pablo
April 13, 2017

How Brands Can Bring their Values to Life Every Day


“Branding is knowing what you stand for and bringing it to life.”

The originator of this quote is unknown, but it could easily be attributed to anyone who has built, worked with or successfully developed a brand.

It takes the brand beyond tangible aspects like your name and logo and elevates your brand into something that is lived by employees, brand ambassadors and proper execution of your brand’s character. Brands today are increasingly influenced more to ensure that each and every aspect of their brand – from their logo and name to their employees and customer touch points – fit within a well-defined ethos, putting more value on these brand values and increasing their influence on the brand’s development and post-launch actions.

But how can brands ensure that they have the necessary ingredients to bring their values to life every day?

Make it your top priority and look to what will be

It’s OK if you don’t know right away what you stand for when it comes to the brand. But if you don’t, finding out is your first priority. Avoid being shortsighted, looking at what you think you brand stands for right now.

You’ll soon see that with almost every aspect of the brand, this will evolve throughout the development process. Instead, look to how you want your brand to connect and speak to your audience. Ask yourself what characteristics you’d want to see in a brand that you connect with, and look to how those brands fit with your long-term brand visions.

Build values with a foundation of persona

What you stand for, how you act, what is important to you – these are all personal characteristics that, when developed into a brand strategy and development, will serve as the foundation for your brand’s values.

These elements can work together because they all serve a similar purpose, as puzzle pieces in the overall picture of either a person, or in this case, a brand. Therefore, when creating the value base to which you will build your brand, look at what will be the defining characteristics of your brand’s persona. Then, take what rises to the top and put it into a brand development strategy. These are what you stand for and will be brought to life in your brand.

Provide your people with the values early and often

Your employees are the most important carriers of your brand values – they are the ones in the public eye the most and the ones who have the power to strengthen or bring down your brand’s public view.

Therefore, the brand value proposition and training should begin as early as possible in their time connected to the brand. Onboarding, early training the hiring process – however you can plant the brand value seed right at the beginning. This will not only allow these characteristics to be ingrained and have the most time to grow, but it will also show up front how important this aspect of the brand is.

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