It’s now time to con­sid­er what your brand strat­e­gy is.

You should nar­row it down to no more than three core val­ues and two ‘dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing’ val­ues. There is no ben­e­fit in a long list of unwork­able brand val­ues that aren’t easy to under­stand or fol­low and don’t fit with your over­all strategy.

Part III: Brand values

Core val­ues are gen­er­al­ly indus­try spe­cif­ic and will often be used by oth­er com­pa­nies. For exam­ple, every bak­ery wants to sup­ply fresh bread, so that’s a core val­ue they all share.

A bank’s core val­ues might be trust­wor­thi­ness, hon­esty, and reli­a­bil­i­ty. These val­ues are shared across that par­tic­u­lar industry.

Dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing val­ues are the ones that make your busi­ness stand out. These val­ues are the ones that make a dif­fer­ence to your tar­get audi­ence. They allow them to asso­ciate with your busi­ness, rather than your indus­try in general.

There should be a cohe­sive link between who you real­ly are, who you aim to be and how your clients and sup­pli­ers see you. Most impor­tant of all is that your employ­ees under­stand your brand val­ues. These val­ues define how your employ­ees behave towards clients and cus­tomers, which is all a part of defin­ing your brand. Your employ­ees are at the heart of your brand devel­op­ment, as they are the ones who get to rein­force your com­pa­ny mes­sage on a dai­ly basis. Your val­ues must be clear and pop­u­lar. If you can’t get your staff to buy into your con­cept and vision, the like­li­hood is that more harm than good will be done. Involv­ing employ­ees in the brand review and plan­ning process at an ear­ly stage is essential.

Your busi­ness promise, and its asso­ci­at­ed brand val­ues, are the foun­da­tions upon which you should build the over­all brand.

In part IV – The brand jig­saw of this series, we’ll move on to some of the ele­ments that make up that over­all brand jigsaw.