Branding Roundtable No. 2 – Purpose-Driven Branding

BRANDING MAGAZINE
MAY 2014
-
brandingmagazine.com
BRANDING
Purpose-Driven Branding

BRANDING MAGAZINE
Chuck Kent
Writer & Contributing Editor
chuck@brandingmagazine.com
David Brbaklic
Creative Director
david@brandingmagazine.com
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The Branding
Roundtable
B
R
#02
Branding Roundtable #02
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Purpose-Driven Branding
This month The Branding Roundtable
takes on the topic of purpose-driv-
en branding, that sometimes derided,
variously defined, aggressively re-
searched and rebutted, and still active
buzzword in the branding business.
While some early corporate propo-
nents – notably P&G, which led the ear-
ly charge in this direction – may have
backed off their emphasis on purpose,
leading branding firms, ad agencies
and PR groups are now active cham-
pions of the philosophy, and major
brands are still placing big bets on it.
But just what is this philosophy (one
that, like brand evangelism before
it, borrows its language from trends
in popular religion)? And where is
it headed? To find out, I contacted:
• Carol Cone, Global Practice Chair, Social+Purpose,
Edelman joined by colleagues Freya Williams and
Christine Arena, both Executive Vice Presidents in
the practice
• Tom Adams, Global Strategy Director, FutureBrand
• Mick McCabe, Chief Strategy Officer, Leo Burnett USA
• Russ Stoddard, Founder and President of Oliver Russell
We also welcome your comments, which can be left on the Branding Magazine article that
introduced this, the second eBook edition ofThe Branding Roundtable.
Chuck Kent
Moderator,The Branding Roundtable

BRANDING MAGAZINE
|The Branding Roundtable
4 / july 2014
How do you define purpose
relative to brands and the
companies that own them?
Tom Adams, FutureBrand
We define purpose as ‘why’ the brand or organization ex-
ists – its higher-order objective beyond making money
or attending to a specific functional need or market op-
portunity. It unifies everyone working for a company or
brand around a common cause that they are constantly
striving to address. A purpose, unlike a mission, is some-
thing that can never be completed. We are never finished
in our attempt to deliver on it, and it should motivate us
in our work every day. In our experience, purpose falls
into three different types:
• Institutional – build something enduring
• Moral – appeal to what is ‘right’ and worthwhile
• Values-driven – aim at higher collective ideals
However, it is worth underscoring that ‘purpose’ is only
one element of a strong brand. For us, it emerges from
an idea and works in harmony with values, personali-
ty and positioning – it’s not enough on its own to guide
brand decision-making and experience.
Carol Cone, Edelman
We think many people are still stuck in a mindset of ‘pur-
pose = our CSR initiative or cause marketing campaign’.
Our point of view on purpose is that for companies that are
doing it right, it isn’t about ‘how do we add purpose into our
brand’, it’s about the fundamental question of ‘why does
our company exist?’ (and ‘to create shareholder value’ is
not an answer). As such, it should be the central
animating idea of the company that defines the
business you are in, the role of your company in
the world, as well as what people who go to work
there every day do. Increasingly people are look-
ing for that purpose to have a positive impact on
society. All of this is what the brand articulates.
Some great examples of purpose include GE:
bringing imagination to the world’s toughest
challenges; Nike: bringing inspiration and inno-
vation to every athlete in the world; Chipotle’s
food with “integrity” providing “quality” food to
consumers, sourced in a humane and sustainable
ways; or Unilever: making sustainable living com-
monplace and IBM creating a smarter planet.
Mick McCabe, Leo Burnett
Purpose is very close to our hearts, as Leo
Burnett was an early pioneer on the purpose
front. It represents one of the core principles
that mark our Humankind process, behavior
and creative ideas as we work with all of our
clients... We define it as why a brand exists.
What its real motive is. What it’s trying to do
in the world. And when you commit to that, it’s
a powerful platform for brands, regardless of
category or competitive situation.

