Is brand purpose finding a new meaning in marketing playbooks?

Brand purpose has been a mainstay of marketing for more than a decade. At a time when brands have tougher business problems to solve, many of them are trying to downplay on purpose. Not for the sake of it but with some rationale. For instance, recently, Unilever's CEO, Hein Schumacher, said the company is changing its approach of infusing purpose into its brands. For the longest, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, has been associating itself with social and environmental causes in its products and marketing campaigns. However, Schumacher observed that not all brands can seamlessly embrace this concept.

“Our focus on purpose is laudable and it inspires many people to join and stay with Unilever. So we must never lose it, but I don't think we advance the cause of purpose by force fitting it across every brand. But we will not force fit this across the entire portfolio, for some brands, it simply won’t be relevant and that’s okay,” Schumacher said.

As a trendsetter, Unilever has been inspiring companies across the world to adopt purpose. With its realignment of strategies, Unilever is making agencies and brands around the globe rethink and rewire themselves.

Pallavi Chakravarti, founder and chief creative officer of independent ad shop Fundamental, agrees with Schumacher. “Not all brands can or should be champions of some purpose or the other. I’m sure I’m not alone in my belief that advertising can do with a little less saving the world and a little more persuasion,” she said candidly.

Chakravarti, who has been a part of several domestic and international award shows, has another observation to make. “Very often in juries, all of us in the room who have sat through [yet another] tear-jerking case study about a humble bottle of nail paint that has changed the fate of housewives in third-world countries find ourselves asking, ‘But why? What next? Chewing gum that will change the world? Shoeshine that will tackle mental health issues?’ I think in the race to be good and do the right thing, and also to get recognised for being good and having done the right thing, brands and agencies have overdone it a bit,” she added.

Purpose is an old story, but here to say

Mythili Chandrasekar, consumer behaviour and brand strategy specialist, is of the opinion that purpose is now an old story, but here to stay. Depending on the tasks at hand and brand life stage, etc, brands dial the purpose bit up or down. Instead of thinking of it as something separate from the mainline, consumption building work, the more brands integrate it into their core essence, their product philosophy and entire offering, the better it will work for them, Chandrasekar advises marketers.

“Brands have always had a purpose — essentially a clearly defined role in life that went beyond product benefit. It started getting called out separately when the purpose became more inclined to the planet and society and not an individual's purpose. In the eagerness to join the bandwagon, brands started saving the planet and society in ways that didn't necessarily add to the bottomline, or at least it was difficult to establish the connection,” she added.

What consumers think

However, what matters is what consumers think and want. According to a 2019 study by Accenture, about 82 percent of Indian consumers prefer to buy goods and services from companies that stand for a shared purpose that reflects their personal values and beliefs, and are ditching those that don’t. BBDO Asia's latest report has similar findings. It stated that Asian consumers actively seek brands that align with their values and address critical societal topics, such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I), and women empowerment.

With consumers actively taking interest in brand purpose, Chandrasekar said, “Brands have to integrate individual, planet and societal benefits more strongly and recalibrate the weightages from time to time.”

On the other hand, Chakravarti thinks purpose has become the purpose of advertising — whether it’s relevant or not. “Schumacher’s acknowledgement that not all brands need to be philanthropic is probably the beginning of a more discerning approach. I don’t think the word is going to fade away from a marketer’s lexicon. Nor should it. If there is a good reason for a brand to effect change, influence behaviour, shatter taboos or otherwise impact society positively, then by all means, purpose-led advertising is the answer. In fact, it is welcome. But only if there is a good reason,” she concluded.