Many companies confuse culture with the slogan painted in the lobby or written somewhere in a handbook. The reality is vastly different. It doesn't matter how clever your tagline is or how centralized your internal values doc is placed – culture can't simply be written down for people to follow. It can only be put into words after it emerges from the way people work, act, and show up together. That's a lesson I learned first-hand.
Creating “Culture” Isn’t a Written Set of Values
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Culture is not a catchphrase
Many companies confuse culture with the slogan painted in the lobby or written somewhere in a handbook. The reality is vastly different. It doesn't matter how clever your tagline is or how centralized your internal values doc is placed – culture can't simply be written down for people to follow. It can only be put into words after it emerges from the way people work, act, and show up together. That's a lesson I learned first-hand.
Motivation needs to be earned
When I started Bordeaux & Burgundy, I believed clever statements would define who we were and who we'd become as a B2B marketing agency. I quickly learned the truth: you can't write culture into existence and expect people to suddenly adapt who they are, their work style and values. It's not that people didn’t care about the values we decided on – they genuinely did and even felt instinctively aligned with them on paper. But culture doesn’t take hold just because you follow through on what you wrote. If your culture isn’t already reflected in who your people are and how they work together, it won’t land.
Bordeaux & Burgundy wasn’t alone. In fact, most companies face this same disconnect. Gallup reports that only 27% of U.S. employees strongly believe in their company's values.
This is because when people log onto their laptops or walk into the office, they're not thinking about your slogan. They're thinking about their daily tasks, their deadlines, and that idea that's good, but not quite great yet. But how they approach those tasks – that’s culture. It’s whether they’ll get punished for failing or encouraged to try again. Whether they feel supported or second-guessed. This mindset isn't dictated by a rulebook; it's shaped by the actions and interactions of the whole team, day after day.
What is culture?
Culture is a demonstration of the unspoken choices your team makes daily. Completing a task is productivity. Jumping in spontaneously to help a colleague transform a good idea into a remarkable one... that's what culture is.
Culture is choosing kindness during stressful periods. It's staying late because you want to see your project over the finish line, not because someone told you to. It's a sense of ownership and pride that permeates everything your team touches.
A good culture can elevate a company, while a bad one can worsen it. While culture isn't the only thing that matters to employees, MIT Sloan found that a toxic work culture is 10 times more predictive of attrition than overall compensation.
In any marketing team – B2B, SaaS, or otherwise – culture shows up in how people collaborate under pressure, handle feedback, and elevate the work.
How vision becomes real
When people talk about company vision, it’s often big and bold – and that’s good. A strong vision sets direction, explains why the work matters, and shows people the role they play in where the company is going.
Vision should be simple, clear, and repeated often. Leaders need to communicate it in a way that connects to everyday decisions – not just big moments.
Culture is how the vision comes to life. It shows up in how people treat each other, handle pressure, and show up when no one’s watching. Vision sets the course, and culture is what keeps people going.
Whether you're in B2B marketing, SaaS marketing, or creating Hollywood blockbusters, fostering and nurturing culture is essential. That's where you come in…
The importance of leadership
A leader's job isn't to invent culture – it's to amplify what's working, clear away obstacles, and model genuine collaboration, humility, and enthusiasm daily.
"Lead by example" is a cliché for a reason. Real leaders don't recite values – they embody them. They don't just reward performance; they openly celebrate teamwork, effort, and empathy, shaping an environment that encourages these behaviors naturally. One well-known instance is former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who went through barista training — not because he had to, but to show what mattered. Or take Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, who personally reviewed thousands of listings early on to show that trust and quality were the responsibilities of everyone in the company.
But leadership isn't just reserved for the top. Anyone on any team can take ownership of culture. That’s how it scales.
Who's doing culture right?
Some of the most admired companies in the world get culture exactly right.
At Pixar, culture is baked into the way they work. Take their "Braintrust" meetings, where directors and writers tear apart each other's ideas with the sole aim of making them better. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO or a junior; anyone can give feedback, and anyone can get feedback.
Pixar is different because they've created a space where creativity can actually thrive, rather than just be thrown around as a keyword. That's why they don't just make great movies – they build stories (and teams) that last.
Your SaaS marketing campaigns don't need to win Oscars, but they do need to connect authentically with your audience. And just like a great movie, your culture starts with showing, not telling.
Culture is born from action
Forget just writing down your culture – start living it, observing it, and protecting it. Imagine your company wants to have an "entrepreneurial" culture. Most companies simply announce it to their teams and move on. Authentic culture needs to be embodied. You can ask yourself specific questions to get to the deeper root of how you’ll create this culture, or identify if it’s already in your organization:
- What meetings will nurture entrepreneurial thinking?
- How will your team live out entrepreneurship daily, weekly, and monthly?
- Can you measure entrepreneurial behaviors and align them with tangible goals?
- What tools will your team need to embrace this specific mindset?
- How will leadership visibly demonstrate entrepreneurial thinking every day?
You can apply these types of questions to any cultural value you’d like to implement. If it’s not an already present value, it is possible to create it. But you won’t achieve that on a slide deck, you’ll need to put in the work.
Next steps
Real culture is forged through action, and when your culture is authentic, it shows in everything you do – including your marketing. If you want to partner with a B2B marketing agency whose culture is lived, not just labeled, let's talk.
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