BRANDING MAGAZINE
5 / july 2014
Russ Stoddard , Oliver Russell
Purpose is the name we apply to the evolution of cor-
porate social responsibility as it moves from the realm
of the regulatory to the domain of consumer-driven be-
havior. Stakeholder groups, principally consumers and
employees, want to be part of something bigger than
themselves. They want their relationships and actions to
count toward doing good in their communities and the
world. Companies and their brands are uniquely situated
to assist in this movement by using their considerable
resources and networks to make this possible.
It isn’t about ‘how do we add
purpose into our brand’,
it’s about the fundamental
question of ‘why does our
company exist?
Carol Cone, Edelman

BRANDING MAGAZINE
6 / july 2014
Is purpose a corporate-level
driver/necessity or can it be
implemented purely brand by
brand?
Carol Cone, Edelman
It depends on how the company is structured - whether
the company is a branded house or a ‘house of brands’.
The best-run companies will have a central corporate-level
purpose. But in a ‘house of brands’ structure, where con-
sumers interact with product brands, that doesn’t preclude
them from having brand-level purpose missions and initia-
tives too - in fact, that is best practice. Some of our clients
with well-established corporate purposes are now creating
purpose statements for each of their brands or business
units. Unilever and Mars are examples. Each brand needs
to do its part to deliver the corporate purpose.
We don’t believe it works as well the other way – pur-
pose-driven brands not supported by a central corporate
purpose.
Russ Stoddard, Oliver Russell
It starts at the corporate level with leadership in the C-suite
and strong board support. It’s not about an ad campaign. It’s
not about a brand manager pitching a product or a service
with the intent of goosing short-term sales; it’s a long-term
strategy that delivers ROI in the form of customer and em-
ployee loyalty.
It’smostpowerfulwhenacompanyhasabighumanpurpose
that is given texture and dimension in the world through its
individual brands. For instance, Nintendo as a company has
a purpose that embraces the transformative, powerful good
that can come when we play. And its consoles like Wii U and
3DS, and Mario, Pokémon, Zelda all in different ways allow
people to access that purpose and for it to be real, alive and
thriving in the world. They all serve the big purpose but do it
in their own charismatic, idiosyncratic, fun way.
In our experience, for purpose to be meaningful it has to
start at the organizational level – uniting everyone behind
a common cause and driving decision making in every as-
pect of the business and brand. Products and services then
demonstrate it in action by interpreting it in context in ac-
cordance with consumer needs. Done properly, purpose is
as much about supply chain decisions at a category level, or
corporate financial operating procedures and M&A, as it is
about individual brand beliefs
[In the example of Unilever] the organizational purpose to
‘make sustainable living commonplace’. The apparent par-
adox in its plan to ‘halve impact and double growth’ by 2020
has influenced the way the organization works, as well as
the consumer products it sells, including building a new el-
ement into its brand model, changing product formulations,
packaging and marketing messages – particularly in the
deodorant category. It also performs extremely highly in our
forthcoming reappraisal of the top 100 most valuable global
companies by brand strength (the FutureBrand Index).

