Brand promise examples: 5 that work (and don’t)

A brand promise is only as valuable as the trust it builds. Yet most organisations struggle to see what ‘good’ looks like until they study brand promise examples in the wild: the ones that resonate, and the ones that collapse.

Some inspire loyalty, embedding themselves into everyday behaviour. Others overpromise and underdeliver, eroding customer trust.

The difference isn’t luck. It’s clarity, credibility, and consistency. This article explores five brand promise examples that demonstrate what happens when organisations get it right and what unravels when they don’t.

We’ll unpack what makes a promise work, how emotional connection in branding is built or broken, and what you can learn to strengthen your own brand promise.

What great brand promises look like

Before diving into specific brand promise examples, it’s worth establishing what separates a strong promise from a weak one. A great brand promise isn’t just clever copy or marketing dreamed up in a boardroom.

It’s a strategic statement that clarifies expectations, aligns internal behaviour, and creates a measurable brand experience customers can rely on. The difference between promises that work and those that don’t comes down to five characteristics: clarity, credibility, emotional resonance, consistency, and proof of delivery.

These aren’t abstract principles. They’re practical filters that determine whether your promise builds trust or erodes it. Strong brand promise examples share these defining traits because they’re grounded in operational reality, not aspiration.

They’re expressed in ways that stick because the brand lives them, day after day. When you analyse successful promises, you’ll notice they don’t try to be everything to everyone.

They pick a lane, commit to it, and align every element around that commitment. That discipline separates memorable brands from forgettable ones.

Clarity

A clear brand promise sets expectations instantly and removes ambiguity. Customers should understand what you stand for within seconds, not after decoding corporate waffle.

Strong brand promise examples use simple, direct language that travels well across cultures and contexts. Clarity doesn’t mean simplistic. It means purposeful.

The promise should communicate value without overexplaining or diluting the message with qualifiers. If your promise requires footnotes, it’s not clear enough.

Credibility

A brand promise must be believable, and the brand must be operationally able to keep it. Credibility collapses the moment customers sense exaggeration or misalignment.

That’s why customer trust depends on promises that reflect current capability, not future ambition disguised as present-day commitment. Credibility also means alignment with category norms.

A challenger brand can promise disruption. An established player promising ‘revolution’ without evidence risks sounding hollow. Context matters.

Consistency

Consistency turns a promise into a lived experience across every touchpoint. Strong brand promise examples aren’t announced once and forgotten.

They’re embedded into product design, customer service, tone of voice, pricing, packaging, and even recruitment criteria. Delivering on promises means ensuring that every team member (from frontline staff to the C-suite) understands the brand promise and how their role reinforces it.

When consistency slips, customers notice. And once noticed, it’s hard to rebuild that trust. That’s why brand promise and employee engagement must work in tandem to support your brand positioning.

Brand promise examples that work

Now let’s explore three examples of brand promises that succeed because they meet the criteria above and because the organisations behind them have committed to living those promises daily. These span emotional, functional, and ethical positioning, showing there’s no single formula for success in brand strategy.

What unites them is authenticity. Each promise reflects the brand’s genuine strengths and is supported by evidence customers can see, touch, and experience.

That’s what transforms a tagline into a trust signal and drives customer loyalty. These strong brand promise examples show how different approaches can succeed when rooted in truth and delivered consistently.

From Apple’s inspirational positioning to FedEx’s operational precision to Innocent’s ethical warmth, each works because it’s genuine. The lesson isn’t to copy what they’ve done.

It’s to understand the principles that make examples of brand promises stick and apply them to your own positioning. That commitment separates authentic brands from those that simply sound good in a pitch deck. That commitment is what separates authentic brands from those that simply sound good in a pitch deck.

Apple: “Think different”

An emotional, inspirational promise anchored in creativity. Apple’s brand promise has evolved over decades, but the core idea remains consistent: this is a brand for people who see the world differently.

It’s less about the technology itself and more about what that technology enables. Apple’s promise works because it taps into emotional connection in branding.

Customers don’t just buy products; they buy into an identity. The promise is reinforced through minimalist design, intuitive interfaces, and a retail experience that feels like walking into a gallery.

