How to Ensure Values-Based Marketing Is Authentic, Ethical and Credible

Values-based marketing can create a meaningful connection between a brand and its audience, building longer-term loyalty than simple price- or product-forward messaging. But it’s not necessarily a slam-dunk strategy: Americans are evenly divided on whether companies making public statements about political or social issues is important to them. And when companies weigh in on social causes or emotionally charged issues, the message itself is only part of what people are evaluating. Audiences are also asking whether the brand’s position feels credible—and whether the company has earned the right to speak.

Once a brand does choose to engage in values-based marketing, credibility becomes critical. Recent consumer research found that, across age cohorts, Americans consider honesty to be the most important brand value; simply taking a stand carries less weight. For marketing leaders, that raises an important question: Is the company expressing a value it demonstrably lives by or simply borrowing the language of a cause?

So how can CMOs recognize when values-based marketing is crossing into performative compassion, and how can they ensure their messaging remains credible and ethical? Below, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share the warning signs to watch for and how to approach cause-related marketing with greater care.

“CMOs often feel pressure to quickly react to timely cultural moments. Credibility and brand integrity require resisting that pressure when substance isn’t there yet.”

– Charles Stanton, Chief Innovation Officer for Transient Consulting

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Beware Reaction Without Substance

Charles Stanton, Chief Innovation Officer for Transient Consulting, advises thought leaders, entrepreneurs and startups in his consulting work. He has a name for the common practice of hopping onto social bandwagons for the sake of it.

“The marketing kiss of death is what I call ‘compassion washing,’” Stanton says. “It’s my term for marketing that’s meant to pull heartstrings without anything substantive being accomplished. It’s the marketing equivalent of a bad used car salesman.”

He says a clear sign a company has crossed into performative compassion is a campaign that’s built on emotional language and imagery with no program or outcome.

“A token donation so small it feels more like a marketing expense than genuine support isn’t enough,” Stanton says. “Other examples include posting rainbow company logos for Pride Month but doing nothing for the community or posting a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote for Black History Month with no associated action.”

To avoid brand damage from pandering, he recommends doing an honesty or ethics check outside your team—because the consequences of getting values-based outreach wrong can be long-lasting. 

“CMOs often feel pressure to quickly react to timely cultural moments. Credibility and brand integrity require resisting that pressure when substance isn’t there yet,” Stanton says. “Marketing professionals have a responsibility to protect the integrity of our company and the trust of our community of followers. It is up to us to make sure the company can feel good about the meaning, not just the campaign.”

Ensure Values Will Hold After the Spotlight Moves On

Evan White, Founder of Evan White PR and Fractional CMO of ERIN, gives brand leaders a clear gut check.

“If your values disappear when the headlines do, they were never values. They were marketing. Customers and employees can tell the difference,” he says.

White stresses that genuinely standing for something takes more than just talk.

“It has to show up in who you hire, who you promote, who you mentor, who you partner with, who gets a seat at the table, and who has the opportunity to lead,” he says. “Purpose isn’t a campaign. It’s a pattern of decisions.”

Brands risk losing consumers’ trust if they only speak up or take action when an issue is trending.

“Credibility comes from consistency, accountability and the courage to keep doing the work after the spotlight moves on,” White says.

Accept That Real Conviction May Carry a Cost

Cynthia Ferngren, Fractional CMO, Brand Strategist and Founder of Brandsol Agency, draws a hard line around what counts as conviction—and what doesn’t.

“The clearest sign of performative marketing is a stance that costs nothing. If a values campaign offends no one, changes nothing internally and could be run word for word by any competitor, it isn’t a stance. It’s decoration,” she says.

By contrast, real conviction, Ferngren says, has a price tag. She points to high-profile brands that made a conscious choice to live their values.

“Patagonia closes on Black Friday. Nike accepted losing customers over supporting Colin Kaepernick and earned a brand out of it,” she says. “When people sense a company wants credit for caring without paying for it, they don’t feel inspired; they feel marketed to.”

Ferngren counsels CMOs to speak to reality, not intention.

“My advice to CMOs is to reverse the order: Act first, talk second,” she says. “Ask what the company has actually changed, funded or given up, and let the marketing report on that.”

And if leadership isn’t willing to lose a single customer over a value?

