30 Essential Elements of Value to Build Brand Loyalty
Is your brand meeting base expectations or actually creating value?
Creating value is about more than pushing out content on a variety of platforms and fueling your marketing budget with adequate resources. Just like Maslow has his hierarchy of needs for human fulfillment, so does the hierarchy of value, as published by Bain in the Harvard Business Review.
With 30 elements, you may find yourself overwhelmed, so let’s take a deeper look into the ones you need to have embedded in your brand. We highly recommend giving the whole article a deep read if you are in the midst of any brand planning.
Understanding Consumer Value: The Key to Brand Success
Generally speaking, consumers of any kind are evaluating and making buying decisions based on perception. That perception is the expected value they would be getting compared to the cost.
Cost itself doesn’t always refer just to the price of the product but perhaps the time cost of switching products or waiting for shipping from a local business vs from Amazon Prime. The cost a consumer sees and the corresponding value they’re looking for are inherently and frustratingly subjective.
Understanding this perception opens the door for brands to intentionally shape how they present value at every touchpoint. Successful brands don’t just meet expectations—they preemptively address hidden costs to tip the scales in their favor.
Exploring the Four Categories of Consumer Value
All 30 elements identified in the HBR article fall into four categories, resembling a pyramid structure similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and they range from the most functional attributes to the life-actualizing ones.
Functional: Tangible benefits like saving time or reducing costs.
Emotional: Enhancing experiences or reducing stress.
Life-Changing: Providing personal transformation or motivation.
Social Impact: Contributing to society or self-transcendence.
They found that companies that score high on emotional elements tend to have more customer loyalty (measured through NPS) than companies that spike only on functional elements.
Luxury brands like Tesla master this hierarchy. They start with a functional appeal (innovative electric vehicles), enhance the emotional (status symbol, environmental impact), and venture into life-changing and social impact realms by fostering self-transcendence (customers feel like agents of change for sustainability).
From Table Stakes to Differentiation: Elevating Your Brand’s Value
Consumers are savvy, well-informed, and discerning, even at the impulse purchasing level. They have a set of table stakes expectations that used to be product and service differentiators. Now, those expectations are the baseline.
The authors of the original article noted that quality was of key importance more than other elements. Still, we would argue that there are actually six values that make up the brand baseline.
These elements are now the table stakes value a brand must bring to the table with their offering:
Quality (Functional)
Saves time (Functional)
Reduces effort (Functional)
Avoids hassles (Functional)
Attractiveness (Emotional)
Affiliation/belonging (Life-changing)
While the merits of affiliation and belonging as table stakes could be argued, we believe it is one of the most critical elements in today’s influencer-driven content creation economy. This is particularly important for DTC brands capitalizing on the now-socially-sanctioned keeping up the Joneses.
For brands just meeting table stakes, the danger lies in being perceived as replaceable. Differentiation requires layering on more emotionally resonant and life-changing elements that deepen customer loyalty.
How to Create Lasting Brand Value Using the Elements of Consumer Value
While your brand may already be generating high value for its customers, it could be missing out on opportunities to make that tenuous thread more solidified. We suggest looking at your current brand promise and mapping that promise to the 30 elements.
Your brand promise should connect minimally to the table stakes elements above and two or three additional emotional and life-changing elements. It’s those two types of attributes (regardless of the element chosen) that will create deep brand loyalty and differentiation. This would also be a worthwhile exercise to do when it comes to your offerings, whether products or services.
Once you’ve mapped your brand to the elements of value, it’s time for an audit to ensure that every touchpoint, from advertising to emails to one-to-one interactions, supports the manifestation of these elements. Then, you can begin to create brand value through every element of your brand experience.
If you’re ready to determine your own differentiated value after a period of stagnancy, it’s likely time to conduct a brand audit. We can help with that. Brand Audits and Brand Plans are an excellent way to clarify what’s working well in your brand and what blind spots you might be having.
As the authors wrote, “The right combinations … pay off in stronger customer loyalty, greater consumer willingness to try a particular brand, and sustained revenue growth.” Start with table stakes, build upwards, and ensure every customer touchpoint delivers on your brand’s value promise.
Build a Stronger Brand
If you’re ready for a comprehensive brand audit to help you begin to apply these elements of value, we’re here to help.