BRANDING MAGAZINE
7 / july 2014
From a brand-positioning stand-
point, do you see this as a task of
corporations and/or their brands
adoptinganewpurposeoruncovering
anexisting,inherentpurpose?
For purpose to work, it needs to be true. Which means
the work of developing purpose should always be about
articulating something that the organization or the brand
genuinely believes in and is motivated by. You can’t fake
it, and it should never be thought of as a marketing line
or a claim.
People need to see a brand’s purpose in its actions. In
a sense, this is easier for relatively new brands – like
Method or Skype or TOMs – which are in a position to ar-
ticulate their purpose or cause from the outset and build
their decisions and reputation around it. For brands or
organizations with more history, and complex latent as-
sociations, it is important to go back to their founding
principles in search of the reason they were created.
What bigger need or issue were they developed to ad-
dress? What was the context of their invention? This is
often a fruitful starting point for a development of ‘why’
the brand is here and the higher-order objective that au-
thentically motivates the people who manage it.
Carol Cone, Edelman
Again, it depends. Often with large companies there
is some great legacy purpose that can be mined as a
springboard to a contemporary expression of their pur-
pose. More corporations than you might expect had so-
cial purpose in their DNA when they were founded, and
that purpose may have gotten lost along the way, or may
need to evolve to make it relevant to a world that has
changed (e.g. Unilever was ‘make hygiene common-
place’, now updated to ‘make sustainable living com-
monplace’; IBM, Hershey, Kodak, Mars and many more
did too). This lends real authenticity to the purpose. In
other cases, there may be an opportunity to invent some-
thing fresh.
From experience, I have found it more useful to look in-
side the brand to find a purpose. Brands are treasure
troves, but you often have to look and dig a little to find
the purpose and soul that can, overtime, get a little fog-
gy. Importantly though, the placing of a brand’s purpose
in the context of the times makes it magnetic. Allstate
has had the Good Hands at the center of its brand for 50+
years, but it’s longevity is because lots of smart people
over the years have added to the meaning of it, and given
it new life as the culture has changed. So the character
of Mayhem is a thoroughly timeless idea, that gets his
resonance from the here and now of people texting and
driving and people applying makeup on the way to work.
“…for purpose to
be meaningful it
has to start at the
organizational level…”

BRANDING MAGAZINE
8 / july 2014
For new, smaller companies, say a startup or a social
venture, this isn’t as much of an issue – they start with a
clean slate at a different point in time with a market that
is increasingly responsive to purpose. This is more chal-
lenging for large brands with a 100-year track record but
little definition as to purpose beyond the profit imper-
ative. There’s likely a purpose that can be uncovered –
companies can find it in the needs of their customers,
the supply-chain of their industry, or perhaps in their
operating geography. If this doesn’t work, senior lead-
ership can strategically use the occasion to mark a new
day in the company’s history and shape purpose through
buy-in from customers, employees, suppliers, and com-
munities.
The placing of purpose in the
context of its times makes it
magnetic

BRANDING MAGAZINE
9 / july 2014
What do you see as the
essential elements of a
purpose-driven brand?
Human truth. A purpose that allows people to access
the great heights of the human condition, and the possi-
bility of us at our best is irresistible. And tension. The
best tensions have friction, conflict and an enemy that a
brand is trying to help right on behalf of people. Without
it, I have found purpose to wilt a little.
You’re really trying to create a public benefit with your
for-profit company. This starts with corporate gover-
nance. You have to be accountable and transparent in
your actions, and they have to be just that – actions,
not words. You also need to create a progressive, val-
ues-based work environment and demonstrate strong
citizenship in your communities, which ranges from the
cities in which you operate to the social networks of your
followers. The last essential element? Effectively tell-
ing your company, product, or service story with mini-
mum hyperbole. The best way to do accomplish this is to
embody purpose and create a company and brands that
people absolutely love, and then make it easy for them to
tell your story for you
Carol Cone, Edelman
To us, the two most important elements of a pur-
pose-driven brand are authenticity and integration. It’s
one thing to believe in something, and another thing to
stand for it. True purpose-driven brands leverage their
purpose fully. They consistently act on it, rather than just
talking about it. Purpose is clearly integrated into the
brand identity, the corporate culture and operations from
product development, to sourcing of materials, philan-
thropy and CR strategy, even distribution systems. So
consumers see, feel and experience the purpose by en-
gaging with the brand – and soon, the purpose becomes
the central powerful influence why people keep coming
back to buy more.
We measure brand strength in terms of balancing di-
mensions relating to ‘purpose’ and ‘experience’. So
whilst we think purpose is vital, it’s just one half of the
story of a successful brand. The purpose aspect is com-
prised of three dimensions – it has a compelling vision
for the future, redefines the category and delivers sus-
tainable value.
Within each of these dimensions we have a further
set of attributes that help us to calibrate the brand and
measure perceptions of its strength of purpose. These
are: Inspiration, Authenticity, Innovation, Thought Lead-
ership, Individuality, Indispensability, Resource Manage-
ment and Price Premium. This means that the brand
needs to be seen to care about the long term and lead its
category, as well as making itself vital to people’s lives
and deliver against long term commercial and environ-
mental objectives. Purpose is not a matter of a single
line that everyone can remember – or ‘checking the box’
of new marketing fads. It has to be put into action so that
consumers and employees give you the credit for it.
Carol Cone, Edelman
True purpose-driven brands …
consistently act on it, rather than
just talking about it.

