'Unlocking the value of Values-Driven Marketing' is landmark research published by WARC x Aletheia Marketing and Media brought by LIONS Advisory, aiming to highlight the potential of VDM, and validate that VDM leads to meaningful lifts in ad preference, likability, perceived relevance and performance. It aims to show how VDM enables brands to drive higher ad performance through optimised targeting, media and messaging decisions, says WARC.

"Understanding the motivation behind audience behavior and finding ways to inspire action is critical. Alongside our partners at Aletheia, we have the evidence to show what a Values-driven approach can offer and how to apply it in the real world across audiences, media, messaging and measurement. The opportunity is compelling," says Imaad Ahmed, Principal Strategist at LIONS Advisory and Head of Advisory WARC.

"The most effective marketing is built on deep human understanding. This research proves that when audiences are defined by their values and messaging is precisely aligned, ads perform significantly better. Values-Driven Marketing is emerging as a scalable, repeatable and performance-proven discipline for modern marketers in an era of Agentic AI," says Alisa Miller, Chief AI Officer of Aletheia, and Co-Founder, Pluralytics and Lead Inventor, AI VDM Patent.

"We've spent years exploring how values shape marketing performance, and this research confirms what we've seen with our clients time and again: when brands connect with people around what truly matters to them, engagement deepens and conversions follow. Consistently delivering the right message to the right audience — grounded in authenticity and shared values — is what transforms marketing into a force for meaningful connection and growth," adds Chris Schembri, Founder and CEO of Aletheia.

New research: The Dynamics of Values-Driven Marketing

Using controlled testing, the research takes a deep-dive into how audiences perceive and react to VDM:

  • Research Objectives: Ask these four questions: Do people respond to VDM in similar ways regardless of category? Is the degree to which someone holds a particular Value predictive of response level? Can the different creative factors contributing to the effectiveness of VDM be isolated? Does VDM drive both short- and long-term brand demand?
  • Methodology: The six Values that most directly influence brand affinity, purchasing decisions and loyalty, and therefore are of greatest relevance to marketers, are: achievement, freedom, pleasure, purpose, security and tradition.

A total of 27 unbranded AI-generated ads with Values Signals are created for three categories covering consumers' needs and wants: CPG (represented by toothpaste), QSR (a pizza restaurant) and Financial Services (investment brokerage / advisory), says WARC.

In July, 5 016 US adults across demographics were assigned to one of three ValuesTypes — achievement, purpose and tradition — and surveyed on ad preference and effectiveness, adds WARC.

Headline Findings

  • Ads That Align With an Individual's Dominant Values are Consistently Preferred: Achievement ValuesTypes are 17pp more likely to prefer an Achievement-aligned ad than other executions they were exposed to.
  • Values-Driven Marketing is Effective Across Categories: Purpose within QSR and CPG categories are both +27pp above average; in financial services, achievement ads are +28pp and tradition ads +8pp above average.
  • The Strength of Values Held by Someone Predicts the Level of Response: Strong Achievement and Purpose consumers gravitate towards ads with matching values. While Tradition-oriented respondents are the most likely to avoid ads that conflict with those Values.
  • Values-Aligned Messaging Increases Ad Likability and Perceived Relevance: Using ad resonance rating, AchievementTypes rates achievement ads +12pp to +18pp above average, PurposeTypes rate purpose ads +8pp to +11pp; and TraditionTypes rate tradition ads +2pp to +4pp.
  • Including Values in the Targeting Mix Increases Media Effectiveness: Analysis of the research shows that demographics have some predictive power: AchievementTypes had a 75% uplift in predictability once Values are combined with demographic targeting; TraditionTypes has an 83% uplift, and PurposeTypes a 193% uplift in predictability.

A New Model of how Values-Driven Marketing Improves Advertising Effectiveness

Following the research, a new model combining behavioral science and artificial intelligence, aims to show how VDM can improve advertising effectiveness to help brands overcome attention scarcity, establish relevance, spark emotional resonance and target with precision to drive higher results, says WARC.

Operationalising Values-Driven Marketing: A New Playbook for Brands

There are Four Areas of Focus for Marketers Wanting to Put VDM Into Practice:

  • Audience Intelligence: Use Values-based research to identify priority segments and incremental opportunities, underlying consumer needs and wants and competitor mapping.
  • Media intelligence: Use Values-driven targeting to maximise reach and optimise frequency, analyse placement and partnership opportunities and include performance modeling capabilities.
  • Messaging intelligence: For a significant competitive edge, align Values-driven messaging with key audience motivations and brand business KPIs, and implement real-time testing capabilities for content optimisation.
  • Impact intelligence: Values-driven marketing can help create and refine short and longer-term benchmarks, evaluate actual versus predicted performance, and establishes continuous feedback loops to maximise campaign effectiveness.

About Values-Driven Marketing

VDM drives performance uplifts of 1.8X to 2X on average, says WARC.

Brands that strongly align with the Values that matter most to their audience build trust and foster deeper, lasting connections — especially when supported by ownable, memorable brand assets that consistently show up coherently across all touchpoints, adds WARC.

The research finds that by transmitting the right signals to the right ValuesType drives performance uplifts of 1.8X to 2X on average, says WARC.

"If you get Values right, you build long-term brand equity while still delivering short-term performance," says Jennifer Posnikoff, SVP, Global Brand Growth and Experience at Virgin.

 

Values-Driven Marketing Responds to Changes in the Consumer, Shopper and Media Landscapes

Heightened competition, growing ROI pressures and the constant requirement to do more with less mean marketers need to make more accurate media choices and better-informed messaging decisions, says WARC.

Brands That Apply VDM Can Better Respond to Shifts in:

  • Consumer's Decision-Making Criteria: Brand trust is now a competitive advantage. VDM aims to create the emotional resonance that builds this trust. Ipsos research shows people that buy brands that reflect their personal values has risen from 53% in 2023 to 69% in 2024.
  • Shopper Behaviors: Brands on social platforms and retail media networks are intent on reducing the path-to-purchase time. VDM works across impulse and considered purchases by delivering aiming to deliver clear, compelling signals tailored to consumer motivations by triggering emotional responses, stimulating interest and de-risking purchase decisions.
  • Media Environments: In recent years there has been a shift towards 'performance' channels. WARC research outlines in 'The Multiplier Effect' shows switching from a performance-only to combined brand-building strategies boosts total revenue by a median of 90%. VDM provides additional unifying force by focusing on audience motivations.

Values-Driven Marketing Delivers Strategic and Executional Benefits

VDM in marketing, and the insights from Behavioral Science that underpin it, is an emerging practice with clear advantages: it provides unified answers to the fundamental questions of "who are we targeting?", "what do we want to stand for?" and "how will we achieve our goals?"

These strategic benefits can be translated into day-to-day execution. AI-powered advances in audience profiling, media targeting, messaging analysis and impact measurement, enable brands to operationalise VDM at scale, concludes WARC.

For more information, visit www.warc.com. You can also follow WARC on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or on Instagram.

*Image courtesy of contributor