Brand purpose: why your organization needs a star to steer by

Why is it that corporate leaders often feel ambushed by the most basic question anyone could ask about their business: What is your company’s purpose?

For some the answer is so obvious that the question seems embarrassingly inappropriate. Ahem… we are here to make money.

Well, sure. That’s not wrong, but the raw commercial answer barely scratches the surface. It’s like saying people exist to breath air and consume food. And more to the point, it’s not an answer that’s likely to help a company become more competitive or successful. Could we dig deeper and find a more satisfying and effective statement of purpose?

Let’s try rephrasing the question: What is your brand’s purpose?

That’s basically the same question but now it’s less about what the company does for itself (make money), and more about what you do for your customers. Brands are all about offering and delivering on a promise to customers, and customers don’t care if you make money or not. They’re concerned about how you can make the world better for them.

So another way to pose the purpose question is to ask: How will your brand make the world better for your customers?

This can be a hard question to answer, especially for companies who have not activatedtheir brands – who, in other words, have not deeply examined what their brands mean and how use them to drive corporate strategy. Every company has to satisfy customers, of course, but only the most successful, brand-driven companies unify their actions around a single, clear, compelling, customer-oriented purpose.

The benefits of a purposeful brand

Doing the work necessary to activate a brand and clearly define its purpose can yield enormous rewards.

• A motivated workforce. Purpose gives people a reason to get up and go to work in the morning. It lets them feel that they are doing something meaningful with their work lives. Employees who are working towards a purpose feel closer to, more aligned with, and more willing to help the business.
• A unified strategy. The brand purpose is an extremely efficient filtering mechanism for decision-making throughout the organization. Whenever a new product, process or action is considered, everyone involved should automatically ask whether the initiative contributes to the purpose. If not, they can think about how the initiative might be modified to align better with the purpose.

• Engaged customers. A good brand purpose can radically alter the customer experience. Customers are no longer weighing the merits of one product versus another, but instead are looking at how the brand will make meaningful improvements in their lives. When the brand is presented in terms of purpose, the context for customers becomes both broader and more deeply engaging.

None of this means that a company should disregard commercial imperatives. It does mean that the brand-driven company sees making money not as the organization’s guiding principle, but rather as a consequence of pursuing the genuine, customer-serving purpose. Think of profit as a trailing indicator, a yardstick for the brand’s success. Brand purpose is the driving force, the north star.

Finally, a cautionary word about what it means to “make the world better for your customers.” It doesn’t mean saving the planet. Brand purpose is not a CSR initiative or some kind of PR play. It’s what is really at the core of the company’s business.

There are many ways to approach brand purpose. We have more to say about the different varieties of brand purpose in a later post.