BRANDING MAGAZINE
10 / july 2014
What are the primary benefits
of purpose-driven branding?
Carol Cone, Edelman
Purpose-driven brands win people’s hearts and minds.
They generate more loyalty, trust, love and respect than
any other kind of brand. This is an incredibly import-
ant thing to keep in mind, especially as we enter an era
where socially conscious millennials are in the driver’s
seat. There is an increasing amount evidence of pointing
to the need for deeper, purposeful brand strategy, and
the benefits of acting on purpose:
• 90% of consumers around the world want the brands
they do business with to share their core values; while
just 10% of people believe think brands do it well enough
(Edelman brandshare, 2014).
• The vast majority of marketers – 81% in fact – see
purpose as a business opportunity, while 84% believe
purpose will be increasingly important to building their
brands (WFA Brand Purpose research, 2013).
• WPP’s 2012 BrandZ study demonstrated that busi-
nesses with a purpose beyond pure profit were growing
at double the rate of other brands.
The ‘FutureBrand Index’ (our new global quantitative
research study of the perceptions of the Top 100 glob-
al companies by market capitalization) shows that when
the global public have strong perceptions of an organi-
zation managing a balance between purpose and expe-
rience – we define these as ‘future brands’ - the clear
majority agree strongly that they would buy products and
services from them, would work for them and strongly
agree that the organization commands a price premium.
These results are significantly above the average per-
formance across our study. If these stated preferences
correlate to decision-making, purpose would seem to
be a contributor to tangible commercial advantages like
improved sales, profitability and being an employer of
choice. Interestingly, there are some organizations in the
study that have a bias of strength perceptions towards
purpose, and they do not perform as well as those which
demonstrate a balance – hinting that purpose on its own
is not enough to make a brand future-proof.
To galvanize an organization and all of its constituents
around a common mission and belief. People want to
join, commune and connect but they do so most passion-
ately when they have something in common and when
they share something. All religions, powerful organiza-
tions, clubs and brands know the uniting power of pur-
pose. NASA could be about going to the Moon. But more
powerfully its purpose is: To reach for new heights and
reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will
benefit all humankind. Feels very different.
In the workplace, it’s increased productivity, coupled with
an edge in recruiting talent and retaining your best peo-
ple. In the market, it’s a key differentiator for a large and
growing segment of consumers. For the majority of the
market, you still have to compete with cost, quality and
convenience considerations. But all things being equal,
purpose brings a mighty hammer to the party.
“…purpose would seem to
be a contributor to tangible
commercial advantages.

