The 3 Sizes of Purpose

This is a tangent. A bit I wrote for my agency, and it applies nicely here.

See, when a brand decides to do Good, it helps if it's strategic. Oftentimes the brands that do Good are brands built with Purpose. Depending on a brand's Purpose, you can imagine the kind of strategic Good they would bring to people.

Read on:

We spend a fair amount of time here at 22 thinking about what makes people talk about a brand. There are a lot of ways to inspire conversation, and fuel it. One is to build a brand around Purpose. A Purpose-driven brand is one that has a clear reason for being, beyond just making money. It has an incredibly focused direction that inspires internal folks and customers alike. It’s a company-wide belief that sets it on a mission.

Purpose-driven brands want to change things. They exist to enact change for the better on some scale. I’ve seen great brands aim for three sizes of change – Personal, Industry, and World. Let me explain.

Some brands decide their Purpose is to make someone’s life better. That’s personal. It has to do with features, benefits, something a customer can put in their pocket to save time or effort or money. The brand with a personal-sized Purpose says, “Hey customer, we believe your life can, and should be better, and we work every day to make that happen.” They phrase their own Purpose in much more specific terms, but you get the gist. It’s not always obvious that these are Purpose-driven brands, rather than just really strong marketers. Examples include Apple, BMW, and our client Publix Supermarkets. They all wake up every day with a Purpose. They invite people to buy by overdelivering.

Other brands decide their Purpose is to fix the industry. This is a larger scale Purpose, where a brand finds a common enemy with their customers; some injustice, or conspiracy, or failure of their industry. Some wrong to be righted. The brand with an industry-sized Purpose says, “Hey customer, we believe our whole industry can, and should be better, and we work every day to make that happen.” Examples include Southwest Airlines, Method, and Ally Bank (Google them, you know the spots). These brands invite people to not only buy, but also believe in their POV.

The biggest Purpose a brand can adopt is to make the whole world a better place. These brands claim that their belief about the world is so strong that their products are merely an expression of that belief. They sell the cause. They may reach to other industries to find other like-minded companies to partner with. They invite their competitors to do as they do, and welcome it. They envision utopia. They take the high road. You know these brands, and you’re probably seeing more of this advertising out there. Examples include Pepsi, Tom’s Shoes, Dove, SunChips (with an asterisk), as well as almost every organic food product and hybrid vehicle out there (now up to 40 in 2011, btw). These brands invite people not only to buy, and not only to believe in their POV, but to join the movement. To put their higher Purpose before lesser benefits like style, flavor, or price.

You can see the power of Purpose, and probably also see the challenge. No matter how big a brand’s Purpose is, it’s up to the company to deliver on that Purpose with its product and operations. You can’t really manufacture a trumped-up Purpose, because it will feel flimsy and people will call you out. That’s why Purpose can be harder to pull off than some other ways to get people to talk about your brand.

But wow. Making some real change? That’s pretty inspiring stuff. And totally worth it.

(* Some of these thoughts started with a great book by Roy Spence called, "It's not what you sell, it's what you stand for: Why every extraordinary business is driven by Purpose." Full credit to Roy and GSDM for their bits.)

Building a Belief Brand: Method

Here's a video link for ya. As far as keynote speeches at ad conferences go, this one's pretty good. Mainly because it gives you a glimpse into one of the biggest category-busting stories of the new millennium. (how you like that hype?)

I stole this guy's bio from some web site somewhere (the guys gets around to speak a lot).

Eric Ryan, Brand Architect and Co-Founder, Method
BIO: Eric makes soap. Really nice smelling soap that's non-toxic and good for the planet. Soap that's really beautiful, too, that makes people want to clean. He started Method in 2001 with his high school buddy Adam and has since built Method into a $100 million brand at retail — a brand that was ranked the 16th most innovative company in the world by Fast Company in 2008, and the 7th fastest growing company in America by Inc. Magazine in 2006. Today, Method has over 100 planet friendly cleaning products that can be found in stores across America, Canada and the UK. He's been named an eco-leader by Vanity Fair, a Food & Wine Tastemaker, an eco-revolutionary by Time Magazine, PETA's Person of the Year, and one of People Magazine's Sexiest People Alive. Okay, that last one's not true, but the others are. Eric lives in Marin with his wife Ingrid and two year-old daughter Anya, whose current favorite color is yellow.

And if you don't have time to watch the whole 20+ minute video, here are a few of my favorite quotes.

“Belief brands don’t have to spend as much in paid media. They’ll get more earned media because the story is stronger.”

“Own share of culture, not share of voice.”

“It’s no longer about building a mass market. It’s about building loyalty.”

(about their book, People Against Dirty: Detox Your Home) “By marketing a philosophy, you get people to pay $15 to read our ads.”

“We're spending less and less on trial, and more and more on loyalty.”

“I do think you can find some sort of belief in just about any brand today.”

The whole video of his speech is posted HERE.

I'm sure I'll re-visit Method's story in the future. It's a good one.

Being Good vs. Doing Good

I was looking at a company called Innocent today. They make fruit smoothies, and other foodstuffs. The products are all-natural, and their corporate ethics are squeaky clean. They’re doing “good” simply by being good.

It’s an interesting distinction. Some companies operationally ARE good (i.e. have a conscience), and then there are companies that go out and DO good.

Companies that ARE good: Tom’s of Maine, Innocent (drinks), Method (soap), Icelandic Glacial water, Starbucks fair trade coffees, Kashi and other organic foods, etc. A Hybrid car may fall into this category. They make internal decisions about how they run their business with one eye on profits, the other on impacting the world. The sustainability movement pushes for this sort of thing, and it’s a huge part of “good” marketing. Their customers are fans because of the way they do business.

Then there are companies that DO good. Many of those are featured in this blog. Pedigree helping shelter dogs, Quaker feeding the hungry, Diet Coke advocating heart health, Tropicana saving the rainforest, etc. These companies aren’t necessarily “green” or operationally “good” at all. But they see the value in helping society – not just for the world, but for their brand.

Ideally a company will do both. They’ll BE good, and they’ll DO good as well. But heck, I’ll settle for either.
They’re both very real reasons to choose one brand over another, especially in a parity category. (“Would you like to buy the soda that’s two cents cheaper, or the one that saves babies, ma’am?”)

So while WalMart keeps tweaking it’s operations to become more “green” (thanks in part to the efforts of SaatchiS), shoppers will be looking for ways that part of their consumer buck can go toward making the world a better place in the regular course of buying dog food.

Hey, lazy people can save the world too.