Brand Strategy 101 > How To’s
Uncover a Brand’s Core Values
Last updated on September 8, 2022 by Adam Charlton
Introduction to Core Values
Brand strategy is the process of uncovering the organization’s core values and aligning the team through brand personality, positioning, and the mission statement.
One of the most important parts of our brand strategy approach is helping our clients reach just three core values. Core Values is such an important part as how a brand communicates, both visually and in narrative, starts with its core values. The purpose of brand strategy is to uncover core values and build the visual identity design brief.
People want to know you care. Companies need to be value-driven, focussed, have a set of values you passionately care about and you are clear about what those values are, and you build a track record over time.
— Sundar Pichai, CEO Google
Benefits of a value-driven company
Internal benefits:
A team with commitment and loyalty, sustainable growth, high morale, and a shared mission.
Innovativeness, thanks to a strong team that appreciates management’s commitment to values
Ability to deliver high-quality products and services.
Inspires and empowers employees to take initiative
Moral compass for decision making
External benefits:
Brand consistency, visually and voice
Consistent brand messaging results in a strong brand
Transparency
Customer satisfaction, customers feel heard and resonated with
Uncover your values
Helping your team or client reach their chosen brand values is often a difficult process, full of opinion, ego, and subjectivity. One of the tools we’ve developed that help to align the team in the process, is the core value explorer tool.
Core Value Wheel from our Brand Strategy Workshop Toolkit
Core Value Examples from our Brand Strategy Workshop Toolkit
We developed this brand strategy tool, specifically for use in our client-facing brand strategy workshops. We’ve consolidated 180 core values into categories of Form, Success, Wisdom, Expertise, Connection, Virtue, Courage, Emotion, and Love.
This is the starting list, of course, there are hundreds more possible brand values, but these get us moving!
Core Values from our Brand Strategy Templates
Through discussion, aim to filter your value brainstorm into 6 core values. Ideally we want values that work within the value map that overlap and resonate with each other.
Core Values from our Brand Strategy Templates
We can then place these values into our value pyramid, within categories of foundation, differentiator and driving values.
About the author, Adam —
Adam is the founder of BrandCraft, a Hong Kong-based branding agency.
On top of our client-facing projects, our small team developed BrandWerks where we create brand strategy tools and templates to help you master brand strategy and the business of design.
Our actionable tools are fully editable and founded in a commercial approach that guides your clients through the brand strategy process.
Learn more —
Brand Strategy Templates & Toolkits
Our Journey with BrandWerks