Why brand values can be so destructive

BrandChannel.com describes Brand Values as: “The code by which the brand lives. The brand values act as a benchmark to measure behaviours and performance.”

Most of us would agree with this definition. We use brand values to add greater value to our brand strategy by defining:

• what the brand stands for
  
• the personality it needs to project into the market place
  
• the context for brand differentiation
  
• the yardstick that gauges substantiation of the brand idea or brand promise

A brand does not intrinsically have a value. Rather, brand values define how we would like the consumer to perceive the brand or the business. They connect people to the organisation.

Yet, the values ascribed to a brand, while outwardly sound, can be potentially very destructive. Just as values can build a brand, so can they destroy a brand.

Brand values are about behaviour and performance. Behaviour and performance are shaped by beliefs and perceptions that human beings entertain about their world. Every decision made by human beings originates in a combination of ten subconscious drivers of beliefs and perceptions.

The non-linear, non-rational, subconscious meaning of your brand for any single person is an aggregate of these ten drivers:

> Identity - who you are
> Feeling - the emotional impact of your brand
> Thought - how and what you really communicate
> Attraction - the impact of the brand on relationships
> Energy - how does your brand motivate action
> Growth - the capacity to expand
> Structure - what you are respected for
> Freedom - how your brand generates excitement
> Spirit - how your brand inspires
> Renewal - power of your brand to change people's lives

The best you can hope for, from a brand management point of view, is to control the operation of these ten drivers of human perception, among your staff and in the marketplace.

Let me give you an example of this challenge:

The management and executive of a ten-year old B2B company we worked with all agreed among themselves on their brand values. The values were clearly defined and not in dispute.

We then analysed the non-linear, unwritten, unspoken connotations behind these values and how they were being expressed. This assessment uncovered profound divisions between management and the executive. Subconsciously, the two tiers within the company were worlds apart in terms of their perceptions of these values.

This created confusion in how the executive and the management behaved towards clients, a situation which the clients did not fail to pick up! The management were creating a very different experience to that promised by the executive.

As a business-to-business brand, this confusion was having an unhealthy impact on the quality of relationships and perceptions in the marketplace. The effect of all this was a decline in profitability.

At a conscious, rational level there was an agreement on the values and what they meant. However, by profiling the values in terms of the ten subconscious drivers of human belief and perception, we were able to identify the discords within the culture and in the way management were projecting the brand.

By clarifying the brand positioning and understanding what the brand values really meant, this problem was easily resolved.

The net effect on the business was increased profitability!