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Brand Mission (Why we exist):

Expand human capabilities through advanced AI.
Figure is a mission-focused company. We aspire to create a better life for future generations and will dedicate our time and resources to this pursuit.

Brand Vision (Why we exist):

To deploy autonomous humanoid robots on a global scale to solve challenges within the labor economy.
We envision a future where humanoid robots are the universal interface in the physical world. In the early days, our humanoid will be deployed into the workforce to perform corporate tasks in areas with significant labor shortages and jobs that are undesirable or unsafe. Longer term, humanoids will play an important role in many areas such as assisting individuals in the home, caring for the elderly, and building new worlds on other planets.

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Brand Values (Who we are):

Move fast & be technically fearless
Hesitation is the enemy of momentum. We are tackling today’s most complex technological challenges by testing, experimenting, and taking calculated risks to embrace the unknown without fear of failure.

Product first, mission focused
Our product and our mission are one in the same: to bring a commercially viable humanoid to market. We are builders, designers, and engineers united by a commitment to that mission. We avoid distraction and unrelated activities to remain laser-focused on shipping a safe, high quality product.

Aggressively optimistic
Building Figure won’t be an easy win; it will require decades of commitment and ingenuity. We’re humbled by our mission, and aspire to remain optimistic even in the face of enormous hurdles.

Maximize future impact
We have what it takes to build the most groundbreaking company on the planet — to create an inspiring future for generations to come with improved access to goods and services, safer working conditions, and more opportunity for fulfilling work. Our focus is on what we can achieve 5, 10, 20+ years from now, not the near-term wins.

Championship mindset
To address the extraordinary demands of our work, we believe in operating as a winning team. We are in the trenches together, collaborating in-person, remaining hyper-focused, and pushing each other to the highest levels of performance.

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Descriptor (What we do):

Figure is the first-of-its-kind AI robotics company bringing a general purpose humanoid to life.

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Brand Personality (How we express ourselves):

Sleek
Tech-focused
Optimistic

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Did you know that YouTube originally started as a dating site? That is probably one of the most unexpected stories you can find in the YouTube Brand Book. But not the most interesting.

In the brand book, YouTube presents its brand philosophy and values in the form of four foundational freedoms: Freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of opportunity, freedom to belong.

They are beautifully described, and very much aligned with the platform somewhat libertarian brand mission: "to give everyone a voice and show them the world". They serve as a compass for the brand, and set expectations for how YouTube operates.

These values are more consumer facing, and differ from traditional brand values that companies typically use to also describe the identity of their people in terms of beliefs and behaviors. My assumption is that the YouTube culture is shared with and shaped by the parent company.

Ultimately, YouTube employees are also Googlers.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

To give everyone a voice and show them the world.
We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories.

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Brand Beliefs (Who we are):

Freedom of expression
We believe that everyone should be able to speak freely, share opinions, and foster open dialogue, and that creative freedom leads to new voices, formats, and possibilities.

Freedom of information
We believe that everyone should have easy, open access to information, and that video is a powerful force for education, building understanding, and documenting world events big or small.

Freedom of opportunity
We believe that everyone should have a chance to be discovered, build a business, and succeed on their own terms, and that people—not gatekeepers—should decide what’s popular.

Freedom to belong
We believe that everyone should be able to find communities of support, break down barriers, transcend borders, and come together around shared interests and passions.

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Descriptor (What we do):

A way for people around the world to share videos.

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Visual Design Values (How we express ourselves):

Human (diverse, candid, authentic)
The vast majority of YouTubes content is created by real people: non-professionals with cameras and ideas to share. Their little imperfections lend YouTube's corpus a sense of humanity that very few other brands can own. Our design should never appear as if by magic. We should always let the viewer know that behind every expression is a real person.

Connected (community, belonging, engaging) 
People come to YouTube to interact with and learn from others. Everyday, more than a billion people from around the globe meet and share their points of view. Our brand expressions celebrate these relationships-both philosophically and literally. They should never feel isolated or lonely.

