Breastfeeding discussions have two completely opposite sides and are full of anger and rage. Just like brand purpose discussions. What are both sides missing?
When you read forums or blog posts about breastfeeding, you can easily feel the hatred and aggressivity of otherwise charming mothers who are in pursuit of their child’s unquestionable wellbeing. The intention is noble, yet the realisation is often insensible.
Why the conversation gets derailed easily is because many people can think of their own circumstances and they lack empathy. What works for me based on my health, opportunities and beliefs, that does not mean it will work for somebody else with different conditions. There are many aspects that are valid and to be raised during the discussion, because when you put light on something that was not visible for the other person, it’ll create the chance that the other can get closer to the aspect, understand, evaluate it and finally they can decide whether the aspect matches their conditions and can be implemented to their reality. That’s kind of the conscious process we all should pursue.
Today’s brand managers tend to search for a brand purpose, which means that their brand represents a higher, usually social need and it acts towards satisfying that need.
Whoever believes in it, they create fabulous analogies and they put huge effort in finding the more and more striking wordings. They show examples of great business successes to support their argument. They highlight how acting good can benefit both the company and the society.
While the sceptics say it is another fancy notion (or bullshit) of marketing communications. It is the new toy of the creative profession that easily gets bored with its own product.
One recent example comes from Unilever. Due to their global presence, their practice and its results are under the microscope of many. Unilever had its huge bets on defining a brand purpose for many, if not all, brands they have on the market. But as their performance was under expectations, a new CEO came and many aspects of the business were questioned, the brand purpose topic as well. Surely, they might have good and bad examples, but the most important learning provided by a giant that has great professionals at hand is that you cannot force fitting something just because this seems to be useful in many cases.
And that’s the problem with benchmarking actually. You see great success stories in situations that are completely different from yours. It seems to be a no brainer to watch out and investigate the common patterns of the success in question and your conditions. But it is easier said than done as the management is pressured to deliver almost instant growth stories, so they try to adapt that novelty regardless of the differences. And sometimes the same mistake is made by companies like Unilever.
Companies need to define the reason for their existence in order to consciously manage their business and orchestrate their brand that fully represents this. We already talked about the conflict of brand purpose and vision-mission. If brand purpose exists only because of the lack of the proper vision-mission then, at the end of the day, everybody is right and everybody wants the same - to find the why of the company.
You can even find arguments why the vision-mission and the brand purpose are different and how they complement each other. These can make a difference for some people, yet they can remain mere details in the fundamentally same quest of defining the very core reasons the company exists.
If so, why do companies deal with the issue? It might have two reasons at least:
A newborn company hopefully defines its why at the beginning and its brand represents it. The main issue here is when the newborn is not aware of its reason for existence. There is a reason for sure, but it might be rather unconscious. They need to be conscious if they want to succeed. They can be too fresh or immature to manage every aspect of the business consciously. It takes time and they need to get there sooner or later.
What about a more mature company? As the core offering gets accepted by the market and the business is growing, other organisational developments get more focus. The management fixes the processes, implements systems and organisational functions get bigger and more separate. Different areas get their management of professionals and they are run according to their own professional logic. The original why is supplemented by area specific values. This evolution is necessary for the maturity of the company, yet it makes the original vision-mission less and less tangible in the farther corners of the operation. Years or even decades have passed and there are many faces in the team who were not there at the beginning. The meaning and the understanding gets faded. New challenges arise and the brand team (re-)defines the purpose.
The intention is the same, yet the company might already have their purpose, it is just simply not written or explicit enough. People who are not the founders but experts of their profession define the essence of the company in their own professional approach. They can get lucky or they might define it for themselves. And that’s when it can easily get l’art pour l’art.
The other reason why companies think of their purpose even if they are mature enough is the ever changing circumstances. From time to time, every business is challenged to stay in the game.
But do not get misled. Changes are often about the hows and not the why.
