Siegel+Gale's Executive Director EMEA, James Withey, argues that, with Covid-19, purpose has even more resonance and relevance than before, and brands need to shape everything they do through its lens
As 2021 appears on the horizon, we look forward to hopefully regaining a sense of control at some point. Both brands and customers alike have been in reactive mode, changing business strategies and life plans as lockdown levels fluctuated. As 2020 went on, people turned to businesses to help them get the things they previously took for granted done. As demand for services such as food delivery increased, brands faced sustained pressure to move with agility and help people at the most basic level. But in truth, this is what brands do. At a basic level, they help people. They solve a specific problem facing their customer. This year, doing so has often been more than enough, but one day soon, we’ll reach the point once again at which this is necessary, yet insufficient.
Over the last 20 years, we have become increasingly aware that brands need to exist for reasons beyond meeting a need. Customer expectations have evolved and continue to do so. Brands are now expected to take a stand, choose a side, and be vocal about who they are, what they support, and most importantly, why. 2020 has highlighted the importance of being guided by purpose. When the need to move quickly became apparent, some brands found themselves drifting with the prevailing winds rather than steering their own course. Whereas, those brands with a clear sense of why they exist were able to formulate an authentic response and even to get ahead of events at times. Their purpose helped them to be proactive.
Understanding our why allows us to quickly figure out our how. It’s a roadmap that guides decision-making at all levels of an organisation, allowing you to react at speed. We call it purpose. Purpose is your north star. It guides decision making from the leadership level, right down to individual micro decisions made by every stakeholder. It is a differentiator and plays a major role in employee acquisition. But most importantly, at least for this conversation, it sets out the parameters within which it’s wise to play. We’ve seen many brands attempt to force their way into conversations such as Black Lives Matter, the climate crisis and Covid-19. Some have done it successfully when what they had to say and what they did felt authentic and natural. Others, however, wandered into an arena where they appeared out of place, irrelevant, or inauthentic. Just because a conversation is popular, doesn’t mean a brand belongs in it. Purpose is not new. In fact, we have even experienced purpose-fatigue in recent years as brands in some cases were perceived as jumping on the bandwagon.
However, the response to Covid-19 has imbued purpose with greater resonance and relevance than ever before. The marketing and brand leaders with whom we at Siegel+Gale have spoken this year have talked powerfully about the ways in which purpose has helped them. Whether it be validating intuition, making a decision when no precedent exists, or having to choose between two outcomes - neither of which were in the business plan - purpose has functioned as a key decision-making tool.
Using it in this way has helped many brands to activate their purpose, bringing it off the paper and into everyday decision-making. When we help brands to activate their purpose, we focus on three key areas. First we ask them to consider how to integrate it into everything the organisation does. Second, we encourage them to cultivate it through repetition. And third, we steer them to demonstrate it with action. But what does that actually look like?
Patagonia recrafted - clothes made from other clothes
I imagine many eyes will roll the minute they see Patagonia being used as a case study. But there's good reason why it's referenced so often. Patagonia is part of a very exclusive set of brands that really do seem to consider every decision through the lens of purpose. When we look at their statement of intent, “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”, we see how it's orientated towards integration into every decision the business makes.
A quick look at their social channels and website supports that. But it’s when we view things like their returns policy that we really see the depth to which their purpose reaches.
Patagonia accepts 100% returns of used equipment for recycling, then stockpiles un-recyclable materials until a better solution to landfills or incinerators exist. This type of mindset is cultivated through repetition throughout the brand... from CEO, Yvon Chouinard’s book Let My People Go Surfing, written for Patagonia employees, to the blog on the website, everything the brand says and does ties back to purpose.
Finally, we see demonstration through action. Something which is increasingly resonating with customers. When Patagonia discovered that modern slavery was present in their supply chain, not only did they put a stop to it, they ensured people who paid above the legal limit to a broker to find the job were reimbursed the difference - and they eventually rolled out a Supplier Workplace Code of Conduct to “promote and sustain fair labour practices”.
Now that we've entered 2021 it’s time to re-evaluate how purpose can help businesses beyond guiding reactive decisions - and to recognise its usefulness to brands in enabling them to proactively set out a roadmap for how they can help people, beyond meeting their needs in the future.
Using purpose to help develop a long-term strategy ensures proactive moves fall within the parameters that form a brand’s license to operate.
Make your next move away from using purpose primarily as a lens to shape reactive decisions, to one where you proactively anticipate needs, get ahead of the agenda, and actively work towards the end state you wish to create.