BRANDING MAGAZINE
11 / july 2014
What have been, and will
be, the main obstacles to
implementing and executing
purpose-driven brands.
Getting agreement is usually hard because how do you
get thousands of people to rally around a single thought?
That’s why the good ones are so powerful. Additionally,
often purpose seems to smell of non-profit in the com-
mercial world. That’s the mistake. Purpose is actual-
ly an economic engine because it provides focus for an
organization, it makes decision making more productive
and it draws customers and talented people to a brand
when they have a purpose that matters.
The biggest challenge in good branding of any kind is to
make brand a decision-making filter for every aspect of
the business – from supply chain decisions and partner-
ships to service principles, packaging, retail and com-
munications. When you think of brand as an agent of
business success in the broadest terms, instead of just
for marketing, then it can have a positive effect inside
and outside.
However, this is often hard to achieve in complex organi-
zations with shareholder pressure and strong competi-
tion where the default position is inertia and doing things
in ‘proven’ ways, or relegating brand to logos, design and
advertising. Where purpose is involved, particularly at the
organizational level, it really needs to mobilize the whole
company, but be clearly sponsored and developed by the
executive leadership group. As a result, the most fre-
quent challenge we face is helping larger organizations
to embed and sustain purpose across multiple functions
and markets – to make it meaningful and actionable in
people’s everyday work. There is frequently appetite for
an articulation of ‘why’ they are here, but this can get lost
in translation as thinking moves from the boardroom to
the front line.
[The main obstacle is] patting purpose on the head like a
little tow-headed do-gooder instead of recognizing it for
the powerful market force it’s fast becoming. Or look-
ing at it in the old cause-marketing paradigm as a way to
create a short-term sales bump with a one-off promotion
to benefit a nonprofit. This isn’t first and foremost about
a transaction; it’s about forging a relationship and brand
loyalties that lead to a lifetime of repeat purchasing.
Carol Cone, Edelman
Wethinktheevidencepointstothestrongestcasesbeingbuilt
when it comes right from the top – from the CEO. Another
critical need is a senior-executive, cross-functional team to
drive the purpose and supporting initiatives, as well as bring
individual resources to the table. Third, this work should be
viewed as essential to supporting the organization’s growth
strategy, not a siloed exercise. Fourth, set clear success met-
rics from the beginning, with ongoing reporting. And finally,
transparency as to what is working and what is not.

BRANDING MAGAZINE
12 / july 2014
Is purpose-centered business
a truly global strategy, or
more applicable in the west or
developed economies?
Carol Cone, Edelman
It is global. In fact, leading companies such as Gap,
Natura, Tupperware, Goldman Sachs, P & G, BMW and
Unilever have ongoing programs in Latin America, India,
China and Africa. Many markets outside of the US/devel-
oped economies are even more open to this – and have
greater need for it given the opportunity to meet many
unmet needs, and the freedom to create brands specifi-
cally for a 21st century consumer.
I think people are people, last time I checked. Human
beings want and need purpose whether in India or in
Ireland. Organizations want and need unity and focus
whether in UAE or the USA. That is undeniable.
It is emerging as a cliché that a preoccupation with pur-
pose is a luxury for rich consumers, or organizations
attending to the newest fad in brand thinking, and that
people in less developed economies are somehow less
sophisticated and still catching up with the West. In our
experience, articulating ‘why’ a brand is here – to im-
prove lives, rid the world of disease or help children to
learn through play – is as meaningful to employees and
consumers in Tsingtao as it is in Texas. It’s not enough on
its own, of course. It needs to be connected with some-
thing tangible and real human benefits.
Lego is universally loved because it knows how to make
toys that encourage children’s imagination. It’s not moti-
vated by selling more bricks, but by inventing the future
of play. And every time a child picks up a Lego model
in Moscow, Shanghai or Denmark, I would argue they
feel that too. They sell more bricks, but because of what
they believe in, not as an end in itself. Rediscovering this
purpose is perhaps why they have grown to become the
world’s second largest toy company over the last several
years.
Actually, there’s strong research that shows the move-
ment of purpose-driven consumers and business is more
advanced in the world’s developing economies than it is in
the U.S. or the West. Fancy that, we’re playing catch-up.
The main obstacle
is patting purpose
on the head like a
little tow-headed do-
gooder instead of
recognizing it for the
powerful market force
it’s fast becoming
Mick McCabe, Leo Brunett
Human beings want and
need purpose whether in
India or in Ireland

