Here’s the deal: we’ve entered a space where there is an utter lack of leadership and inspiration coming from the top. Our president is not a source of confidence or reason. Our country is restless and its unjust mechanisms have been exposed. In short, our way forward is unclear.

With this massive moral void blanketing our country, brands must step up! (Especially brands dedicated to social justice and progress.) Your responsibility as a social advocate can now be most relevantly accomplished by leveraging your brand platform to inspire and enact change. This happens by articulating your values to your audience.

Just like people, brands have values. Whether you have them engraved on stone tablets, tattooed on your employees, or buried somewhere in their heads, they shape the culture of your workplace and how your team operates within it.

But it’s not enough for those values to be hidden behind closed doors. They must be purposeful, concise, clearly articulated, and published for the world to see. Here’s how to start exploring them:

• List all the things you care about.
• List all the things necessary for you to do your work, serve your clients, and take care of your team.
• Categorize and reduce them.
• Publish on your website.
• Use as a marketing tool.

But, you might ask, how does this ultimately relate to marketing? Well, articulated values do two important things: attract audiences and build resonance. At first, they’re a rallying call of sorts. A bat-signal for likeminded people to get behind your cause and hear what you have to say. Then, once you’ve amassed this audience, your values build an affinity with them. Your audience, people invested in the same causes as you, start to feel a deep resonance with your brand. The kind that makes them feel acknowledged, validated, and wanting to stick around for more. Building this sort of connection is paramount for the longevity and efficacy of ethical brands because, at the end of the day, it’s about people and causes, not just profit. In marketing your values, you’re not being distasteful—you’re providing help, filling a gap, and supporting people.

hims, a brand dedicated to making men’s health easier to talk about and get help for, is a great example. They clearly articulate their values and purpose, and as a result they attract dudes who feel weird about talking to their doc about weird health stuff, and keep those same dudes around by providing tangible benefits through their shared values.

Of course, nobody else can tell you what you care about, but outside help is beneficial when you get ready to publish and market your values. Give us a ring and we’ll provide the technical assistance that condenses your values into consumable items with marketable language. As a result, you’ll be a more genuine and lasting brand because you’ll be living your values and using them to cement your identity for years to come.