Expressive (vibrant, immaginative, intriguing)
Whenever anyone posts a video to YouTube, they are expressing their point of view. Our design is never generic. It's bold, colorful and opinionated, and reflective of the wider world. By communicating with an increasingly diverse range of voices, we reach new people every single day.

Story-driven (active, perspective, clear) 
Every video tells a story. Every upload adds another chapter to YouTube's narrative. Our design is part of a greater story. We meet our characters in singular moment. We sense the plot and action that's brought them here - and it's clear the action won't stop when the moment is over. 

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In 2004, IBM published a booklet titled “Our Values at Work - On Being an IBMer" with an outline of their brand values (which represent their beliefs and influence their behaviours). This was the result of a company wide employee-feedback process involving thousands of employees1. Interestingly, 20 years later, these still remain valid. Maybe, just like the company which has been around for over a century, they are proof that solid foundations are built to last.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

To be a catalyst that makes the world work better.

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Brand Values (Who we are):

Dedication to every client's success. 
IBMers are passionate about building strong, long-lasting client relationships. This dedication spurs us to go “above and beyond” on our clients’ behalf. IBMers are focused on outcomes. We sell products, services and solutions, but all with the goal of helping our clients succeed, however they measure success. IBMers demonstrate this personal dedication to every client, from the largest corporation and government agency to the startup and neighborhood market. Every IBMer, no matter where he or she works, has a role in client success. It requires the full spectrum of IBM expertise.

Innovation that matters — for our company and for the world.
IBMers are forward thinkers. We believe in progress, believe that the application of intelligence, reason and science can improve business, society and the human condition. IBMers love grand challenges, as well as everyday improvements. Whatever the problem or the context, every IBMer seeks ways to tackle it creatively —to be an innovator. IBMers strive to be first — in technology, in business, in responsible policy. IBMers take informed risks and champion new (sometimes unpopular) ideas.

Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.
IBMers actively build relationships with all the constituencies of our business — including clients, partners, communities, investors and fellow IBMers. IBMers build trust by listening, following through and keeping their word. IBMers rely on our colleagues to do the right thing. IBMers preserve trust even when formal relationships end.

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Descriptor (What we do):

We bring together all the necessary technology and services to help our clients solve their business problems.

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Design Principles (How we express ourselves):

Carefully Considered
Design is an exercise of decision-making; experience, judgement, responsibility and timing. These softer skills are difficult to distribute. Before we decide to do anything, we must consider its usefulness and utility to others. Then, we must determine how committed we are to enthusiastically explore and progressively deliver the full potential of a design.

Uniquely Unified
In order to guide, continuity and creativity must co-exist in design. Both of these qualities must be recognizable. Successful systems require both fixed and fluid elements of expression. The elements that bind all experiences are essential to providing a unified look, feel and tone. The innovative ways in which we use these elements delivers distinction and uniqueness.

Expertly Executed
Everything communicates, both the things we do and the things we don’t do. The care and craft we put into every experience is equal to any confidence or consideration we should expect in return. Every execution of IBM should exude expertise. This extends to the partners we choose to work with. We embrace the best of the best. And we never limit the impact of our ideas to our own abilities to deliver completely our design intent.

Positively Progressive
To guide is to lead. We are a Company with a history of firsts, including ‘good design’. We are forward thinkers, futurists. We believe in and are dedicated to advancing the world around us, positively, progressively. Every design should present these qualities.

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This article is part of a Brand Strategy column focused on uncovering the associations behind the world’s most disruptive brands. See all reviews

I tend to expect successful tech companies to have a special kind of culture. Maybe it is the effect that Google’s strong culture had in the tech scene.

Microsoft interestingly has a quite generic description of what defines them as people (in Cultural Attributes). To be fair, it must be difficult to create and manage a unique culture when you are as massive as Microsoft, not only in number of employees, but also in amount of subsidiaries, locations, etc.

