Creating the Mission, Vision and Values of City+Ventures
The Challenge
The Mission, Vision, and Values of a company establish their foundational purpose, establish long-term aspirations for their future, and display their culture and ethics to employees and the public. Although City+Ventures has been around for ten years, their portfolio of companies have always been the forefront of their focus compared to their corporate identity. It was time to establish a core brand foundation to represent the roots of the parent company.
The Process
To gather a baseline of internal beliefs and views of the brand, I launched a company-wide brand perception study. This study was comprised of an online perception study and in-person focus groups to collect quantitative and qualitative understandings. From there, I led focus groups and began a deep dive into development and positioning for the mission, vision, and values alongside the greater brand. Working with focus groups and stakeholders, I composed and refined versions of the mission, vision, and values that reflected the opportunities for the brand as well as a current reflection of brand experience. Iterating with Directors, Founders, and C-suite executives, we were able to land on a result that elevated and expanded the overall brand presence.
The Redirect
Our focus groups proved to be vital in our end results, as much of the discussion revolved around negative connotations that may be fostered from specific word choices. The voice of the employees were unanimous in their desire for the language to be accurate of our current values and operations. Phrases that seemed disingenuous or “too corporate cookie cutter” were strongly opposed. For example, when discussing integrity, the word “striving” in the phrase “we operate with integrity, always striving to do the right thing in service to our customers” was seen as something that could not be removed, with one employee noting that “although we always want to do the right thing, ultimately some business decisions are out of our control.”
From a C-suite perspective, their main concern was focused on a vision for the future. They aspire to be a strong force of well-established businesses in a wide variety of industries across the city. It was important for my colleague and I to marry the two ideas between the strength that leadership aimed for and the empathy that the employees felt on a daily basis.
The Launch Plan
Along with the launch of the Mission, Vision, and Values, I proposed branding updates such as an extended color palette, while other members. of my creative team focused on patterns and a new logo that encompassed the same forward motion we aimed to achieve with the new identity. These elements were vital to our launch as we had several interactive activities planned to improve employee engagement while becoming familiar with the new content.
We had a six month launch plan that focused on a new value each month, with the final month concluding in a 10 year anniversary celebration. We called for open nominations from all departments to find employees who best represented each value as part of an interview video series. Additional assets and resources, such as leadership coaching from the HR department, were displayed in our corporate newsletter for visibility. Physical collateral included posters in break rooms, and branded stickers for each value.