 “Keep it out of the campaign,” Ferngren concludes. “Silence is more credible than borrowed compassion.”

Anchor Advocacy in Enduring Values

Bob Pearson, Chair of the Pearson Advisory Group, says that rather than trying to respond to every cultural moment, brands should leverage a compact decision framework for determining when to engage.

“When your company is asked to support a cause, begin with two simple questions: ‘Does this align with our enduring values and our brand?’ and, ‘Will we still stand behind this cause when the headlines fade and the attention moves elsewhere?’ If the answer to both is ‘yes,’ move forward with conviction. If not, resist the temptation to chase the moment,” he says.

For Pearson, consistency is the bottom line. Trying to be everything to everyone at all times is a losing strategy.

“Companies that lurch from one popular cause to the next rarely build trust—they build confusion. Brands earn trust through consistency, not by chasing the issue du jour,” he says. “Trying to be popular has never been a winning strategy. It didn’t work in high school, and it doesn’t work in the marketplace.”

“If success is defined by brand sentiment, engagement or earned media, but not by any meaningful outcome for the people the campaign claims to support, compassion has become a brand asset.”

– Amber Brown, Senior Vice President of Product and Marketing for Clario

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Measure Stakeholders’ Outcomes, Not Performance Metrics

Amber Brown, Senior Vice President of Product and Marketing for Clario, shifts attention from messaging to measuring—how brands determine whether a values-based campaign “worked.”

“Performative compassion often reveals itself in the measurement plan. If success is defined by brand sentiment, engagement or earned media, but not by any meaningful outcome for the people the campaign claims to support, compassion has become a brand asset,” she says.

Her ethical test centers the people whose experiences are being represented rather than the audience evaluating the campaign.

“CMOs should involve stakeholders in shaping the work and give them real influence, not just visibility,” Brown says. “The ethical test is not, ‘Did the campaign resonate?’ It is, ‘Would the people represented say it served them or simply used their story?’”

Make Sure the Work Can Support the Message

For Paul L. Gunn Jr., Founder of Signal & Anomaly and KUOG Corporation, values-based marketing is a strategic commitment, not simply a communications decision.

“One of the earliest signs of performative compassion is when marketing begins communicating values the organization isn’t operationally prepared to deliver. Brand messaging should reflect reality, not create it,” Gunn says. “Customers eventually experience the gap between what a company says and how it behaves, and that’s where trust begins to erode.”

He recommends testing a prospective campaign against the organization people experience when marketing isn’t part of the equation.

“CMOs should treat values the same way they treat any strategic commitment,” Gunn says. “Before launching a campaign, ask whether employees, customers and partners would describe the organization the same way if the campaign never existed. If the answer is ‘no,’ strengthen the operating reality before amplifying the message.

“Credible values-based marketing isn’t built through better storytelling,” he concludes. “It’s built by ensuring leadership decisions, team member experience and customer outcomes consistently reinforce the promises the brand makes.”

Back Emotional Messaging With Concrete Action

Erin Lentz, Executive Director of Design at ArtVersion, notes that many brands engage with causes partly for social credit. But that comes with risk.

“If a brand speaks publicly about an issue but cannot point to relevant action, the communication risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive—and people can sense that disconnect quickly,” she says.

Lentz says effective values-based messaging has to land with an audience both emotionally and intellectually.

“The visceral element of a brand is important because it sets the emotional response before the intellectual processing begins. People might not always analyze why a message feels right, but they know if the tone, timing and behavior of a message feel thoughtful,” she explains. “Then, the intellectual dimension provides that feeling with context through evidence, transparency and demonstrated action.”

Lentz stresses that an emotional expression of compassion must be supported by something concrete: internal practices, sustained investment, meaningful partnerships or measurable progress.

“Otherwise, it is simply sentiment without substance,” she says.

Ensure Any Claims Can Be Verified

For Boris Dzhingarov, Founder and CEO of ESBO Ltd., the clearest sign of performative compassion is when the campaign costs more than the commitment. 

“If a brand spends six figures announcing a cause and a fraction of that actually funding it, the ratio is the message, and it always surfaces eventually,” he says. “Journalists ask for the number. Employees do the math too, and they talk. I pitch reporters for a living, and they check. Now AI assistants check too, and they keep the receipts forever.”

