The past couple of years have seen a heated discourse around brand purpose. Is it lofty marketing without substance? Does anyone really care what brands have to offer on purpose beyond their product’s utility or service’s value? Is it just performative nonsense?
It’s easy to find oneself leaning toward the latter with some of the highfalutin posturing going around. We’ve all heard the over-the-top ideals that marketers try to associate with brands. They are well intentioned, but often ridiculous. On the other hand, we just saw Patagonia fulfill their brand purpose in the most legitimate way possible. Somewhere between declaring absurdist ambitions and leaving a world-changing legacy, there is room for everyday brands to get their purpose right and find a way to align with their customers' values.
With the fear of getting purpose wrong colliding with pressure to show your brand stands for something, many marketers are at a crossroads - unsure how to consider purpose development and struggling to make it fit with their brand. There are four areas today that I see as key to succeeding with purpose.
Find Your Role
There continues to be a flood of data showing consumers want businesses to take a stand on or contribute positively toward improving major global and societal challenges. Most recently a Public Affairs Council and Morning Consult survey points to significant expectations on behalf of consumers in these arenas. Brands may see this data and assume they need to immediately jump in and make grandiose statements on these issues. This urge to contribute needs to be thought through - no one wants to end up making tone-deaf marketing born out of haste.
Where I believe many go wrong is conflating brand purpose with broader CSR efforts. They can, and often should, be related but are not the same things. Before taking a stand on significant issues, brands should gut check what is feasible to achieve at a corporate level and if they would even be viewed as an authentic actor. The only thing worse than getting vocal about an issue you can’t really support is being perceived as trying to profit off of it.
What a brand should do to start is go back to what its customers care about and how its products fit into their lives. Perhaps a brand just produces a simple item, but understanding why people buy it and what kind of emotional or functional value it provides can lead to many purpose-forward avenues that stay true to the brand. This is not to say brands cannot take a stand on major issues. By all means, brands should be considering their resources and orienting themselves toward doing some good in areas people want them to. However, this work needs to be built up over time to show a consistent track record of tone, actions and customer understanding. These efforts can’t feel hollow or be underinvested in (more on this below).
Decide Your Level of Integration
After deciding what type of “purpose” is best to align the brand with, think about what level of integration is feasible. Factors such as channels, parent company relationships, budget, partners and more should all be considered here. A brand may choose to explore a bit of everything below or focus deeply in one area. For example, brands like Patagonia or REI focus more deeply on brand actions and business models that support their purpose while Nike or Sephora over-index on leveraging brand marketing for purpose and aligning their causes with customer experiences to bring it to the forefront.
Consider which level of integration is the right fit given current feasibility and then start building a roadmap to expand further from there. Brands likely won’t be able to do everything at once and it’s more important to get one aspect really right than to do several at a mediocre level.
Don’t Do Purpose Part-Time
Equally important is the notion of visibly delivering on purpose-driven work. As Max Lenderman recently wrote about in Adweek there is a lot of storytelling around purpose, but not nearly enough ‘story-doing’. While it can be important for customers to see marketing material that reflects their values and delivers a purpose-forward message, it needs to come through in other aspects of a brand experience as well. Talk is one thing, action is another. Once you are in the purpose game, it needs to truly be part of your evergreen brand identity.
Integrating purpose also means sticking with it during tough times. A recent opinion piece by Michael E. Kassan explores this topic in relation to the current economic climate. When financial pressures arise, brands are often quick to default back to short-term sales drivers and functional messaging to ensure customers don’t see them as disposable. This makes some sense rationally, but in the long-game of building a purpose driven brand it’s not a good look - especially with younger consumers who are keeping the receipts on this sort of behavior.
Own Up to Promises
Lastly, if a brand is making commitments and claims driven by purpose they should ensure they are being fulfilled. Lackadaisical executions following big promises are increasingly irritating for customers who want to buy from brands they trust and respect. Even if a brand can get away with not fully delivering on purpose-driven promises with its customers, it may not be able to avoid industry watchdogs. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) recently shared guidelines intended to show and govern how purpose is developed and managed. Similarly, with a more serious approach, the Netherlands’ Authority for Consumer Markets (ACM) recently investigated H&M on claims of greenwashed marketing claims. All of this to say, brands considering purpose need to take it seriously as groups are watching and calling attention to misleading or underinvested actors.
No doubt brand purpose and all the reputational baggage that comes with it will continue to be hotly debated. While there are certainly risks and pitfalls inherent in the effort to build an authentic brand purpose platform, it’s hard to argue that brands getting it right aren’t creating bigger, bolder, and more valuable experiences for their audiences.
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