Establishing Brand Values That Give You a Foundation for Growth

Brand values are one of the first things you need to get right when creating your brand.

They underpin a lot of the decisions you’ll make when creating your brand and growing your business, and they will be an important factor during the creation process of your brand strategy.

Brand values are the guiding light that can help you take your business further than you thought possible.

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Without them, you’ll struggle for a “frame of reference” or set of guidelines when you’re faced with important business questions.

In today’s post, we’re going to break brand values down further, explore what they are, what benefits they can bring to your business, what they should be, and how to define your core values.

So, let’s dive in.

What are Brand Values?

Brand values are the things that your business holds closest to its heart.

They’re a core set of beliefs that you can use to build your business activity around.

They’ll also help you make key operating decisions.

At Canny, we have five key brand values.

1. Set up for success
2. Make relationships matter
3. Sweat the small stuff
4. Always over-communicate
5. Have serious fun

These are the five things we hold ourselves accountable too.

No design is shipped if we don’t believe it’s awesome. A client will never lay eyes on something that we’re not 100% confident in.

We do everything we can to let clients into our mindset and branding process. We show them figures, facts, breakdowns, project hours, anything they like.

We want to be in a position of absolute trust and honesty, to provide our outstanding design and drive the maximum return for our clients.

These brand values drive key decisions in our business, and we know that building a great client/agency relationship is key.

What Are the Benefits of Defining Your Brand Values?

So, what are the benefits of defining your business’s brand values?

Well, there are quite a few, so let’s take a look…

Brand Values Help You Make Better Business Decisions

When making a key business decision, you can rely on your brand values.

Ask yourself:

“Is this decision in alignment with my brand values?”

This alignment is critical, but it should also reflect the overarching concept that your brand represents.

We’ve had our values outlined for quite a while at Canny. And we’ve not always had a team of people working here.

When it started, it was just me.

I was nervous about hiring for the first time. So why was I doing it?

Well… our customers weren’t becoming partners, I was servicing, but not building anything meaningful, because I was too busy.

I was also falling short on providing outstanding design and transparency, as I was hard to contact.

This wasn’t through malice, but because I was rushed off my feet.

When it came to hiring for the first time, I was scared. What happens if it doesn’t work out? Do we have the money to pay? Why? What? If? Who?

So many questions.

But then, when I looked back at my values, and saw that I was falling short, I knew a hire had to be made.

And hiring was the best decision I ever made. Within two or three months, we had steadied the ship and restored the quality of work and service that our clients had become accustomed to.

And that’s reason number one why a good set of brand values is important:

They make decision-making easy.

The Connection Between Brand Values and Positioning

Your brand values don’t exist in isolation. They are deeply connected to your brand’s positioning in the market.

While your brand values reflect what your brand believes in, your brand positioning reflects how your brand is perceived by your audience.

Together, they shape how customers connect with your brand—whether they share your values or aspire to the image your brand projects.

Brand Values Help You Assess New Partnership Opportunities

Your brand values will help you assess new brand partnership opportunities that arise within your business.

When faced with the decision of something like a business merger or the start of a referral scheme, you can assess what the other party values, and whether that’s in alignment with your own brand values.

In a B2B context, this could mean choosing suppliers or partners whose values align with yours. For example, a tech consultancy might prioritise vendors committed to sustainability and ethical labour practices, ensuring every part of the supply chain reflects the company’s ethos

And again, with hiring, brand values are a godsend.

You can make sure that your potential new employees are on the same page as you by bringing out your brand values in the interview and discussing them.

This helps you make sure new staff members share your values, or are at least the right fit for the business, and are willing to take your values on board.

Brand Values Help to Improve Morale

Sounds strange, doesn’t it?

But brand values can be a great yardstick to measure progress within the team, and allow team members to check their progress.

When team members all share the same set of core values as the company, and everyone walks the walk and talks the talk, morale can be boosted.

When morale is high, productivity increases, and staff stick around for longer.

Brand Values Can Help You to Build Stronger Relationships

Building strong relationships is one of Canny’s brand values.

But having a set of brand values in the first place allows us to do that.

“When consumers can easily identify brand values and how they align with their own, they are able to make a faster connection and build a stronger relationship with your brand.”
– Jennifer Bourn

Understanding how your brand’s values align with your customers’ values can really cement you as the “go-to brand” in their mind for the thing you sell.

This alignment is crucial in building brand loyalty, which turns one-time customers into lifelong fans.

Consumers don’t want to feel like just another cog in the wheel of a money-making machine.

They want to be a part of something.

Strong brand values build empathy, and brands that showcase these will always make a stronger connection with their target market, maximising the chance of brand loyalty from a customer.