When you had a fabric factory in the 19th century and steam engines became a thing, it did not change the purpose of the factory, it still produced clothes, but technology resulted in the boost of productivity. The same is true today. You are a clothing company and digitalisation only creates opportunities to redefine your processes and how you serve your customers, but why you exist in the world will not change.
Immersive change might easily suggest that you need to revise your purpose, but if you already cover a basic human need, like nutrition or clothing, you can be sure your core offering is still valid. The same goes for companies who have put the time and effort consciously in defining their why. Yet, a change like digitalisation can create new needs, for example as a company, you might want to have a smartphone application for which you need developers. This development company will certainly have a purpose that is more in line with the notion of digitalisation, and it will be something to be defined now and due to this very change.
If brand purpose is a thing, it surely isn’t for big companies only. Let’s take the example of a simple bakery on the corner. It’s a small family bakery that serves the habitants in the surrounding area. They are in the food business, so the basic human need they satisfy is hunger. Their very reason for existence is to provide a certain element of nutrition. Their market size is not the entire planet, of course, but the neighbourhood they operate in so that people can get their bakery fresh while heading to their destination, home or work.
What could be a wrong approach, if they defined their purpose not in line with nutrition. For example, they could think that bakeries are an essential part of the family breakfast so their purpose is to create valuable time together for the families. The two are in connection in some of the cases and the message has a social relevance. In a world of many impulses and fast changes, the standard value of spending time together has a real meaning. It can add a positive vibe to the offering, which can definitely help. Yet, it is a bit far from what people are looking for at a bakery.
Keeping the thinking closer to the core benefits of nutrition, they can come up with the idea to give value to the traditional way of bakery using the technology and time for the proper leavening instead of shortening the time by using additives or chemical procedures. A fast world should not necessarily mean fast food, the bakery could get the healthy food prepared and all you have to do is get yours. The right procedure results in delicious bakery products we might not be used to when shopping in supermarkets. That’s what a bakery on the corner can provide, for example.
Is it new? No. Is it something that changes the entire world? No. But it is a valid purpose in line with the human needs and the nature of the industry the business operates in. And it has consequences on the entire operation. They need to align the procurement, the preparation or the supply to the time it takes to leaven the dough properly.
When people buy from this bakery and there is a clear growth in demand, profitability and there are recurring loyal customers, you can easily tell that the purpose pays off. Now the bakery can open its second shop and after a while it can add more locations. They can establish a chain or franchise of the bakery. They can open a pizzeria that utilises the same traditional approach of leavening, yet it creates a new revenue stream from a related but still different business, hospitality.
The growth story is there, the family business has gone through many stages and has turned into a mature, multi asset company. Yet, their purpose is still valid and intact. Nevertheless, any purpose is valid only for the target group. Traditional leavening is relevant for a certain group of customers. Maybe the difficulties of the approach require more expensive technology to supply the increasing demand, so the pricing might be a bit higher, which excludes some of the customers. It creates segmentation on its own and it has its consequences. It all works out well, if you are conscious enough.
To have a brand that grows beyond the company, you do not have to be big. Yes, the impact of the big companies can be bigger, but just because of the number of customers they can reach, and not proportionally. Due to their size, they can define a different purpose for themselves or just define the same for a bigger number of people.
Why are people so angry with each other on topics of core values? Mainly because these topics are crucial in their identity, however they are not experts on the topic to be certain and secure enough that they are right. They are fighting for their identity and they use the opposite side to justify their belief.
The same is true for brand purpose discussions. There is a lot going on for companies and their existence is at stake in pursuit of constant growth. So marketers need to believe in something.
Often people are not able to be generous and concessive. They think too narrowly and they cannot see the various factors that can shape a situation. Because when you don’t understand something, you judge it to put it somewhere between good and bad. But when you accept that there can be different aspects from yours, you can be free from others. While based on the circumstances, many options are valid. Instead of being right or wrong, I expect more sophisticated discussions of professional matters where the ‘it depends on’ kind of arguments show up. You just have to understand your conditions to be conscious that you are doing the right thing. Let the others cope with their conditions.
