In this series we’ll be sharing the 12 values that make DS.Emotion the UK’s leading property marketing and place-making agency. We’ll tell you how we recognised these values, why we think they’re important to clients and what they mean to us. For better or worse, by the end of this series you’ll know exactly what makes us who we are.
A 30 year obsession with branding that shows no signs of stopping.
We’ve been running brand workshops for over 30 years. That’s because most of our client relationships start with us helping a place or placemaker to shape their brand. Whether it’s a commercial office provider, co-working space, housing association or award-winning architect, they almost always start with a brand workshop.
A brand workshop helps us to understand the values and attributes that make your place or people special. It’s like a mixture between family-therapy and a first-date. You tell us all the good things (and all the bad things) and by the end we understand the real you.
These do’s and don’ts become your brand values. Values that go onto guide everything we do. They influence our approach to projects, the way we talk, the relationships we build, even the colours we choose.
Brand values are like the ingredients. We can use them in different measures, chop them, blend them, bake them and distill them but, if we always use the same values, there remains a consistent ‘flavour’ to the work that people find familiar. That familiarity builds trust, which in turn has positive commercial effects such as repeat business or customer advocacy.
Why Strong Brand Values Matter in Business
Values are not just about company culture. That familiarity turns into trust which turns into business benefits like these:
Metric |
Benefit (Source) |
Repurchase Rate
|
88% of customers who trust a brand will buy again (Deloitte 1) |
Price Sensitivity
|
75% with high brand trust will buy even if not cheapest (CMSWire 5) |
New Product Adoption
|
75% with high brand trust will immediately check out new products (CMSWire 5) |
Customer Lifetime Profit
|
7% loyalty increase can boost profits by up to 85% (Brand Keys via Porch Group Media 6) |
Eating our own dog food, drinking our own kool-aid and letting our clients watch us do it.
At DS.Emotion, we are obsessed with getting brand values right. We KNOW that if you get those values right you’ll be able to figure out the rest of your identity. So, imagine how hard it was when we wrote our own.
But, we believe in our craft, trust in our work and we’re open to being challenged (as long as you’re polite). So what better way to convince you that we believe in the power of brand values than by sharing ours.
Are you ready to get under the skin of DS.Emotion?
Remember what we said earlier? Figuring out your brand values is a mixture between a first date and family therapy, which is why most companies don’t share the details. This means a lot of companies prefer to give one-word answers like pride or bravery. Words that remind you (and them) of all the good parts without going into the complications.
In order to show you why good brand values are much more than one-word marketing fluff, we’re going to share our values; explain exactly how we got there and what they mean to us today.
But before we do, here’s our top three tips for what makes a good brand value.
Tip No. 1 | They aren’t a wishlist, they’re an x-ray
It’s important to start by busting one of the biggest myths. Brand values aren’t for the people you want to be. They are the people you are. Because, as much as we love a good brochure and pay attention to the right colour palette; neither is going to change people’s personalities.
Brand values should never be who you hope to be. They are there to crystalise who you are and make it easy to share that with others. By being clear about who you are (and what you aren’t) clients, customers and colleagues won’t be disappointed; they’ll get what they expect and that builds trust.
Tip No. 2 | They make sense to everyone in the company.
For a while, especially in the early 2000’s it seemed like brand strategists went a little bit power-mad. This led to a lot of brand work and straplines that said things like ‘leveraging the intensity of retail’ or ‘living at the speed of life’. You might also remember that time because it’s when people started calling themselves social-media-ninjas or brand-gurus. It’s the marketing industry’s equivalent of looking back at old photos and wondering why you ever thought that outfit looked good.
The problem with using language like this, apart from it being rather embarrassing, is that it doesn’t make sense to normal people. If you ask any sane person to ‘leverage the power of retail’ or be the best ‘marketing ninja’ they can be; they might nod but they’ll have no clue what they’re actually doing. Instead, if you ask people to ‘challenge with kindness’, it’s pretty obvious what’s expected.
In other words, use plain English.
Tip No. 3 | Words matter.
As the very smart author Tom Robbins once said. ““There are no such things as synonyms! … Deluge is not the same as flood.”
If you think about it, no two words are the same. The whole reason one words gets created is because another word didn’t quite fit the bill. Look at the words we use when something is really good:
Fantastic – Stuff of fantasy
Awesome – Something that evokes awe
Epic – Song-worthy
Great – Big
Each of these words, whilst often used casually, have a very specific meaning. And so, when you choose the words for your values, you should carefully consider why that word is the right one for you.
We’re ready to share
Okay, enough procrastinating. We’ve told you why brand values are important; we’ve revealed what makes good brand values and so, it’s time for us to share ours.
Read no. 2 in our DS.Emotion Brand Values Series: The DS.Emotion Brand Values.