BRANDING MAGAZINE
13 / july 2014
A purpose is not necessarily values-driven, as I men-
tioned earlier, but where it makes sense to be so, it has
an opportunity to connect strongly with a demographic
invested in related causes. Then the brand must deliv-
er. Consumption trends do show that younger people are
keen to make multiple identifications with different caus-
es, rather than a single ideology, and that this might be
a reflection of their unique social context with the rise of
the digital age and ubiquitous, unfiltered access to peo-
ple and information. But for this reason, they don’t take
organizations or brands at face value – they challenge,
expect authenticity and substance behind the things they
believe in. So purpose needs to be built into actions, not
just words or claims.
Carol Cone, Edelman
We are not sure you can generalize - the purpose has to
make sense within the context of the brand and category,
it has to have a demonstrable benefit to the end consum-
er, as well as connect with them emotionally. So there’s
no reason to think that wouldn’t be something all gen-
erations can get behind. That being said, we do believe
millennials have radically different expectations of busi-
ness and of brands. This is accelerating the movement
to purpose strategy.
Even though it’s a nearly universal drive,
there’s still a continuum of purpose across ev-
ery demographic or generational group. For
some, it’s passionately strong. For another
slice, not so much. But remember, these are
at the poles of the continuum. Our research –
and that of others – clearly demonstrates that
nowhere is a desire for purpose as deeply felt
as it is with millennials. Millennials want to
work for companies that create social impact,
and they want to partner with companies and
purchase from brands to create social impact.
The affects of these desires will be magnified
as the largest generational group in history
moves into its prime income generating years.
And don’t compare apples to oranges: as a
brand, you want to make sure you understand
what triggers the highest involvement from
your diverse audiences.
Millennials are vocal and strident about it
for sure and all the research points to this,
but clearly purpose is a human thought not a
demographic thought. The Greatest Gener-
ation, as Tom Brokaw said, was a generation
for whom purpose was part of their lives.
Much has been made about millennials’ desire/demand for a
sense of purpose, or support of their own causes, and this as
being a driver of the trend. Do you see purpose as motivating
across demographic groups, or only to some?
“…there’s still a continuum of purpose across every
demographic or generational group.”

BRANDING MAGAZINE
14 / july 2014
The 2014 Deloitte Core
Beliefs and Culture Sur-
vey shows that employees
don’t necessarily believe
the hype – only 30% identi-
fy with their organization’s
declared purpose, and
even fewer see it is a fac-
tor in how business deci-
sions are made. Do you see
this as seriously undercut-
ting the potential for pur-
pose-driven brands, given
that employees must bring
them to life – and if so, how
would you correct it?
TheonlygroupwithabettersnifferforcorporateB.S.than
consumers is employees. The Deloitte findings likely indi-
catethatemployeesdon’tseetheirorganization’scorporate
purposeasgenuine,ortheydon’trelatetoitasacommu-
nity, or the company hasn’t done a good job of communi-
cating its story internally. We see this as a big opportunity
–mostcompaniestargettheirpurposestoriesexternallyto
payingcustomersfirst,whentheyshouldbegininternally.
Carol Cone, Edelman
The problem here lies with the way leaders are be-
having, how seriously the purpose is being taken and
communicated, whether employees feel involved and
engaged in the process of developing the purpose (at
companies that excel at this, they were) and to what ex-
tent expectations of employees have been clearly set -
not with the concept of purpose itself.
You can’t just slap a purpose on and expect the world to
change - it takes commitment over the long term, lead-
ership (leaders must be seen living and championing the
purpose), training, ensuring you have the right skill-sets
if new ones are needed, and a process of employee en-
gagement - working with each team and department to
articulate what it means to them and what their part is in
delivering it. The good news is that in companies that get
this right, productivity and employee retention are sig-
nificantly higher than elsewhere.
This may be a matter of a weak purpose or a perhaps
more likely a purpose that is written on walls and in doc-
uments but not behaviorally embraced. A lip service
purpose. We look for belief through actions and so peo-
ple can tell when something is real. One of our clients is
Samsung. When you go there, you definitely believe that
this is a company that is using technology to positively
change the world. The products, the culture, the people,
the marketing all live up to this. The trick is always align-
ing purpose with behavior. That’s the difference between
a great one on paper and a really great one in action.