Dzhingarov advises brands to act first, market second and only claim what a skeptical outsider could verify—like a number, a policy change or a named partner.

“If leadership wants the halo without funding the substance, the honest move is to decline the campaign,” he says. “Silence costs nothing, but a hollow claim compounds.”

“In many cases, it’s best to avoid taking positions on sensitive social issues unless they are directly tied to the company’s mission, values and actions.”

– Jessica Hawthorne, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising

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Protect Authenticity and Consistency

Jessica Hawthorne, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising, emphasizes selectivity when companies are considering whether to enter sensitive conversations.

“Values-based marketing can be a powerful way to connect with consumers, but it must be authentic and backed by meaningful action,” she says.

Hawthorne explains that when messaging is more symbolic than substantive, brands risk being perceived as performative, which can quickly erode trust.

“In many cases, it’s best to avoid taking positions on sensitive social issues unless they are directly tied to the company’s mission, values and actions,” she says. “Maintaining authenticity and consistency helps ensure that brand messaging remains credible and avoids unintended reputational risks.”

Build Guardrails to Protect Credibility

Hastimal Jangid, Co-Founder of Coozmoo Digital Solutions, shares one clear sign of performative compassion: The campaign has a hashtag but no line item. 

“If a company can name its cause faster than it can name what it actually changed—supply chain, hiring, product, policy—that’s performative compassion. The message moved before the operations did,” he says.

Jangid says CMOs should ask themselves a straightforward question before any values-based campaign: Can we point to a decision we made because of this value, not just a message we published about it? 

“If the only artifact is content, don’t run it,” he says.

Jangid recommends building three guardrails into the process to stay credible. 

“First, fund it internally—via budget, policy or product change—before you market it,” he says. “Second, let the affected community or partner organization co-sign the message, not just receive a donation. Third, measure it like any other claim: Track whether the commitment survives past the news cycle, not just the quarter.”

Jangid concludes by noting that, sometimes, the wisest move is to stay on the sidelines.

“Silence on an issue is safer than a stance you can’t back with action,” he says. “Credibility compounds; performative moments get remembered longer than they get forgiven.”

How to Ensure Values-Based Marketing Is Real, Not Reactive

• Resist the urge to react before there’s substance behind the message. Before joining a cultural conversation, conduct an honesty or ethics check to ensure the company can genuinely support what it wants to say.
• Treat values as an ongoing pattern of decisions. Make sure a stated commitment continues to show up in hiring, promotions, partnerships and other business choices long after public attention fades.
• Act before you advertise. If leadership hasn’t changed, funded or given up anything in support of a stated value, reconsider whether the company has earned the right to market around it.
• Choose causes that align with enduring brand values. Ask whether the company would still support an issue after the headlines move on rather than chasing whatever is generating attention now.
• Measure the effect on stakeholders, not just the campaign. Include meaningful outcomes for the people a cause is meant to serve alongside metrics such as engagement, sentiment or earned media.
• Make sure operations can deliver what marketing promises. Strengthen the employee, customer and partner experience before amplifying values the organization isn’t yet prepared to demonstrate consistently.
• Support emotional storytelling with evidence. Pair empathetic messaging with concrete practices, investments, partnerships or measurable progress that give audiences a reason to believe in it.
• Make every public claim defensible. Before promoting a commitment, ensure a skeptical outsider could verify it through evidence such as funding, policy changes or named partnerships.
• Be selective about entering sensitive conversations. A company doesn’t need a public position on every issue, particularly when the subject has little connection to its mission, values or actions.
• Build credibility checks into the campaign process. Fund the commitment first, involve affected stakeholders and evaluate whether the effort lasts beyond the immediate news cycle.

The Strongest Brand Values Are Lived

Values-based marketing is most persuasive when the marketing is the visible expression of work already happening inside the organization. CMOs should scrutinize whether a cause aligns with a brand’s enduring values, whether the brand can demonstrate meaningful action, and whether the people affected by that action would recognize the commitment as genuine.

That bar may become increasingly important as consumers, employees and other stakeholders gain more ways to compare what brands say to what they actually do. The strongest values-based marketing strategies won’t depend on louder expressions of compassion. They’ll depend on building a record of decisions and actions credible enough that the marketing simply tells the truth about them.