ANA Releases Brand Purpose Playbook
Insights Provide Guidance for Defining the Unique Purpose of a Brand
NEW YORK (July 11, 2019) — A commitment to the concept of brand purpose can spark growth for marketers and can also improve a company’s customer relations, corporate image, market share, and talent acquisition and retention efforts.
However, if purpose isn’t defined carefully or fully embraced by the entire organization, it will not succeed, and since purpose is different for each brand, the process of adopting it is different for each company culture.
Those are some of the key lessons provided in Discovering Brand Purpose: A Playbook for Uncovering the “Why” Of Your Business, from the ANA’s Center for Brand Purpose.
The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) defines purpose as “a brand’s reason to exist beyond profit.” “Purpose can drive differentiation within the most commoditized categories and provide relevance to even highly skeptical consumers,” the playbook states. “It can sustain price premiums, increase market share, and garner greater share of voice in a fragmented media landscape. Purpose also galvanizes a workforce and helps to recruit talent, especially millennials.”
The playbook’s in-depth learnings were contributed by marketing leaders from six global companies with a network of employees and stakeholders who have fully embraced the transformative aspects of purpose. They include biotechnology company CSL Behring; food, snack, and beverage marketer PepsiCo; health care company Pfizer Consumer Healthcare; the ROCKWOOL Group, a global leader in the manufacture of stone wool building materials; software corporation SAP; and global energy and petrochemical giant Shell.
Topic covered in the 56-page playbook include:
- Defining Purpose for Today’s Organizations
- Differentiating Brand Purpose from a Corporate Mission
- How an Organization Determines Its Role in Society
- Ensuring Purpose Is Authentic and Connects with Customers’ Passions and Expectations
- The Challenges to Overcome in Defining Purpose
- The Benefits of Being Purposeful
- How Purpose and Doing Good Can Lead to Brand Growth.
“A 2018 ANA survey of member CMOs found that while 78 percent said their company has a clearly defined purpose, 82 percent indicated they could use help in defining and activating their purpose,” said ANA CEO Bob Liodice. “It’s clear that brand purpose has become the North Star for marketers, and this playbook is coming at the perfect time to help them realize their goals and drive brand and business growth.”
The ANA Center for Brand Purpose, launched in 2018, is designed to fuel business growth by helping marketers create purpose-driven, strategic programs and solutions for their products and services. In addition to the new playbook, which is the first in a planned series, the Center’s offerings include case studies, feature articles, a podcast series, videos, events, and professional development programs.
The playbook is available to both ANA members and the greater marketing community and can be downloaded from the ANA website at https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/ii-ana-discovering-brand-purpose.
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ABOUT THE ANA
The mission of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) is to drive growth for marketing professionals, brands and businesses, the industry, and humanity. The ANA serves the marketing needs of 20,000 brands by leveraging the 12-point ANA Growth Agenda, which has been endorsed by the Global CMO Growth Council. The ANA’s membership consists of U.S. and international companies, including client-side marketers, nonprofits, fundraisers, and marketing solutions providers (data science and technology companies, ad agencies, publishers, media companies, suppliers, and vendors). The ANA creates Marketing Growth Champions by serving, educating, and advocating for more than 50,000 industry members that collectively invest more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually.
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John Wolfe
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Email: jwolfe@ana.net