Ethics policy
Why ethics are essential in branding
A brand is an imprint that your business leaves with a person when you’re not in the room. Fostered through the impression of a company’s products and services, its reputation in the market and its culture, good branding intends to create an emotional connection between an individual and a business. Great branding can encourage consumers to spend more on a product, can lure employees to switch jobs, or swing the scales in favour of one political candidate over another.
When great brands thrive they have the power to shape society; changing our vernacular, seeding their ideas and values or contributing significant financial gains to organisations that may advance, protect or destroy people and the planet.
It is our firm belief that engaging in branding work cannot be untethered from ethics. A famous brand that touts environmentalism to its consumers while proactively expanding its acquisitions of natural resources is not a great brand – it is a great illusion. Similarly, unethical behaviour from a company can destroy the equity built by its brand within an instant. And in truth, all brands are complex ecosystems of values, ideas and actions that very rarely align perfectly. What sets great brands apart is their ability to drive their businesses towards coherence between those three pillars.
While a brand can, and often should, be an aspirational identity system, it should not be an illusion. To brand one thing as if it were another is deceit. Instead, good branding should strive to make truth visible and enable people to realise their ambitions.
Why ethics are important to us as an agency
As a strategic branding agency, we pride ourselves on our ability to get to know our clients; to unearth what makes their businesses worth caring about for their clients, customers and employees. We help them to communicate and grow that story through visual and verbal identity systems, experiences, thought leadership, advertising and internal communications.
There are many reasons why ethics are central to our work, but first and foremost is that working with organisations or individuals whose morals go against ours would be both hypocritical and an intensely unenjoyable way to earn our living. Not only that but compromising our ethics is unlikely to produce the desired results of a branding exercise as our hearts wouldn’t be in it. To create world-class brands, we not only have to understand why anyone else should care but believe it ourselves.
Our attitude to client selection and retention
We are always on the lookout for clients with whom we feel we have the ability to form close partnerships and deliver great impact. For the period where our support continues to add value to the client and their brand, we aim to retain those relationships.
If, however, it transpires that a client’s actions or opinions – whether of an organisation or individual – are in conflict with our ethics then we would discuss the nature of the breach internally with the project team and leadership, before consulting with the client and ending our relationship.
We are proud of our diverse portfolio of clients, and while each relationship is judged on a case-by-case basis we would not accept any projects with organisations that:
- Violate human rights or discriminate against people on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or diverse ability.
- Contravene workers’ rights to unionise, engage in or promote modern slavery whether directly or through their supply chains.
- Perpetuate colonialism, racial or ethnic supremacy of any kind.
- Sell addictive gambling or tobacco products.
- Sell or deal weapons.
- Are based in international conflict zones or subject to economic sanctions.
When working with clients whose primary demographic does not reflect that of our agency or their lived experience, we believe in “nothing about us without us” and therefore engage in these projects only with the explicit involvement and inclusion of people who directly represent the business or its audience.
This policy is non-exhaustive, and all aspects of the UnitedUs business should be considered in the spirit of this policy.
If you have any queries or questions about our ethics policy, then please let us know.