What Should Your Brand Values Be?

Without digging into your business and hiring us to provide branding services, we’re not in a position to tell you exactly what your brand values should be.

But, just like effective logo design, there is a set of guides that you can follow to make your brand values as strong as possible.

We’ve created Brand Strategy Made Simple to help with just that. Make sure to download your free copy if you’re struggling.

According to Patrick Lencioni:

One of the most important aspects of defining core values is to make sure they actually mean something to your company. Too often, businesses fall into the trap of selecting generic values that sound nice but fail to connect across the organisation.

Lencioni advocates for a process that strips away the superficial and focuses on what truly defines your company’s culture.

Keep reading to find out more about creating great brand values.

Memorable

Your brand values must be memorable.

Making a key decision, but don’t have time to flip open your phone to refer to your brand strategy document?

You’ve got to have memorable brand values.

You need to remember them, your team needs to remember them, and your customers need to remember them when they think of you or the products you sell. Your values should be evident in every brand touchpoint, delivering a consistent and impactful customer experience.

In order to make them memorable, they must be genuine and important. It’s no good having brand values that look good on paper.

You have to want to live and breathe them. You shouldn’t be “having to remember” – it should come naturally to you.

Unique

How many brands have the values “honest and professional”?

All of them. That’s what all businesses should be.

But that’s not unique to you.

Your brand values are also a way to position your brand in the minds of your customers and clients.

Why you, why not a competitor?

“Well, because we actively try to reduce our carbon footprint, where our competitors are all driving around in 10L Diesel Trucks.”

In a world where markets are saturated, customers actively seek out and choose brands whose values align with their own.

Be unique. There’s nothing to be gained from being the same as everyone else.

Actionable

Here’s something to think about:

What’s the point in having brand values if you’re not going to do anything with them?

At Canny, we’re actively pushing our values through in everything we do.

Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, emphasises that brand values should be framed as actionable verbs.

This makes them something that people within the company can actually “do”. This approach shifts values from abstract concepts to practical, everyday actions that guide behaviour across the organisation.

For example:

Instead of saying “Integrity,” a more actionable value might be “Always do the right thing.” This ensures that your values are not just statements on a wall but principles that your team can actively live by every day.

Putting it on your website or on a billboard design is all well and good, but you need to follow through on your brand values.

Brand values give you a chance to create real success in your business, but to do that, they need to be actionable.

Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry’s is a textbook example of a brand that lives and breathes its values. They don’t just list them on a webpage, they build their entire business around them.

Their Product Mission is simple: make great ice cream. Every tub delivers on that promise, and customers recognise the quality instantly.

Their Social Mission goes beyond surface-level activism. The brand regularly uses its platform to speak out on issues like inequality and climate justice, and backs it up through fair trade sourcing and sustainable production.

Finally, their Economic Mission focuses on sustainable growth that benefits everyone involved. They invest in rural suppliers and fair pay across their supply chain.

Together, these missions create a brand people trust and feel good about supporting. Ben & Jerry’s proves that when your values are consistent and authentic, customers can sense it, even before they’ve read a single statement on your website.

While Ben & Jerry’s shows how brand values influence consumer loyalty, B2B companies can see similar benefits.

For example, Slack’s brand values around transparency and collaboration are evident in how they work with enterprise clients, from clear onboarding processes to consistent, helpful customer support.

Meaningful

Like I said at the very start of this post, your brand values are what your business holds the closest to its heart.

If the core values you set out are meaningless, you’re not going to act on them. They probably won’t be unique, and nobody will care if they’re memorable.

Your brand values should resonate with people. With you, with your team, with your customers.

Clear and Defined

Something we’ve noticed is that people often say they have their brand values in place.

Then, when we ask to see them, they say “ahhhh, well, we’re disruptors, erm, I’ll have to dig them out.”

This is bad for two reasons.

1. I don’t think these people actually have their brand values defined, and if they do, they’re not clear.
2. If they do have their values set out, they’re clearly not very memorable.

Your values are the foundation of your business. They should be present in everything you do.

You should never have to search for them, or “dig them out.”

Timeless

Don’t get me wrong, brand values change, because companies change.

But from the outset, your brand should be timeless.

Your values should never age, expire, or go out of date. Just like your brand name.

Sure, you might change your direction, and therefore, change your values, which is when you can use the rebranding process to your advantage.

However, time alone shouldn’t force your brand values to become obsolete.

Honest

This is the most obvious brand value guiding light of all.

Your brand values should be entirely honest. This honesty should also influence your brand’s tone of voice, ensuring that every piece of communication sounds authentic and true to your values.

