The superpower of purpose.
January 2021 and the country is in lock-down for the third time in a year.
Home-working, home-schooling, tier systems, essential workers, daily exercise, self-isolation, zoom quizzes, support bubbles…. all the new norm. We’re all finding ways to live and find the small pleasures from a locked-down life.
But amidst the craziness, people are having more time to think, reset and revaluate the things that are important to them - in between zoom meetings, a 6-year-olds English lesson or that early morning meditation where you just fell back to sleep.
Brands are playing an ever more active and important role in each of our lives and people are now more than ever, consciously and subconsciously, drawn to brands with true purpose. People are buying from businesses that stand for something and show empathy and a commitment to the issues that matter to them. And brands are finally appreciating the importance of real authenticity in building their customers trust and, the holy grail, brand loyalty.
If we were superheroes, our purpose would be our superpower.
So, what does it mean to have purpose? It isn’t just a nice vision and mission statement somewhere in the depths of your website or a ‘nice to have’ in a presentation. Purpose goes beyond making money and taps into the emotional reasons a business was started or a product/service developed. It goes back to our ‘Why?’.
Once properly understood and articulated, a brands purpose should permeate through everything a business does and underpin every decision it makes. And if something doesn’t align to our purpose, we shouldn’t be doing it. Which means, being true to our purpose can lead to missing out on an opportunity that doesn’t fit. But it’s a short term sacrifice for a long-term commitment to our brand, our customers and potentially society as a whole.
It’s easy to spot the brands with strong purpose. Uber used their advertising space to tell people to ‘stay home’ at the start of the pandemic, counterintuitive to business sales. They also told people to delete their App if they ‘tolerate racism’.
Starbucks #whatsyourname campaign in 2019 aimed at raising awareness of the real life experiences of trans people. Burger King’s ‘There’s more to life than a Whopper’ initiative to support local businesses during the pandemic, so refreshing from such a big business.
Uber - https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/uber-urges-stay-home-free-rides-coronavirus-relief/
Uber - https://adage.com/creativity/work/best-2020-no-9-uber-tells-racists-delete-uber/2277281
Starbucks - https://www.creativereview.co.uk/starbucks-diversity-advertising-award/
Burger King - https://adage.com/creativity/work/burger-king-lends-its-instagram-account-indie-restaurants-help-them-during-lockdown/2301111
These are examples of big brands with big budgets and big platforms supporting big societal change.
But even the smallest brands can have purpose that makes a real difference to their customers and society – however big or small. Your brand purpose could be as simple as ‘to spread a little happiness with the products you sell’ – now, that would be a fun purpose to have – and if this is it, every single bit of your marketing and customer journey should honour this.
It’s important to note, having a brand purpose is not the same as being ‘seen to be do the right thing’ for PR purposes – people will see through this immediately.
A brand purpose should be authentic and a long term commitment. Not a faze.
Some advantages to brand purpose:
Having a brand purpose helps build a more emotional and loyal relationship between brand and consumer
It adds value not just to the lives of customers but to society as a whole
A unique brand purpose differentiates
It helps to attract the best talent
It makes everyone who works for and with a business feel part of something bigger than making money - and that makes everyone feel good!
Need help unlocking your Brand Purpose? Everyone has one, it sometimes just needs a bit of work to tease it out and define.
Seed can help with that.