From packaging to advertising to in-store service, every element reflects the same values. Apple has built one of the world’s strongest brand ecosystems by ensuring that the promise isn’t just spoken but felt.

This is a textbook example of how promises can transcend product features. Apple doesn’t compete on specifications. It competes on meaning, belonging, and aspiration, all anchored in a promise that’s consistently delivered.

FedEx: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”

A functional promise built entirely on reliability and proof. FedEx’s brand promise is refreshingly specific, demonstrating how operational excellence can become a powerful differentiator.

It doesn’t claim to be the cheapest, the greenest, or the friendliest. It claims to be the most dependable and backs it up with operational excellence. This promise builds trust through simplicity and evidence.

FedEx has invested billions in logistics infrastructure to ensure that ‘overnight’ means overnight. The brand promise isn’t aspirational. It’s contractual.

Because FedEx consistently delivers, the promise has become shorthand for reliability. Authentic brand communication doesn’t require emotional storytelling.

Sometimes, a clear functional commitment (delivered without fail) is the strongest brand strategy you can adopt. FedEx proves that examples of brand promises don’t need to be poetic to be powerful.

Innocent: “Tastes good, does good”

A warm, values-driven promise expressed through tone, packaging, and behaviour. Innocent’s brand promise combines product quality with ethical responsibility, wrapped in a tone of voice that feels human, playful, and genuinely kind.

Innocent backs this promise through transparent sourcing, B Corp certification, and community initiatives that go beyond tick-box exercises. The promise isn’t just written on the bottle.

It’s embedded in how the company operates, who it partners with, and how it communicates. This is a strong example of how brand experience can be shaped by tone as much as product.

Customers trust Innocent because the brand consistently shows up as the same warm, slightly cheeky, ethically minded company (whether you’re reading the label or visiting the website). It’s a masterclass in delivering on promises through every interaction.

For more inspiration on ethical positioning, explore our work with Zurich One, where we helped align brand promise with sustainability commitments.

Brand promise examples that don’t work

Not every promise lands. Some fail because they’re built on wishful thinking rather than operational reality. Others collapse when internal culture contradicts the external message.

Broken brand promises often start with good intentions, but without the systems, behaviours, and accountability to support them, they become liabilities. These examples show what happens when authenticity is missing and how quickly trust can evaporate once the gap between promise and practice becomes visible.

What’s particularly instructive is that these weren’t always failures. Both Victoria’s Secret and Uber had moments when their promises resonated strongly.

But as cultural values shifted, or as internal behaviour contradicted external messaging, the cracks appeared. Once trust is broken, it’s difficult to rebuild.

These cautionary examples of brand promises remind us that a promise isn’t static. It needs to evolve with your audience, stay aligned with your culture, and remain credible in the face of changing expectations.

Victoria’s Secret: empowerment vs exclusion

When cultural values shift and the brand fails to adapt, trust collapses. For years, Victoria’s Secret positioned itself around glamour and aspiration.

But as consumer expectations around inclusivity evolved, the brand’s narrow beauty standards became a liability. The promise of ’empowerment’ rang hollow when paired with imagery that excluded most women.

This disconnect between stated values and lived experience is a textbook example of broken brand promises. Customers didn’t feel seen; they felt judged. Victoria’s Secret has since attempted to reposition, but the damage to emotional connection in branding was significant.

The lesson? A promise only works if the brand evolves with its audience. Sticking rigidly to a formula that no longer reflects cultural expectations is a strategy for decline.

As Harvard Business Review notes, customers reward authenticity but punish brands that claim values they don’t genuinely hold. Brand perception can shift rapidly when promises feel performative.

According to research from Edelman, trust is now a primary purchase driver, and broken promises are one of the fastest ways to lose it.

Uber (early years): promise undermined by culture

A strong promise weakened by internal behaviour and reputational issues. Uber’s early brand promise was compelling: reliable, affordable, convenient transport at the tap of a button.

And on a functional level, the service delivered. But behind the scenes, reports of toxic workplace culture, driver exploitation, and regulatory battles undermined the promise.

