Action Branding: Making Values Legit

It’s time for companies to put up or shut up

In the modern marketplace, consumers are increasingly looking for businesses to practice what they preach by doing, not just saying. People want to support and build relationships with companies that put their stated values into action. Brands need to stop asserting beliefs and start demonstrating them.

So what does a brand mean and what should it be in our modern environment of consumer control, fragmentation, and content overload? Many brands are practically inconsequential; they’re just names slapped on products or services. Recent research suggests that the majority of brands are essentially meaningless to customers. Consumers now look to brands that offer more than lip service. They want brands that act, help, and do. They’re sending the message that they want more than empty slogans and promises.

To be successful in today’s environment, companies have to rethink how they build and care for their brand, and do what’s meaningful and matters to their customers. Additionally, we are in an age where brands don’t only create themselves. Customers have an impact on how brands are built, and brands can’t simply ignore or opt out of this interaction. When you build your brand in more authentic ways, you earn legitimacy, create a distinctive point of view, invite participation, and prove your worth.

MODERN CONSUMERS WANT A BRAND THAT MAKES A BONA FIDE, POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION TO OUR WORLD.

A company that acts on its values gains credibility that has wide-ranging benefits. Successful action branding can be a kind of competitive insulation. Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty not only upended the global conversation about beauty and women’s self-esteem, it connected brand with action that no competitor could shake loose or imitate. Patagonia has shaped a conservation and ecological-responsibility brand around creating wilderness reserves in South America. These branding techniques drive key competitive differentiation and authenticity.

Modern brands need to get off their soapboxes and open a discussion, not simply shout their message. They need to have a conversation with their customers, not give a monologue. Brand participation with consumers is essential. The site allrecipes.com encourages home cooks to post, comment on, and edit content, empowering customers to participate and be both chefs and food critics. Brands can also align themselves with their impact on the world, through sustainability efforts and promoting public welfare. Lifebuoy soap promotes healthy hygiene habits, aiming to change the hand washing habits of billions of people. 

a brand’s values and how a company activates them is its social currency

Companies increase this currency by putting values into practice and walking the walk. Salesforce created a “1-1-1” model in which 1 percent of the company’s equity is set aside for philanthropic donations, 1 percent for employee volunteering time, and 1 percent for products and services to give to nonprofits. The model subsequently inspired the “Pledge 1%” movement now embraced by hundreds of companies.

How do companies create a playbook for these kinds of action branding? They can move from brand repositioning to brand transformation, and from brand promises to brand action. In an age where few slogans or taglines are meaningful or memorable anymore, actions steer changes in customer perception. Brands need to move toward creative marketing that builds consumer engagement. Consumers are now driving the communications bus. New stakeholders such as bloggers, vloggers, and trend persuaders give consumers advice, opinions, reviews, and recommendations. Brands need to do less shouting and more cooperative listening to these new influencers.

Connecting with consumers through trusted outside sources resonates with them on a more personal, credible level. The farm-to-table movement emphasizes transparency and building relationships between producers, employees, communities, and end consumers. The result is greater buy-in and brand sincerity. The brand-audience relationship is essential. Ideas and identity matter to people. And rather than just focusing on sales opportunities, companies can pivot to what kind of good they can create in the world. Moving toward more open-source relationships and partnerships on and offline allows brands to expand engagement and generate interest. 

A genuine and fulfilling customer-company relationship is key. Companies and people build a relationship and jointly create a story as they interact. Humanizing customer relationship management is king. Companies have to pay attention and listen, not simply put their message on blast and hope people will care. Successful companies adapt what they do to attract, nurture, and develop the kind of relationship consumers want. They rethink their brand as a human relationship rather than an impersonal economic transaction.

Action branding means clearer, more dynamic, and more authentic relationships between companies and their customers. These relationships have the potential to be more nuanced, equal, and mutually beneficial. An action brand provides more than just a product. It gives a meaningful service to the individual and creates a positive outcome in the world. This is the meaning of value to modern consumers, and companies are judged by the overall benefit they create for the environment, communities, families, and human health and welfare in general.

Actions speak louder than words, and people want companies they associate with to do more and talk less. This is where the rubber meets the road with modern consumers. The result is a marketplace where people want to reflect who they are in their buying choices. Companies that listen, thrive. Those that don’t bite the dust.

 – Tanner

Tanner has 20+ years experience in world cultures and writing. He also served in communications for the U.S. Senate and as a professor for Culture and Civilization in Tunisia.