Brigadoon Weekend
Connecting curious minds to curious ideas.
December 4, 2021
Ross Rant:
Brand purpose is essential - Are you doing it correctly?
As Jack Neff writes in AdAge: "Clearly you can't know a brand's purpose just by its name or products or ads."
To be successful and impactful, a brand's purpose needs to be more than a name, a logo, or the functionality of your app.
A successful and impactful brand purpose is an ethos that exists in the hearts and minds of your stakeholders.
A successful and impactful brand purpose becomes transformational and not transactional.
Many professional communicators frequently conflate brand purpose with cause marketing, often linking brands with causes that don't fit, make sense, or generally miss the mark.
"It's not cause marketing," Jim Stengel, former chief marketer at Procter & Gamble, says of brand purpose. "It's the core principle of your company. If it's not multifunctional, multidisciplinary, embraced by the CEO, something people talk about, measure, and put in performance reviews, it's not going to work. If it starts in marketing, stays in marketing, becomes a slogan, a tagline, a nice campaign, it's going to die."
Brand purpose to succeed needs to be embraced by all of your stakeholders and must have an evident ability to break through the noise.
Making purpose work
Nike's purpose is perfectly summed up with its "Just Do It" tagline.
This is one of the most persuasive examples of making purpose work as a brand's foundation. Nike's brand purpose is clear, and it envelopes all of its stakeholders with the grand mission of bringing inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
Another purposeful company is Dick's Sporting Goods, which announced it would stop selling guns and ammunition at all of its 125 stores.
"You know everybody talks about thoughts and prayers going out to them. That's great. That doesn't really do anything," CEO Edward Stack said. "We felt we needed to take a stand and do this."
"I basically said, 'I don't care what the financial implication is,'" he recalled at an appearance at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council.
When many are demanding action on access to guns in American and few doing anything, Stack made action for the purpose of the company. Action to be a good corporate citizen and action to do what is right regardless of the financial impact.
Amplifying purpose
For many brands, the purpose is to use what has worked for years and amplify that message.
When Walmart launched its "Save Money. Live Better." tagline in 2008 that came from an archived speech founder Sam Walton gave in 1992.
"At the time [of the new tagline], there was a fairly big backlash against Walmart being this giant company," Stephen Quinn, former Walmart US chief marketing officer, said. "The company was looking for a higher purpose beyond low prices, which was quite transactional." The tagline helped people inside and outside Walmart see the purpose of the company's mission to force down retail prices.
The tagline launched a communication effort that clearly explained how much money a Walmart customer would save and became an internal organizing principle for the company's employees.
Why purpose matters
The key to purpose is recalling its purpose.
"Purpose-led brand communications is not just a matter of 'make them cry, make them buy,'" Unilever CEO Alan Jope said at Cannes. "It's about action in the world."
Many professional communicators frequently conflate brand purpose with cause marketing, often linking brands with causes that don't clearly fit, make sense, or generally miss the mark.
Purpose, when matched with action and amplification, can help your company engage all stakeholders with inspiration and innovation and serve as an internal organizing principle.
Brand purpose is what you own, what you are shaping, what you are promoting, and what is driving you to compete for customers.
Brand purpose is more profound and more vibrant than cause marketing.
Brand purpose should be a multi-decade commitment rather than a short-term cause marketing fling.
-Marc
Five Weekend Reads:
Dentsu reveals a ‘New Worlds Order’ in 2022 creative trends report
IBB
How I avoid burnout: A West Point performance psychologist: Don’t fret what you can’t control, squeeze in micro-breaks whenever you can, and learn to relax on cue.
Arianne Cohen
Nuclear fusion: Why the race to harness the power of the sun just sped up: Advances in technology and funding have sparked optimism in an area that has promised much but delivered little in six decades.
FT
The Pentagon’s $82 million Super Bowl of robots: Inside a three-year competition that raises the question: How long until humans are obsolete?
WP
How Tiger tore up the rules of venture capitalism: The US investment fund is betting on global macro trends rather than fussing about individual stocks,
John Thornhill
Brigadoon Events:
Brigadoon Workshop: World 2022 | 7 Elections + 7 Topics
Marc Ross | Global Communications Strategist + CEO Advisor
Wednesday, December 8, 2021 | 12:00 - 2:00 pm ET
$150 - $300
In-person, Virtual, or On-demand
Sign up here.
Brigadoon Workshop: Communications 2022 | Strategy + Tactics
Marc Ross | Global Communications Strategist + CEO Advisor
Thursday, December 9, 2021 | 12:00 - 2:00 pm ET
$50 - $125
In-person, Virtual, or On-demand
Sign up here.
Brigadoon Monthly Call: Train yourself to be more creative
Major Tom Gaines + Dr. Angus Fletcher
Wednesday, December 15, 2021 | 2:00 - 2:45 pm ET
$15 - $45
Google Meet live or On-demand
Sign up here.
Brigadoon Store:
Brigadoon Membership
Yearly or Monthly subscriptions
Brigadoon Daily
Yearly or Monthly subscriptions
Brigadoon Deck | Q4 2021
Shop here.
Have a great weekend.
-Marc
Marc A. Ross | Founder + Chief Curator @ Brigadoon
Brigadoon is Global Street Smarts.
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