Robin: Hello and welcome to this edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies. I’m Robin Tooms, Vice President of Strategy at Savage. For this edition of Brandonomics we’re going to look back at two very important strategies you should keep in mind as you create your corporate brand messages around vision and values. First up is Monica Silva, team lead of internal communications at Phillips 66. Monica gives great advice on what you should avoid doing when you start this process. She has a practical approach to how she ensured this initiative didn’t fall into the same trap of “sameness” that would have certainly put them on the wrong path.

Monica: So first, we made some objectives. You know we wanted our vision and values to be inspiring and true and then after doing some benchmarking of our peers, we really decided that it needed to be non-corporate speak. Something very concise and that employees would feel connected to. When we did our benchmarking process, and I looked around at what our peers were saying about themselves, it reminded me of what the adults sound like on the Peanuts cartoons: “Wah wah wah wah wah wah.” It was about delivering strategy, safely and to their stakeholders and it was just corporate speak all over the place. So we decided that’s not what we wanted our Phillips 66 vision and values to be like.

Robin: Our next piece of advice comes from Rob Camper, strategic brand director at Cadence Bank. Rob reminds us that once you’ve set this messaging, it has to be something that employees can understand and “own.”

Rob: It really happens from the inside out. It’s not just a bunch of clever campaigns and a cool brand platform that sounds businessy and relevant. It starts from the inside when every one of your people, your associates, your employees from the ground up understand it, live it, they own it themselves and that it’s integrated. What we call internal integration. When they own it, you’re done. You’re home free. We were very intentional about coming up with four core values that brought about a revolutionary idea, about owning it. Meaning responsibility, about doing right, integrity, about innovation, fresh thinking and team work, collaboration. So if we all feel that, of course our customers are gonna feel that. Of course it’s going to be revealed in every aspect, even into our marketing as well because it’s gonna be solidified when they interact with us.

Robin: I hope that this advice from our Brandonomics’ guests helps you rethink your your company’s purpose, mission, vision and values and how you can embark on a successful program around that. Tune in next week for another edition of Brandonomics, an inside look at top brands and their marketing strategies.