: don’t list them, live them

When you start to think about values in terms of the cost, the list shortens dramatically. And because you have invested in them, you’ll value them even more. 

You won’t have to dig them out of the filing cabinet to remember them because you live them.

And in doing so, you will have earned the much claimed but rarely proven value of ‘authenticity’.