I Believe In Purpose

Dec 8

Written by Pat Goggin

There I said it. Feeling better.

There is a lot of debate these days about brand and company purpose. I get it. I don’t want a deep relationship with paper towels. That said, paper towels serve a purpose in my life – they clean up the mess. And if Paper Towel Inc. made the planet less messy that would be beneficial. It would also create an emotional connection if Paper Towel Inc. cleaned up the graffiti mess in urban environments ... people might buy more, too. What’s wrong with a brand understanding why it exists, what it believes and how it tries to make a difference in people’s lives? Why all the debate? If purpose leads to growth, the debate ends.

Marketing is about human behavior and growth. If a purpose unifies behavior and drives growth and profit, there will be no boardroom debate. If purpose leads to a hollow sustainability program, an influencer program and some random days off, the debate will continue. As people who think all day long about brands, marketing, data, art and science, we develop strong convictions. We have debates about false choices. Data versus creativity. Purpose versus selling. ATL versus BTL. Branding versus Performance Marketing. We try to make a case for “either/or” versus a “yes, and” approach to building new thinking and solutions. I think the cynics bristle at the notion of purpose when a company declares a purpose, frames it, hangs it in a conference room and then continues to act as it always has. It’s the same with people – some live with purpose and are admired, others talk about it and deliver actions that are the opposite. That’s the worst. You hear no debate about purpose when it leads to growth in market share, top-line revenue and profitability.

I have a strong conviction for purpose-led brands for a couple of reasons:

Purpose is proven to lead to growth.
You sell more through empathy.
It’s more fun to make a difference.
People do better economically when they are doing good for others.
Companies that are unified via purpose and develop acts to serve customers are the leaders in the categories they operate. Think Google, Apple, Patagonia, P&G, Unilever, McDonald’s, Tesla. Pick a category and you will find the economic correlation.
Better creative work, as evidenced by the preponderance of purpose-led work awarded at Cannes Advertising Festival this year.

Looking back at my Leo Burnett days, it was a privilege to work with Charlie Frenette and The Coca-Cola Company team developing what we called “Values Driven” marketing. We tapped into the power of community and the “I within the We,” selling to people and helping the community.

A virtuous circle of doing good through doing well, behaving like a Citizen Brand. This was the precursor to purpose driven marketing. Then it was off to Korea, where we spoke about the power of brands, and the lengths people were going to get them. Not a pretty picture with fake goods, credit crises, gangsterism and lots of other social ills.

This highlighted the need for companies to behave like citizens and be helpful in culture – a topic which intrigued many Korean companies and started the Leo Burnett relationship with Samsung as “The Next Big Thing” on the global stage. Then to Germany, developing Chevrolet Europe (small urban vehicles) purpose as “The Joy of Ownership” and creating the organizing idea “Chevrolet, It’s a Big Plus” (the logo is a big plus….) to deliver a hugely successful EMEA launch. Then back home to Chicago, leading global corporate strategy and trying to harness all that had been learned on the ten-year nomadic life into valuable Leo Burnett Intellectual Property.

The realization that Leo Burnett did not have a common language, a common approach, a marketing effectiveness philosophy and standards to consistently deliver great work across the globe set the stage for new thinking and the HumanKind Marketing Effectiveness philosophy that is still driving Leo Burnett today. Human Purpose. Acts of kindness that demonstrate conviction. Pretty simple stuff. The first application was Procter & Gamble in the “Femcare” category. Applying the theory to the Always brand, we were asked “So, what does HumanKind mean to our business?”

The simple response delivered after a few umms, and a panic attack, “We will move Always from feminine protection with a focus on product features and benefits, to protecting women.” P&G leadership shook their collective heads, and said, “We get it,” and the LB team then went away and created “Like A Girl”, a great global campaign. This work sold more product, created brand equity and made a difference in women’s lives. Doing well through doing good. Growth. And a shift in human behavior by developing a series of acts to protect women around the world. HumanKind inspired category-changing work for a very astute marketer. We were developing programs that changed the way some young women viewed themselves and their worlds ... a rarity in our business, but a constant pursuit for naively optimistic creative people inspired by purpose.

Truth to Transaction

A Morning Walk Philosophy

Then to Morning Walk, where we launched Truth to Transactions, a philosophy that has led us on a journey to discover true business challenges, brand and company purpose and a consumer journey that activates transactions. A philosophy driven by the immediacy of digital marketing and the need to prove our ability to create transactions for our clients. Always striving to keep up with the pace of change, we started to notice that brands were getting lost in the pursuit of transactions. Performance marketing was gaining the lion’s share of budgets and brand initiatives were de-emphasized. This was not good news as bottom of the funnel marketing was leading to transactions from existing customers to the detriment of filling the top of the funnel with new customers.

Increasingly, we started to work with unified business and data strategies, so why was performance marketing separate in structure and measurement from brand marketing? Performance marketing had created new structures in marketing organizations that led to disintegration of marketing efforts, a disaggregation of data and a lack of cohesive business objectives and strategies. We had an “Aha!” moment and searched the term “Performance Branding”, and, lo and behold, McKinsey had discovered the same need for change in marketing organizations, but really hadn’t defined how to deliver Performance Branding solutions. So, we got to work building what we call Performance Branding Ecosystems. "Aha!"

Performance Branding Ecosystem

Performance Branding: A Living & Breathing Organism

The realization came again that everything begins and ends with human behavior, and behavior is driven by empathy and collective purpose. We think a good deal of debate surrounding purpose is focused on a lack of proper purpose activation. It’s not so much about whether a company or brand needs a purpose, it is about the need to activate the purpose through product, user, customer and service delivery experiences. When a product serves a purpose or role in people’s lives, it will be utilized to perform a task or job. If the intrinsic role of the product ladders up to a higher-order benefit and is reflective of shared beliefs about culture, the environment, or the pursuit of happiness, then you have a collective purpose – this is a powerful force.

When a brand or company expresses a collective purpose and activates said purpose through experiences, then what the brand says and what the brand does are aligned to create experiences that make a difference to people. If a brand leverages empathy to understand pain points, improves user and customer experience, and product and service delivery, then the brand is creating a balanced ecosystem of purpose-led experiences. We believe it is essential to align purpose with experiences across all consumer, customer, employee and investment community touchpoints. When a brand does this, an authentic narrative emerges and the investments in performance marketing are optimized, as people are driven to experiences that serve a purpose rather than just communicating information.

Like a coral reef, a Performance Branding Ecosystem is a living, breathing organism – a complex network or interconnected system of data that flows through interactions to breathe life into companies and brands. Its fuel is human behavior, and its future is governed by a balanced approach to building a vital brand for the future while delivering immediate sales for the present. Performance and Branding working together in building a healthy future.

About Pat Goggin

Pat is Partner/CSO at Morning Walk and can be seen wandering the city of Chicago wondering how we can do better. He is the originator of Leo Burnett’s HumanKind marketing philosophy, Morning Walk’s experience journey “Truth to Transactions,” and is now guiding the development of Performance Branding Ecosystems. His mantra is “head in the cloud, feet on the ground.” By day he’s bringing big ideas and strategic insights to MW’s vast roster of brands, and by night he’s keeping up with his wife and three busy kids.

Pat on LinkedIn