I also found a set of Corporate Values (Respect, Integrity, Accountability1) but these seem to focus more on guiding corporate actions rather than beliefs and behaviors — a code of conduct of sorts. In my opinion it is confusing to have two sets of principles that define who they are, but this kind of complexity seems to happen when large organisations decide to define new principles without accepting to make compromises and or letting go of old ones — thats when the label salad starts.

When it comes to the the brand expression, I found a set of (design) principles in a Visual Design Guidelines document. They are a bit old (2016) but I think they are very much aligned with other attributes that I found in other documents.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

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Cultural Attributes (Who we are):

Growth mindset
We fundamentally believe that we need a culture founded in a growth mindset. It starts with a belief that everyone can grow and develop; that potential is nurtured, not pre-determined; and that anyone can change their mindset.

We need to be always learning and insatiably curious. We need to be willing to lean into uncertainty, take risks and move quickly when we make mistakes, recognizing failure happens along the way to mastery. And we need to be open to the ideas of others, where the success of others does not diminish our own.

Customer obsessed
We will learn about our customers and their businesses with a beginner’s mind and then bring solutions that meet their needs. We will be insatiable in our desire to learn from the outside and bring it into Microsoft, while still innovating to surprise and delight our users.

Diverse and inclusive
The world is diverse. We will better serve everyone on the planet by representing everyone on the planet. We will be open to learning our own biases and changing our behaviors, so we can tap into the collective power of everyone at Microsoft. We don’t just value differences, we seek them out, we invite them in. And as a result, our ideas are better, our products are better, and our customers are better served.

One Microsoft
We are a family of individuals united by a single, shared mission. It’s our ability to work together that makes our dreams believable and, ultimately, achievable. We will build on the ideas of others and collaborate across boundaries to bring the best of Microsoft to our customers as one. We are proud to be part of team Microsoft.

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Descriptor (What we do):

We build best-in-class platforms and productivity services for a mobile-first, cloud-first world. We aim to reinvent productivity and business processes, build the intelligent cloud platform and create more personal computing.

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Principles (How we express ourselves):

Keep it simple: 
We start with simplicity as the ultimate unifier. When design is intuitive, we just know. We can feel it. The result is an experience that’s honest and timeless.

Make it personal: 
Next, we challenge ourselves to create emotional connection with an individual person. We design for the ways people really live and think and act. The result is an experience that feels like it was created for one person.

Think universal: 
We design to embrace the things that make us human. It’s more far more than an attitude for making stuff – and into creating a world that makes lives better. The result is technology that’s inclusive.

Create delight: 
Our final principle is about energy within a structure. It’s how you know the experience was made by a real person. The result is an experience that surprises and has a sense of place. 

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For Tone of Voice and Photography Microsoft adheres to attributes that are different but seem mostly aligned with the principles above. Tone of Voice: Crisp and Clear, Warm and Relaxed, Ready to lend a hand. Photography: Authentic, Optimistic, and Brave.

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Hulu is a streaming service that initially started as a joint venture between several companies but is now fully owned by The Walt Disney Company. One of the most interesting aspects of its brand framework is the design principles introduced by the agency DixonBaxi during the rebranding project in 2021. These principles are akin to personality traits, and appear to influence everything from external behaviors to design language, tone of voice, and motion principles — in the design guidelines Hulu even describes what these principles mean for those specific dimensions.

I also found brand values that described Hulu's culture and identity, but these are not recent, and I am pretty sure they even predate the acquisition by The Walt Disney Company. Today, information about Hulu's culture redirects users to the parent brand (Disney’s) website. This shift makes sense if we consider the context of the relationship between product brands and their parent companies, as the beliefs and behaviors are ultimately defined by the holding company.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

Empowering everyone to discover, share and celebrate the stories that connect us.

