Two important benefits of brand purpose

  by Nigel Hollis

Laurence Green does not believe that we have reached “peak purpose”. As he wrote in a recent opinion piece his experience of judging Best Use of Brand Purpose at the 2017 WARC Awards led him to conclude that purpose was alive and well.

Sensibly the judges discarded entries that failed to evidence a deeper commitment to purpose, one that was tied to an ongoing social mission at ‘enterprise level’, instead focusing in on those campaigns which originated from a higher order version of ‘purpose’. Further, the judges sought out the cases where there was evidence of real business outcomes in the form of sales gains, share swings and ideally profit returns that would not have occurred otherwise.

While I do believe that brands which pursue a purpose that it baked into their DNA perform better than others it is difficult to prove that a purpose-led campaign has performed better than a campaign more tangential to the brand’s social purpose might have done. As I stated in this blog post earlier in the year,

“All we can say in retrospect is that by pursuing a purpose that originates from what the brand could stand for the campaigns achieved a good return on investment.”

After all strong business results do not just originate from a sense of purpose, the same investment put into a different campaign idea might have worked just as well.

On reflection, I think there are two basic advantages conveyed by a strong and authentic sense of purpose. The first is called out by Green in his opinion piece when he suggests that purpose can have strong internal effects on morale, retention and recruitment. He notes the judges’ surprise that few papers addressed this benefit because,

“Not only do we know these effects to be strong (witness Unilever’s popularity as an employer brand) but we also know that they crystallize quickly, typically well ahead of sales: if only because the company has been ‘briefed’ well in advance of the consumer.”

Secondly, when the bar for marketing success is set ever higher by our search, skip and share culture purpose provides the basis for a compelling and consistent platform on which to build an integrated set of content likely to engage and motivate an otherwise disinterested audience.

But what do you think? Are we at peak purpose yet or is it simply that too many brands fail to really understand the need for authenticity and commitment? Please share your thoughts.