A couple of ideas are swirling around my head as I am typing this up. Nothing new there, as this brain box is usually full of useful and not so useful thoughts.
This time the ideas that are circling have been triggered by the announcement made by the new Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher on the selective role Purpose will be playing as a brand-building tool for the brands in the company’s portfolio moving forward, and some of my direct observations on how this is being used by clients and agencies in the process alike. I am a fan of his approach, here’s why.
1) Thank you, Mister Schumacher.
For saying something that makes so much sense and yet has been so proliferated in our industry, to the point that it’s not just FMCG giants that have embraced Purpose as the absolute truth justifying the existence of a brand. Every brand under the sun seems to have pivoted in this direction whether it makes sense for its business, category, differentiation; regardless of it having the commitment to deliver on it beyond the point where it has been developed and penned into the brand model, instead of remaining a phrase no one ever pays attention to, or it can deliver on in the long-term.
There’s a lot written around the growth of Purpose-led businesses and how they outperform models that are not Purpose-led. However, perhaps it is time to actively, aggressively and unequivocally evolve this conversation in the direction of businesses that can genuinely claim Purpose as a brand-building tool and have a credible why behind the use of it versus advocating and embracing it simply because it might sound good.
Common sense tells us that businesses such as Patagonia, set up with bigger environmental and societal goals in mind, are authentic in their adoption and implementation of Purpose. Their entire business model, everything they do, top to bottom, left and right, is aligned to their Purpose or starts with a Purpose in the first place and they do not ever deviate from it. This does not follow that every apparel business that is set up with environmental and societal aspirations needs a Purpose. Some just sell socks made out of recycled materials from a box in Shoreditch Park and pop-ups around the world and a mission and a vision to steer the brand are just fine.
Why not a Purpose? Firstly, from a nuanced and semantic perspective, it can seem incroyable to claim a pair of socks can change the world. Or a house-cleaning brand can change the world – I think this is where Hein Schumacher’s statements fit in.
Secondly, brand building relies heavily on planning and implementation beyond the initial set-up to deliver differentiation and growth, therefore long-term success is more about constant, on-point and measurable management than about the information captured in the brand model. So naturally, what Schumacher is advocating for is credible brand claims and proper, long-term, measurable implementation.
2) As a customer, sometimes I want to buy ice-cream, socks and house-cleaning products.
I welcome the stance taken by Hein Schumacher as something that might make my life as a customer simpler. It can be exhausting from a customer perspective to be dealing with brands that claim to save the planet, extinct species, and make the world a better place all the time.
I want to buy brands that elevate the product and service that they stand for, give it a little extra, a little oomph so it stands out. An ice-cream brand can still provide a treat, a car brand can still get you from A to B in style. A pair of underwear can still be just sexy and sell, it does not need to solve equality, inclusivity, and gender issues to persuade. This is a clear jab at one of my pet-peeve rebrands, Victoria’s Secret, and their Purpose-driven reinvention which it is now turning away from (because it is not the job of lingerie to change the world).
3) Contrary to expectations, there has not been a lot of push-back against his statements.
Perhaps this means there were a lot of sighs of relief going around client businesses and agencies that help create, build, and manage brands instead? Relief at the fact that proper branding, let alone Purpose-led branding, are hard to develop and most importantly execute well.
That transformation programmes that allow businesses and brands to align themselves to a higher Purpose are time-consuming, resource-guzzling and need to stay the course with voracity beyond development and into long-term implementation to credibly work. That they should be actively measured and constantly tracked for their claims to transfer into tangible results, as it the case for any brand.
I have been working with clients and agencies for 12 years and I have never once seen a brief asking agencies to deliver measurable and quantifiable results (in the form of before and after parameters), or a brief template going out from an agency to a client asking the respective organisation to specify the measurable objectives in terms of awareness, engagement, conversion that we were supposed to deliver on. I have seen briefs that were doing one or the other but NOT ONCE a brief that was top to down comprehensive and assessing the brand or the work in question based on performance.
This is in the context of working with brands led by a Mission and a Vision, so the point that I am making is that Purpose-led brands, if we are to believe in the higher-purpose of Purpose, should be even more documented, measured and tracked both client- and agency-side. Otherwise, it’s all water under the bridge vs commitment and understanding to stay the path.
In other words, maybe there are clients and agencies out there relieved by the statements of the CEO of one of the largest FMCG companies of our time. Maybe we’re all thinking – we might be able to go back to some down-to-earth branding after all.
We’re pretty vocal in our industry, so if these statements were not felt to be valid, we would have heard about it by now.
In conclusion,
On a recent incursion into the world of design and branding studios, I came to the conclusion that we are now living through the Purpose-era of brand development. There are a lot of studios out there taking clients on a reimagination of their business with Purpose at its heart. Ten years ago, a lot of the conversation in brand development revolved around consumer-centricity and putting people like you and me at the heart of every branding project.
This Purpose era will pass as well largely because Purpose-led brands are not always fit-for-purpose, and it has become its own trend, challenging to develop authentically, implement, and manage properly in the long-term.
For the organisations that align themselves to a Purpose, and even for those that adopt the more traditional Mission, Vision, Values brand model, it would be great if these conversations would inspire a move towards brand management that is more calculated, more measurable and results oriented. Because at the end of the day, the purpose of a brand is to deliver differentiation and financial performance for its company’s bottom line and that kind of growth and results should always be quantified. And that in my view, is a very sane take on brand management and now my brain box seems happier as well.
Irina Gheorghe 
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