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Brand Values (Who we are):

We Start with The Viewer.
There are few things more rewarding than connecting viewers to stories and experiences they love. We get to do that every day. As a result, our decision-making process always starts with our viewer. That doesn’t mean we don’t compromise or can’t make tough decisions, given the complexities of our business. It means that we know who matters the most to us, and we work hard – with all of our partners – to earn our viewers’ trust and loyalty.

We Think Big.
Redefining TV is an ambitious goal. We believe thinking big requires innovation, passion and unconventional thinking. We like smart risks, and our pionering spirit means that any Hulugan, in any role, can come up with a great idea and make a difference. Where we work reflects this philosophy: open, office-free, and lots of room for collaborating.

We Are One Team.
Like the best ensemble casts of our favourite shows, Hulu is made of unique and talented individuals. We believe we’re successful because those talents work together to collectively create great television and technology. When we make decisions through the lens o Hulu’s priorities and in collaboration with each other, we believe we’ll succeed as individuals. 

We Embrace Fun.
We love what we do. We believe we do our best when we enjoy ourselves. Some of the greatest ideas are born through laughter, whether in the photo booth at one of our epic Huluween costume parties r the next morning over brunch-worthy, microwave-hacked scrambled eggs. 

Character matters. A lot.
We depend on every Hulugan to work with integrity, act like an owner, and be accountable to our viewers, partners and each other. We do what we say we will. We’re not afraid to surface issues and acknowledge when we’re wrong, and we trust each other to help us turn challenges into opportunities.

We relentlessly pursue better ways.
Hulu has incredibly high standards, especially when it comes to quality. Our pursuit of a superior viewer experience and exceptional products is driven by intense curiosity and determination to be the best. We love what we do and the products we make, but we’re never content.

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Descriptor (What we do):

Online TV for TV people
Hulu is the leading premium streaming service offering live and on-demand TV and movies, with and without commercials, both in and outside the home.

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Design Principles (How we express ourselves):

Always a Story
Stories connect us. With each other and with the world. We truly understand the power of a great story, and always put it first.

Delightfully human
We are all about the true TV Lover. We get them, like a good friend. We know how passionate they are for TV, so everything we do is approachable, warm and delightful.

Do it different
There’s always been a little rebelliousness in our DNA, and we can’t help but let it out. We entice, provoke and instigate people with bold ideas and behaviors – but all with good fun.

Simply essential 
We are the ‘skinny jeans’ of TV. Your great value staple that makes your life easier. Utterly essential – stylish, comfortable and infinitely adaptive.

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OpenAI’s brand mission “To ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity” suggests altruistic motives behind their pursuit of AGI. It was was probably true when they were just a non-profit research lab. But I wonder if it still holds true.

I couldn't find a clear statement describing what OpenAI offers, so I pieced together one from three key pillars defined on the website: "Pioneering research on the path to AGI", "Transforming work and creativity with AI", and "Shaping the future of technology".

The Core Values are more akin to Brand Values, describing the culture and who they are as people – characterised by a certain reckless but passionate naivety that seems to define who they are and how they behave.

And what OpenAI defines as 'Brand Values' are no more than personality traits that define how the OpenAI brand should look, feel, and sound. They are meant to influence things like design, from the visual identity to the product experience.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

To ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

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Core Values (Who we are):

AGI Focus
We are committed to building safe, beneficial AGI that will have a massive positive impact on humanity's future. Anything that doesn’t help with that is out of scope.

Intense and scrappy
Building something exceptional requires hard work (often on unglamorous stuff) and urgency; everything (that we choose to do) is important. Be unpretentious and do what works; find the best ideas wherever they come from.

Scale
We believe that scale—in our models, our systems, ourselves, our processes, and our ambitions—is magic. When in doubt, scale it up.

Make something people love
Our technology and products should have a transformatively positive effect on people’s lives.

