Warc report: How values-driven marketing can transform advertising effectiveness
In Behavioural Science, the ‘Values’ in Values-Driven Marketing (VDM) refer to the underlying — and often unspoken — motivations that influence how people think and behave. They are deep-rooted drivers of consumer behaviour and are predictive of how individuals will respond to marketing stimuli.
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‘Unlocking the value of Values-Driven Marketing’ is landmark research published today by Warc x Aletheia Marketing and Media brought to you by Lions Advisory, highlighting the potential of VDM. It validates that VDM leads to meaningful lifts in ad preference, likability, perceived relevance and performance. It shows how VDM enables brands to drive higher ad performance through optimized targeting, media and messaging decisions.
Imaad Ahmed, principal strategist, Lions Advisory and Head of Advisory Warc, says: “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.”
Alisa Miller, chief AI officer, Aletheia, co-founder, Pluralytics and lead inventor, AI VDM Patent, says: “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.”
Chris Schembri, founder and CEO, Aletheia, says: “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.”
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
(1) do people respond to VDM in similar ways regardless of category, (2) is the degree to which someone holds a particular Value predictive of response levels, (3) can the different creative factors contributing to the effectiveness of VDM be isolated, (4) 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 unique unbranded AI-generated ads with strong Values Signals were created for three categories covering consumers' needs and wants: CPG (represented by toothpaste); QSR (a pizza restaurant); and Financial Services (investment brokerage / advisory).
In July 2025, 5,016 US adults across demographics were assigned to one of three ValuesTypes – achievement, purpose and tradition – and surveyed on ad preference and effectiveness.
Headline findings
- Ads that align with an individual’s dominant Values are consistently preferred:
Achievement ValuesTypes were 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 were both +27pp above average; in financial services, achievement ads were +28pp and tradition ads +8pp above average.
- The strength of Values held by someone predicts the level of response:
Strong Achievement and Purpose consumers gravitated towards ads with matching values. While Tradition-oriented respondents were 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 rated achievement ads +12pp to +18pp above average, PurposeTypes rated purpose ads +8pp to +11pp; and TraditionTypes rated 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 were combined with demographic targeting; TraditionTypes had 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, shows 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.
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 optimize 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 maximize campaign effectiveness.
About values-driven marketing
- VDM drives performance uplifts of 1.8X to 2X on average
Brands strongly aligned 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.
The research found that by transmitting the right signals to the right ValuesType drives performance uplifts of 1.8X to 2X on average.
Jennifer Posnikoff, SVP, Global Brand Growth and Experience, Virgin, says: “If you get Values right, you build long-term brand equity while still delivering short-term performance.”
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.
Brands that apply VDM can better respond to shifts in:
- Consumer’s decision-making criteria
Brand trust is now a critical competitive advantage. VDM creates 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 behaviours
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 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 outlined 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.