8. Values

Just as important as discovering your dream is learning how to translate it into realities that can be recognized both inside and outside the company.

It is not just about defining the large conceptual frameworks in which we must operate; it is about focusing on the day to day, establishing actions and reflecting carefully on how we will put this philosophy, this dream, into practice.

To express a dream, we must analyze through which channels the company establishes its relationships with its own members and with the rest of the people it interacts with. Our experience has led us to define a theory according to which there are three essential communication channels, and these respond to three rungs on the company’s ladder of values.

On the lowest and most immediately accessible rung we find instrumental values. These arise directly from entering into contact with the product or service that the brand provides. They allow us to evaluate quality, functionality, design, price, etc., and also whether the product or service satisfies our needs and meets our initial expectations. The first contact we have with a brand is usually purely instrumental.

If this first approach is satisfactory, we will normally form a relationship with the brand. Perhaps this word may seem inappropriate, but this is, after all, what we have been explaining in the first part of the book: as consumers we relate to brands, and this relationship emerges as we reach the second rung of this value ladder, emotional values. When we become accustomed to repeatedly consuming a brand’s products or services, we steadily go on to evaluate it from more points of view because we are getting to know it better with every act of consumption. As this relationship develops, we begin to see if our growing interest in the brand is answered by the brand’s growing interest in us.

Once a relationship is established that is more emotional than purely instrumental, and in order for it to last, both we and the brand must share certain ideals: certain core values. As we have already seen in the first part of this book, there are certain times in which we as human beings lower our guard and put our individualism on the sidelines so that we can be part of the group. Our identity largely depends on these moments, and brands must respond to these high stakes with core values that are equal to the task.

Just as we looked at the paths to brand differentiation as a progression from the product to the market, then to consumers, and finally to their soul, the ladder of values is also a progression that must be tackled so as not to be engulfed in a sea of similarity alongside the rest of our competitors. We will never tire of saying it: the most important, urgent and imperative task is breaking the barrier of consumer indifference; the worst enemy of your business’s success is a consumer’s inability to distinguish your products from others.

We must identify the values that will allow us to convince the consumers of our products or services to listen to us, to look at us, to value and to love us. “If you want others to do what you want, first do what they want.” Today, the only way they will listen to us is if we listen first and become truly interested in them – not in ourselves. It is possible to respond to our customers’ needs through products and services, but in times like these almost everything that can be done in this area of instrumental values can be copied in the short term, thus canceling out the intended effect of attraction or novelty.

This does not mean that we should not exert ourselves in this regard. The innovation and improvement of what we offer is essential for survival, but it will not always be sufficient in enabling us to excel, to stand out from the crowd. And when we are certain of having done what little we can do in this regard, we must seek to establish a link through emotional values: taking an interest in people, keeping them informed and helping them understand us, offering them exceptional services, improving their experience, acting unequivocally in their favor and defense, respecting and appreciating them.

To see how this applies to one of the examples already discussed, we could look at the case of Mercadona. As we have said, its attraction, that which draws us to it initially, is in its products (instrumental values). However, the moment in which we become regular customers, we start to realize that the real reason we feel good about shopping at Mercadona is the treatment we receive from its employees and the feeling we get that, above all, they are striving to make our shopping experience gratifying and to provide an atmosphere of trust (emotional values). If we continue further in this reflection, we realize that this feeling is nothing more than the tangible translation of their concern and effort in taking care of their consumers (core values).

In this context, the value ladder has different applications and generates different levels of intensity in the brand’s relationship with the people it affects. We could put it this way:

• Instrumental values make us interested, catch our attention;
• Emotional values make us engaged, get under our skin;
• Core values make us involved, get us out of our seats.

At the highest level, when a company proposes core values that respond to a dream, we as consumers are willing to take action.

Dreams are difficult to express, and that is why we use these channels to communicate them so that everyone receives the message. They can be expressed through products and services, through relational frameworks, and by the way a brand cares for and takes an interest in us. Dreams can take many forms of expression but, as we will see below, in at least one of these areas we need to be “the best in the world.”