Team spirit
Our biggest advances, and differentiation, come from effective collaboration in and across teams. Although our teams have increasingly different identities and priorities, the overall purpose and goals have to remain perfectly aligned. Nothing is someone else’s problem.

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Description (What we do):

OpenAI is shaping the future of technology through pioneering AI research and the development of AI products that revolutionize work and creativity, all for the greater good of humanity.

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Brand Values (How we express ourselves):

Gravitas
Reflects the seriousness of our commitment to safety. Intentional, solid, firm. 

Precision
Reflects the expertise, rigor, and excellence behind our work. Clarified, Exact, Orderly.

Approachable
Reflect our impact on humanity and all that we do to empower people. Open, Optimistic, Warm.

Allure
Reflects the wonder and awe in the technology and our messy, playful approach to discovery. Unexpected, Delightful, Mysterious.

Bold
Reflects the scale and scope of what we want to accomplish. Innovative, Groundbreaking, Novel.

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Anthropic was was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees who shared two strong beliefs: the importance of scale in Large Language models, and the understanding that with scale alignment and safety needed to be prioritized.

One of the foundational differences behind its main product, the chatbot Claude, is something called constitutional, a training method that aims to make safer modes by following an explicit set of principles versus the standard reinforcement learning from human feedback. This makes Claude more transparent, reliable, and easier to control than its competitor ChatGPT.

The brand identity was developed by the Portland based Geist, who partnered early with Anthropic to craft everything, from the visual identity to the brand experience.

When it comes to the brand framework, as a challenger in the market, Anthropic could have taken a bolder stance, even if safety and altruism seems more fitting for them than for OpenAI.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

To ensure transformative AI helps people and society flourish.

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Brand Values (Who we are):

Here for the mission
Anthropic exists for our mission: to ensure transformative AI helps people and society flourish. Progress this decade may be rapid, and we expect increasingly capable systems to pose novel challenges. We pursue our mission by building frontier systems, studying their behaviors, working to responsibly deploy them, and regularly sharing our safety insights. We collaborate with other projects and stakeholders seeking a similar outcome.

Unusually high trust
Our company is an unusually high trust environment: we assume good faith, disagree kindly, and prioritize honesty. We expect emotional maturity and intellectual openness. At its best, our trust enables us to make better decisions as an organization than any one of us could as individuals.

One big team
Collaboration is central to our work, culture, and value proposition. While we have many teams at Anthropic, we feel the broader sense in which we are all on the same team working together towards the mission. Leadership sets the strategy, with broad input from everyone, and trusts each piece of the organization to pursue these goals in their unique style. Individuals commonly contribute to work across many different areas.

Make something people love
Our technology and products should have a transformatively positive effect on people’s lives.

Do the simple thing that works
We celebrate trying the simple thing before the clever, novel thing. We embrace pragmatism - sensible, practical approaches that acknowledge tradeoffs. We love empiricism - finding out what actually works by trying it - and apply this to our research, our engineering and our collaboration. We aim to be open about what we understand and what we don’t.

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Description (What we do):

Making AI systems you can rely on
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company. We build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems that benefit people around the globe.

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Brand Personality (How we express ourselves):

Human warmth

Technically refined

Charmingly quirky

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Brand Mission:

To make design accessible to everyone

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Brand Values:

Build community
We’re multiplayer people who love the weird, wonderful magic that happens when people connect. We build bridges—with both our Figmates and our users.

Run with it
Building Figma is about taking initiative, being bold and charting a new course, not running a playbook. Figmates are building the future of design by tackling big, scary, exciting challenges like Figma’s future depends on it. Because it does.

Love your craft
We build for builders and try to make complex things feel simple. We ask why until we get to the core and continually focus on solving the right problem, not just shipping work.

Grow as you go
With humility and curiosity, we give and get the direct feedback we all need to become great. Everyone’s a work in progress, and we’re here to help each other grow.

