The leadership team goes off-site. The whiteboard fills up. There’s sticky notes everywhere. Words like integrity, excellence, innovation, service and partnership start to rise to the surface. Someone pushes for clarity (groundbreaking!) Someone pushes for aspiration (how will they compete with us!) Eventually, you land on a set of Core Values that feel solid. Thoughtful. Mature.

It feels like progress. Everyone is very pleased with themselves.

And then a few weeks later, you realize the disappointing truth. You’ll sound like everyone else.

At least you realized it. This is the disconnect most companies don’t actually see. They are certain they have values, but those values struggle to make it into practice, let alone into the market. They live in hiring documents and onboarding decks – maybe even a poster on the breakroom wall. They get mentioned at annual meetings. But they don’t shape positioning. They don’t guide messaging. They don’t constrain decisions.

So marketing defaults to safety.

And safety makes you forgettable.

Core Values Aren’t HR’s job.

When we revisited the Harvard Business Review article on corporate values in advance of our first EOS Vision Building Day, we didn’t read it as culture theorists. We read it as operators — as a Fractional CMO team that sits inside leadership meetings and then carries those decisions into the marketplace, but also as a team who desperately tries to get our core values right for our own little business. It was obvious to all of us that values are not an HR exercise. They are a leadership tool, a messaging north star, and most importantly, a strategic constraint. And strategic constraints are what give a brand its edge.

Permission-to-Play Is Not Differentiation

Why “Integrity” and “Excellence” Don’t Set You Apart

Most companies mistake permission-to-play behaviors for differentiation. Integrity. Quality. Customer focus. These are not distinguishing traits; they are the minimum viable standards for being in business. Claiming them as core values is like a restaurant proudly announcing it uses clean plates. Or an accounting firm boasting “we don’t steal our clients’ money!” It’s good. It’s expected. It’s not a reason to choose you.

How This Shows Up in Marketing

In marketing, permission-to-play language shows up everywhere. You see it in phrases like full-service, results-driven, industry-leading, and committed to excellence. None of those statements are false. They’re simply indistinguishable. If your homepage could be swapped with a competitor’s and no one would notice, the issue is not copywriting. It’s conviction.

Quick aside, because I have watched Mad Men more times than I should admit, There’s a great contrast inside that applies perfectly to this concept. In the pilot, Don lands on “It’s toasted” for Lucky Strike — a calm, confident reframing of something every cigarette already was. It worked because it gave the room something to say when they’d lost their old claims. But later, in the Kodak pitch, he does something entirely different. The client calls it “The Wheel,” which is accurate and functional. Don renames it “The Carousel” and turns a mechanical product into a story about memory, longing, and home. Same creative mind. Two very different plays. “It’s toasted” is table stakes positioned well. “The Carousel” is table stakes transformed into meaning. And that’s the real distinction. You can dress up what everyone else is already saying — or you can elevate it into something emotional and strategic that only you could own. One might imagine that one of Kodak’s core values was “Memory is Sacred” or “Nostalgia is Power.”

Real Core Values Should Cost You Something

Real values are expensive – they cost you something. That’s the part that makes leadership uncomfortable. If you truly value craftsmanship, you can’t pursue speed at any price. If professionalism is central to your identity, you cannot tolerate sloppy execution when deadlines get tight and you might not have “casual Fridays.” If partnership is core to how you operate, you can’t treat clients transactionally when margins shrink.

Values that never cost you revenue are decorative, inauthentic and don’t do you any favors. And decorative values produce decorative marketing – which sounds pretty useless doesn’t it?

The Risk of Aspirational Branding

Branding Ahead of Operational Reality

We see another pattern often: aspirational branding. Leadership teams describe the company they want to become rather than the company they consistently are. They position themselves as premium before operations has the capacity to back those claims up. They claim white-glove service while customer experience still feels inconsistent at best. The ambition is admirable. The misalignment is expensive.

Marketing Cannot Outrun Truth

Marketing cannot outrun operational truth without eroding trust. The market will always sense the gap between promise and practice, even when it can’t articulate it. And, sooner or later, your disappointed customers will articulate it, vocally and painfully. One of our responsibilities as Fractional CMOs is protecting that alignment. Before we elevate language, we clarify reality. What is actually true? What do customers reliably experience? What are you willing to defend when pressure mounts?

Brand confidence must be rooted in something solid.

Why Marketing-by-Committee Dilutes Positioning

There’s another dynamic that quietly dilutes strong companies: marketing-by-committee. It often starts with good intentions. Collaboration feels responsible. Inclusivity feels mature. 🎶Kumbaya🎶 But when too many voices try to smooth out positioning, the result is language that no one objects to and no one remembers. It’s similar to letting AI write all your copy. Edges get rounded. The tone gets softened. Bold claims become safe statements. Nobody is offended but nobody is inspired either.

Positioning is not a democratic exercise. It is directional. It requires leadership willing to say, “This is who we are. This is who we’re for. This is who we’re not.” That clarity will inevitably make someone uncomfortable and it may exclude some. It may repel a few prospects. It may close off certain opportunities. But it will also attract the right ones with far greater force.

Strategic Constraints Create Stronger Marketing

We love a little freedom within a framework here at Plum. Values, when taken seriously, limit strategic freedom. That sounds restrictive until you experience the alternative. Without constraints, companies end up chasing trends, going down channel testing rabbit holes, and adjusting messaging constantly in response to short-term feedback. The result is noise, sadness, wasted time and utter frustration. When you know what you stand for, you stop chasing everything and you speak your brand truth. Your decisions become cleaner. Your marketing becomes steadier. Growth feels less chaotic, more intentional and exponential.

If It’s Not Operational, It’s Not Real.

Marketing Reveals Alignment

This is where values stop being theoretical and start being operational, in real life. If innovation is truly core to your culture, your campaigns should feel forward-thinking. If service defines you, your website should feel intuitive and frictionless. If professionalism matters, your visual execution and tone should reflect that standard consistently. Marketing does not create trust. It reveals alignment. When your stated values and lived behavior match, trust is a natural result.

Your Customers Are Asking One Question

“Can I trust these guys?” Your customers are not reading your values page to be inspired. They are trying to determine whether they can rely on you. They are looking for signals of coherence. They want to feel that what you say publicly matches how you operate privately. When that cohesion is present, marketing stops feeling like persuasion. It starts to feel like the truth.

The Plum Perspective: Core Values as Positioning Tools

At Plum, we believe marketing should feel like good service. Clear. Intentional. Grounded in trust. Creative should be strategic. Strategy should be human. Growth should feel sustainable.

Core Values are not wall art, even if you put them on a poster in the break room. They are directional. They define who you are, who you serve, what you accept, and what you refuse to tolerate. When those things are clear internally, your marketing sharpens naturally. You show up with conviction.

And that kind of clarity?

It’s very good.

Worth having. 😉

Read the Comments +