Articles

Valuing values
Knightshift - 6th June 2001

Values. Almost the word of the moment, if you exclude Millennium and sex@internet.

You have to give value to shareholders, customers and various rabble commonly known as stakeholders. And to give value you have to have values. This means you have to be clean and be seen to be clean.

Stakeholders may smoke fragrant substances, sniff things other than snuff and engage in late-night discussions with their neighbours' spouses, but businesses must refrain from such behaviour for they are judged on a very narrow set of ethical principles normally reserved for those in public or clerical office.

This appears to be the reality of doing business today, especially for those with a strong brand to defend. Just ask Fyffes (fruit), Gap (clothing), Levi (jeans), Nestle (food), Nike (never heard of them), Pepsi, Shell and Wal-Mart and they'll tell you a thing or two about the pitfalls of human rights, worker's rights, health and safety at work, child labour, environmental standards, dictatorships and minimum wages.

It's difficult to measure the effect on the brand from contravening the social value systems of customers. Share prices don't necessarily dip and brand share does not immediately slip. But those who build and protect brands generally agree that it's best to skirt the minefield of societal taboos.

And the best way to do this is to align company values with those of society. When the company values those things that society values (but does not necessarily practice) - honesty, integrity, openness - then it stands are good chance of protecting its reputation and the brands on which the company depends.

But merely being good is not good enough. You have to be SEEN to be good. And this is where companies are struggling to work out the best ways of communicating their virtues without revealing too many of their blemishes.

Do they do it by report - social reports are favoured by some - or should they be more subtle, or indeed more innovative? The jury is out but there's clearly a lot of thought going into it. We will certainly see more use of the Internet and we might, for example, see a greater dependence on advertising to re-inforce messages about corporate values.

This will be a great opportunity both for the creative industries and for the business of sustainability, which needs an injection of common touch if it is to be understood by more than a few bearded worthies in NGOs and government.

What''s clear is that keeping quiet about values adds no value to companies. They've got to get out there and shout in the most ethically polite way possible. Of course, they've also got to ensure they've got something to shout about. But who says doing business will ever get easier?