Play
Playing is learning. We embrace spontaneous, unstructured exploration—because that’s where we find our best ideas.

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Positioning:

Creative tools meet the internet
Figma is the leading collaborative design tool for building meaningful products. Seamlessly design, prototype, develop, and collect feedback in a single platform.

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Brand Personality:

Curious
Clever, playful, imaginative. This is your friend with the far-out ideas. They always want to be learning more and considering the things that might not be obvious.

Vibrant
Dynamic, confident, alive. Figma loves nerding out on certain topics and is proud of it.

Honest
Inclusive, empathetic, approachable. We’re never afraid to admit that we don’t know everything, but together we can figure it out.

Bold
Powerful, unexpected, non-conforming. We don’t live in the shoulds, we do what is right and true to us.

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Brand Mission:

Changing the world through digital experiences

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Brand Values:

Create the future
Creativity is in our DNA. We constantly look around the corner to see what is possible. But we don't wait for the future, we create it. We are builders, makers, and inventors, driven by a deep empathy for our customers and users. We are open-minded and celebrate new ideas. We have the courage to disrupt the market and ourselves through bold bets and ideas we turn into reality.

Own the outcome
We think and operate like owners. We take initiative, have a bias toward action, and assume ownership for end results, not just our part. 

Raise the bar
We aim high and we play to win. We relentlessly focus on execution, celebrate excellence and are intellectually honest about where we must do better. We deliver both speed and quality by doing fewer things better. Our success is measured by the success of our customers and users.

Be genuine
The ability to be yourself is core to who we are. We embrace and respect diversity. We support and challenge each other by being honest and direct. We always act with sincerity, integrity and the highest of ethics. We do this for our employees, partners, customers and communities.

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Positioning:

Adobe offers groundbreaking technology that empowers everyone, everywhere to imagine, create, and bring any digital experience to life.

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Brand Personality Tenets:

Genuine
Simple design and language is a sign of respect for our customers—respect for their work, time, and process. If you think about it, simplicity is a common courtesy.

Captivating
Through smart use of design and data, we create content that captivates, and that means designing for the end user, making it as personal as possible. Creativity and precision are at the heart of all we do. Everything we put out into the world should be equally inspiring and relevant.

Community
We’ve committed to a highly collaborative relationship with the creative and professional marketing community. Sometimes we educate; sometimes we simply participate alongside them. The community is the creative firepower, and we exist to share with them—share tools, ideas, and successes.

Forward
We challenge ourselves and others to aim higher and never settle. Boldness, unexpectedness, and optimism drive us forward, inspiring new categories and tools.
As a tech company with creativity at its core, we have a responsibility to be cutting edge.

Inspiring
Our enthusiasm about the future, and what’s possible, is what energizes our company and each one of us. A sense of wonder and enchantment is infused into everything we say, do, and make.

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Mission:

To make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant and more productive.

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Brand Values:

Empathy
We give people the benefit of the doubt and the respect that is due to them. We recognize the humanity in others. We’re understanding and appreciative.

Courtesy
We go the extra mile to make things easy and save others’ time. We prep and do our homework. We work together to arrive at the best solutions.

Craftmanship
We’re always learning to do better. We sweat the small stuff. We act intentionally and mindfully every step of the way.

Playfulness
We’re curious. We look at the world a little sideways. We provide delightful experiences to our customers.

Solidarity
We take the interests of all into account. We see ourselves as part of a team rather than a collection of individuals. We stand up for what’s right.

Thriving
We play with our whole heart. We enjoy the journey and take the opportunity to do the best work we can. We show up as ourselves and help others do the same.

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Positioning:

Slack is the productivity platform that empowers everyone with no-code automation, makes search and knowledge sharing seamless, and keeps teams connected and engaged.

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Brand Personality:

We are: Creative, professional, thoughtful, respectful, purposeful and curious; We are smart, humble, hard-working, collaborative.

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