BRANDING MAGAZINE
15 / july 2014
These difficulties have probably emerged because the organizations have not yet
embedded purpose into their actions, or connected their actions with their purpose
in people’s minds. There are many reasons why this might be the case, and it is not
an easy task, but it does not diminish the potential for purpose-driven brands. Cor-
recting this difficulty can come from three related approaches:
1. Ensure that purpose is developed with and for your people – not imposed on
them as a mandate. This is a matter of co-creation and inspiration; making people
feel they are joined together to do something important. So coercion and ‘train the
trainer’ are not the answer.
2. Demonstrate that purpose is influencing the decisions and behaviours of your
leadership, celebrate it, and show how purpose sometimes means making difficult
choices.
3. Don’t talk about purpose until you demonstrate it is already built into what you do.
There is nothing more powerful than an example.
The problem here lies
with the way leaders
are behaving, how
seriously the purpose
is being taken
Carol Cone, Edelman

BRANDING MAGAZINE
16 / july 2014
Carol Cone, Edelman
We think it’s important to know who you are as a brand
and a business, where you have permission to play, and
to approach purpose in a way that is authentic to your
culture and your brand. If you’re Axe, you approach this
in a tongue in cheek way and bring humor to the table.
Chipotle has found that consumers are quick to let them
know if they feel they’ve gone too far in the ‘food with
integrity’ movement. Brands can meet all kinds of hu-
man needs and being purpose-driven doesn’t neces-
sarily mean playing at the top of Maslow’s pyramid. A
simple bar of soap and education about hand washing
meeting basic needs for safety is one of the most direct
and meaningful brand stories out there at the moment.
But don’t underestimate the power of some of the things
brands and business can enable. We all want our lives
to mean something and if brands can help add to that in
some way, so much the better.
I see more signs of under reaching from brands. They
can be more to people, by helping people be more. Some
of our most successful and ambitious brands that, on the
product level, make cereals, deodorants, milk, checking
accounts, and French fries, through embracing purpose
have become famous, successful and beloved because
they hold themselves to a different and higher standard.
That’s what purpose can do.
The risk is primarily for companies that are disingenu-
ous, superficial, or unnecessarily beat their chests. Peo-
ple see through this. Anyway, I don’t believe people ex-
pect brands to provide 100% of their recommended daily
allowance of fulfillment. But let’s get real – our work and
our relationships have always defined our desire to move
up Maslow’s pyramid toward discovering the meaning of
our lives. This is at the heart of successful branding –
providing affiliation, a sense of community, and the abili-
ty to be part of something larger than yourself.
Purpose has become shorthand for ‘brand strategy’ in recent
times and this needs correcting. Where purpose-driven is an
appropriate description, it is not always values-driven, i.e.
aiming at higher collective ideals… Strong brands articulate
a ‘why’, but they still have to make sure they offer a relevant
benefit to their target consumer, and that they continue to be
sufficiently unique and differentiated from their competition
to drive choice. I want to feel that my favourite brand shares
my beliefs, but I also need it to be the best choice for the job
it does. And when it comes to human meaning, the same is
true now as it has always been: if you have an existential is-
sue, you are not going to find the answer on the shelf.
Doyouseeanyrisk,orsigns,ofoverreachinginpurpose-drivenbranding
–particularlyintheimplicationthatthroughthisapproachbrandscanhelp
meet the core human desire for existential meaning, for higher purpose
(this marketing philosophy does, after all, borrow its name from a hugely
popularbookonreligion,ThePurpose-DrivenLife)?
“…if you have an existential
issue, you are not going to find
the answer on the shelf.”

BRANDING MAGAZINE
17 / july 2014
NEXT MONTH
on The Branding Roundtable:
Employment branding
Moderator:
Chuck Kent
Independent Brand Strategist, Writer &
Contributing Editor, Branding Magazine

www.brandingmagazine.com
Disclaimer
© 2014 Branding Magazine. Some Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner
without written permission from the publisher, except in the context
of reviews.
Branding Magazine accepts no liability for any unsolicited material
whatsoever.
Opinions contained in the editorial content are those of the
contributors and not necessarily those of the publisher of Branding
Magazine.
Despite careful control Branding Magazine accepts no liability for the
content of external links.
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respective owners.

Branding Roundtable No. 2 – Purpose-Driven Branding

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Branding Roundtable No. 2 – Purpose-Driven Branding