What is Brand Purpose? - How to create a purpose for your brand!

What is the purpose of a brand?

The biggest mistake that businesses make when asking “what is the purpose of a brand?” is assuming that their ultimate goal, and their purpose is the same thing. Every organisation wants to make a living, so the purpose of a brand is not “to make more money”. If you make that your focus, then you’re going to end up feeding the 42% of consumers who don’t trust brands.

Too many companies fail to capture the “passion” in finding their brand purpose. Instead, they simply end up with uninspiring, overdone mission statements that are neither memorable nor moving. In a world where customers are looking to interact with enterprises with drive and personality, you can’t afford to be basic or bland.

Your brand purpose is the fifth “P” of your marketing mix. Without it, your business can’t be sustainable. One of the main problems with answering the question: “what is the purpose of a brand?” is that many companies confuse purpose, values and vision statements. Before we dive deeper into band purpose, here’s a quick definition of concepts in branding.

Brand Purpose outlines “why” you exist. Your brand purpose is the meaning behind your existence, an idealistic view of what you want to become to your audience, for instance: “We want to make branding easier for growing companies.”

What is brand purpose? How to find your purpose.

As important as it is for companies to find their answer to “what is brand purpose?”, the concept doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. There are a couple of major problems with discovering the purpose of a brand today. 

First, a lot of enterprises struggle to consider brand purpose as a meaningful differentiator. Purpose has to be genuine and should not be copycat, if it’s considered as nothing more than an afterthought by you, your customers will recognise the lack of effort.

Secondly, the average organisation’s approach to becoming a purpose driven brand today has emerged as more of a check-list exercise than a journey into self-definition. For some, brand purpose has been reduced into a set of generic missions and values that could just as easily describe hundreds of different companies. 

The passion, inspiration, willingness to invest time and money to find the genuine brand purpose will not emerge from a marketing department or a brand manager. It has to come from the very top, C suite.  Yes, your big boss(es) need to take branding seriously.

For an example, the top consumer MNC of the world, Unilever is dead serious about their branding.

Unilever CEO Alan Jope's directive. “Find a Purpose for each of our brands or we will sell it”

This is the kind of top management commitment that nurture amazingly strong and resilient brands. Also makes the job of the brand manager that much easier. No cynical accountants at Unilever dismissing brand building expenditures as flights of fancy from "the marketing people"

Creating your brand purpose:

Step 1: Start with your organizational vision

While your brand purpose and brand values aren’t the same thing, becoming a purpose-driven brand requires a full view of your overall ideology. Before you can determine “why” you exist, you need to think about what you believe in, and what you’re willing to fight for. A strong brand doesn’t just refresh every couple of years – it evolves. Your vision will give you the compass you need to remain consistent and likeable over time.

Look at Nike, for instance, this athletic brand wants to inspire customers to overcome adversity, and achieve their goals. In pursuit of their vision, and in line with their purpose, the business has explored countless crucial topics, including feminism, racism, the power of dreams, and health. Start broad with your ideology, then focus in on a purpose, before exploring different topics you can address along the way.

Step 2: Context is crucial

The things that matter to you as an organisation, need to matter to your target audience – otherwise you have no hope of cultivating loyalty. With that in mind, becoming a purpose driven brand means thinking about your cultural and competitive context. Think about the marketplace you’re breaking into, and the issues that matter most to your customers.

For instance, if you were a cosmetics company selling affordable haircare products, what would be your reason for doing that? Sure, you want to improve your chances of customers choosing you over your competitors, and cheap items are a good way to do that. However, a stronger purpose would be that you want to give people with low incomes the chance to feel the luxury and confidence of a great cosmetic experience.

Differentiating yourself with brand purpose isn’t just about standing out for the sake of it. It’s about finding a way to be relevant to people in need of your products or services.

Step 3: Offer real value

A purpose driven brand is powerful because it solves real problems for real people. It’s nice to say that you’re trying to make the world a better place, but ultimately that’s just a vague comment that doesn’t really appeal to anyone. Look at the customers that exist in your marketplace. Think about creating a user persona if you have to, and use what you learn about those people to decide what the purpose of a brand in your industry should be.

Dove don’t just deliver luxury beauty products to the world, they focus on making “normal” women feel extraordinary. Range Rover don’t just produce cars, they help to feed the natural sense of adventure that humans have. Just try to make sure that you’re not solving a problem that’s already been addressed by countless companies in your niche or segment.

Step 4: Ruffle some feathers (someone is bound to dislike you)

If you’re too busy trying to please everyone with your product, then you can’t stand out. Unfortunately, purpose-driven brands are identified by their controversial approach to certain topics. For instance, The Body Shop focuses on putting ethics first when it comes to creating their cosmetics. While this makes them the champion of people who want to fight back against animal cruelty and labour issues, it also means that huge cosmetic industries that use “less ethical” approaches consider The Body Shop to be their enemy.

Ask yourself who isn’t going to like your brand purpose. As long as you’re not alienating people that you might want to sell to one day, then you should be on the track. Remember, creating an amazing company means using your unique voice to empower one group, and disempowering another. The great thing about having enemies, is that it will give you and your followers someone to unite against.

Step 5: Be consistent

One of the main reasons why purpose-driven brands have been met with so much controversy lately, is that too many companies fail to use their ideology in everything they do. Unless you build your company around your values and purpose, then you’re just another enterprise with another marketing gimmick.

The purpose of a brand gives that company a reason for being, everything else should slot alongside it. While your brand purpose doesn’t have to change the world, it does have to be something that you’re prepared to stick to. 

Let your purpose inspire the changes you make as your company grows, and become a staple of your brand awareness strategy. Above all else, remember that your brand purpose is a promise that you make to your customers – don’t choose a promise you can’t keep.