Nothing will harm your business more than trying to pretend that you’re something you’re not.

Building authenticity and trust is key to building a successful brand.

Brand values are hard to get right, but using these guidelines, you should be in a better position to start creating the brand values for your business.

The Five-Step Process to Establishing Your Core Brand Values

Now that you understand the framework for creating successful brand values, let’s look at the actual process of creating your own.

1. Discover What Matters To You

Getting started with defining your brand values is the hardest part.

First things first, you need to move past “honest, reliable, and trustworthy.”

Put them straight in the bin.

They sound positive, but they say nothing about you and your business. They’re a dime a dozen, and customers have seen it all before.

If you really want to create brand values that give you a foundation for growth, then you need to be different to all the other companies.

Perhaps you’re sick of seeing the same thing in your industry, so you’re really going to disrupt the market.

Or maybe, you’re a true pioneer in the way you use technology in an antiquated field.

They’re much better starts to creating unique brand values than “being honest.”

And if you’re really struggling to get started, running a branding workshop can be an effective way to engage your team in defining your brand values and ensuring alignment across the board.

2. Know What Your Customers Believe In

There’s rarely success in a business without an income stream.

So it’s important that you know your customers and what they value.

If they value “keeping earth as pollution-free as possible” and your CEO is driving around in a 10L Humvee, and saying he values keeping earth pollution-free too, then you’re going to have a problem.

You need to align the value of your target audience with the value your business provides.

The most powerful brand values align with existing problems in a marketplace. Rather than trying to tell stories to your customers to change their minds, find out what they already believe, and work backwards from there.

You might even find that your target audience and your business aren’t a good match.

That seems like a big problem. But it allows you to kick on, and reposition yourself, or redefine your target audience.

3. Know What Your Competitors Are Offering Up

Your competitors can play a key role when it comes to defining your brand values.

You don’t want your brand values to be the same as your competitors. Otherwise, you could end up driving your customers towards them.

Brand differentiation is a key benefit of unique brand values.

By analysing your competitors, you might find a gap in the market that you can move into.

Or, you might find the marketplace is saturated for what you were planning to do.

Again, sounds disastrous, but you should be able to quickly reposition and use a unique set of brand values that offers something different.

4. Make Sure You Can Live and Breathe Your Brand Values

You need to live up to your brand values. You need to stand for something.

You can do this one of two ways.

1. Identify what it is you firmly believe in, and go “all in” on that
2. Find out what your customers already think about you, and “double down” on that

For example:

If your customers appreciate your “direct, getting to the point” approach to conversations, then your brand value could be:

• Straight shooting, always direct
• …or if your brand is slightly bolder, “no bullshit”

Then you need to live and breathe that.

In this situation, you wouldn’t sugarcoat anything. You’ll always tell it how it is.

If you can’t stand behind your brand values proudly, then they’re not right.

5. Stay Consistent

While your brand identity may change, and your brand might go through a whole rebranding process, you should strive for consistency with your brand values.

To do this, you need to simplify everything you can. You don’t want sweeping statements. You want short, punchy sentences.

From the way you communicate, to your website, to your social media channels, all content should be aligned with your brand values.

Your brand values need to be clear and easy to understand, giving your team the best possible chance of rolling them out across your associated media.

These are the key steps you need to follow when setting out your brand values.

Follow this process, and you should be left with a set of 3-5 brand values that you can use as a building block for your brand strategy.

Brand Values FAQs

Let’s turn our attention to some brand values FAQs.

Establishing Brand Values That Give You a Foundation for Growth

Your brand values are a true foundation for strategic brand growth.

They’re the core values that your company holds the most dear.

They form the basis for your brand strategy and breathe life into your brand.

Your company values should never be ignored. In fact, ignoring your company values is gross misconduct and could lead to a serious issue within your organisation.

If you work to define your brand values, you need to ensure that your new company ethos is carried throughout the company, from top to bottom.

Brand values should filter through every area of your business, from the office atmosphere and how you run your team, to the images you put out on your social media.

Your brand values are a key tool that can help guide many decisions across your business.

Once your brand values are firmly established, the next step is to ensure they guide your ongoing growth. Developing a strategy to grow your brand in today’s dynamic market is crucial.

Create and use them properly, and they’ll help you take your business to the next level.

What are your brand values? How do they work for your business?

Tony Hardy

Founder & Director

Tony specialises in B2B brand strategy, high-performing websites, and SEO-led content. He works with marketing teams to identify what’s holding their marketing back, and turn it into clear, commercially focused action. With over a decade of experience across branding, web, and content, he leads on strategy, ensuring every project is built to drive measurable results, not just look good.