These examples of brand promises show that what happens inside an organisation matters as much as what’s communicated externally. When a brand’s internal values clash with its public message, trust erodes (even if the product itself works).

Uber has since worked to rebuild its reputation, but the early years serve as a cautionary tale about alignment between promise and practice. A brand promise isn’t just marketing. It’s a cultural commitment.

If your teams don’t believe in the promise (or worse, if their behaviour actively contradicts it), customers will sense the misalignment. That’s why brand promise and employee engagement must be integrated from day one.

Lessons you can apply to your own brand

What can we learn from these examples of brand promises? Whether you’re refining an existing promise or building one from scratch, the patterns are clear.

Strong promises are rooted in truth, delivered with consistency, and aligned across every part of the organisation. The best brand strategy isn’t about finding the cleverest tagline.

It’s about identifying what your organisation genuinely does better than anyone else and committing to that with discipline. These lessons apply regardless of your sector, size, or stage of growth.

Whether you’re a challenger brand defining your promise for the first time or an established player refreshing your positioning, these principles will guide you toward a promise that works and lasts. Building a credible brand promise requires honest self-assessment.

You need to understand your genuine strengths, acknowledge your operational limits, and commit to delivering consistently. It’s harder than it sounds, but the brands that get it right reap long-term rewards in customer loyalty and sustainable growth.

Keep it believable

Stretch ambition, but only within what you can credibly deliver. A brand promise should inspire confidence, not scepticism, and build genuine customer loyalty through realistic commitments.

If your organisation isn’t operationally ready to fulfil a promise today, don’t make it. Work towards it, then communicate it once the evidence is in place. Overpromising damages loyalty faster than underpromising.

Customers are forgiving when brands set realistic expectations and exceed them. They’re far less forgiving when brands overhype and underdeliver. Keep your brand promise grounded in what you can prove.

Prove it daily

Promises are kept through repeated evidence, not statements. Every interaction is an opportunity to reinforce or undermine your brand promise.

That’s why delivering on promises requires more than marketing. It requires operational alignment, training, measurement, and accountability. The brands that build lasting trust don’t rely on campaigns.

They rely on consistency. Small acts of reliability, repeated over time, build stronger brand positioning than any advertising budget. Authentic brand communication is earned, not declared, and it’s what ultimately drives customer loyalty.

For practical guidance on embedding your promise into operations, explore our brand guidelines and activation services. See how we’ve helped clients like Hana operationalise their promises across multiple touchpoints.

Build internal alignment

Your teams must understand and live the promise for it to feel consistent. A brand promise isn’t a marketing asset.

It’s a behavioural guide. If your employees don’t know what the promise is (or don’t believe in it), customers will sense the misalignment immediately. Internal workshops, onboarding programmes, and performance frameworks should all reference the brand promise.

When everyone from customer service to product development understands their role in delivering it, the promise becomes embedded. That’s when it starts working. McKinsey research confirms that internally aligned brands see higher customer retention.

Strong brand positioning requires this kind of alignment. If you’re managing multiple sub-brands, consider how brand architecture can help maintain promise consistency. Our work with Amplius demonstrates how structural clarity supports promise delivery.

Make your brand promise work

Brand promise examples offer one of the clearest ways to understand what makes a promise stick or collapse. The difference between success and failure isn’t creativity.

It’s credibility, consistency, and the courage to align behaviour with message. Whether you’re inspired by Apple’s emotional connection, FedEx’s functional precision, or Innocent’s ethical warmth, the lesson is the same: strong promises are lived, not just written.

When organisations commit to delivering on promises across every touchpoint, trust follows. If you’re ready to refine your approach, now’s the time to audit what you’re promising.

The examples of brand promises we’ve explored (both successful and cautionary) show that authenticity isn’t optional. Without it, even beautifully crafted promises unravel.

For more insights on building resilient strategies, read our guide on future-proofing your brand promise. And explore how your promise connects to your broader mission in our article on brand purpose.

Need support refining or refreshing your brand promise? Explore Fabrik’s strategy and positioning services to build a promise that sticks and delivers.