Chapter 1 of Activating a Purpose Program Playbook

Driving the Purpose Process

April 13, 2021    

This is the first chapter in the playbook Activating a Purpose Program, from the ANA Center for Brand Purpose. Download the full playbook for more great insights from today's purpose champions.

In today's world, with its abundant options, brands that authentically lead with purpose are discovering new ways to deliver value to their customers, to the communities they serve, and perhaps even to the world at large. While that may sound like a tall order, purposeful companies are indeed changing the nature of business today. Some skeptics may think that purpose is just another corporate buzzword, but those organizations that view it as a beacon for all decision-making find that purpose drives meaningful growth at a time when people are increasingly demanding more from brands.

Driving the purpose process requires passion, inspiration, leadership, widespread company involvement, and coordination. It's rarely a short-term process, but it does lead to relevance, differentiation, and loyalty, which all ultimately contribute to longevity. The process is not the same for every brand or organization, but most find that it starts with a marketing champion who can combine a rich understanding of customer needs and aspirations, current cultural realities, and a deep knowledge of true brand attributes and the larger role these qualities can play in a changing world. But even a well-conceived guiding vision cannot work without genuine adoption throughout an organization in ways that authentically, and often emotionally, reflect a brand's values.

This chapter shares how a range of companies in varying industry segments drove this process within their organizations and even across the world. They started by understanding, feeling, and articulating the impact of their brand upon the stakeholders it touches.

 

Simon Perkins, Orvis Company

Being purpose-led is critical to what the Orvis company wants to achieve as a business, and we believe it is the only way to accomplish long-term sustainability. For us, there are two components to being purpose-led: passion and customer relevance. While we all know that true customer-centricity is an imperative today, "unpacking passion" is just as important to the equation. We have learned that our goals must start with genuine passion. That way being purpose-led is an outcome, not a tactic leading to an outcome.

For Orvis, history plays a critical part in our purpose journey. We are a business aligned with the belief of founder Charles Orvis, who in the 1850s felt that connecting with the outdoors was important to health. In 1965, my grandfather bought the company to combine work with his passion for the outdoors. He started fly-fishing schools to inspire others in the joy of nature. He also made a major commitment to conservation by preserving natural spaces, a new concept at the time. At Orvis, we believe that the outdoors is in our soul.

About five years ago, when we followed the numbers, we realized that our story was becoming harder to understand: you couldn't clearly see our purpose. While we worked to ensure that every touchpoint was a signal to the customer, we learned that such indications could become watered down if not carefully watched. Customers respected Orvis as a brand, but it was no longer as relevant to them.

While our employees are passionate about our commitments — like 5 percent of pre-tax profits going to protecting nature, our Fly-Fishing Learning Center, Schools, and Guides to Adventure — to drive purpose externally, we had to recommit to customer-centricity by truly listening to the customer. We did this through field research in the retail stores, customer workshops, shop-alongs, and online blogs with both loyal customers and new prospects. What we ultimately found was that our customer wanted a more inspired life.

This was the Orvis customer comment that encouraged us to regain our relevancy and led us to our equation of purpose: "The life I want to live is one with depth and meaning. I am seeking deeper connections and experiences with the outdoors for a more inspired life."

It made us ask ourselves, "What's our North Star?" The answer was easy: "Inspire the world to love the adventure and wonder in nature." And while we are passionate about that answer, we now understood that we had to be approachable if we were going to inspire people.

Our brand promise became "Let Orvis Be Your Guide." We sought to again be a trusted source, so that we could share our 150 years of expertise and inspire people beyond just buying equipment and apparel. Our customers helped us to clearly define our role. However, we were blind to some barriers. For example, people would say, "Fly fishing sounds cool but it looks difficult and feels intimidating."

So we went beyond teaching to sharing and inspiring. In both the U.S. and the U.K., we gave free lessons and simply put a fly rod in customers' hands. We let 150,000 people enjoy the discovery of the sport. We also provided a free online learning center via YouTube and podcasts as just a first step to help people continue their journey. Our emphasis: No commercial agenda; just be a trusted source.

 

Victoria Morrissey, Caterpillar

Our brand purpose, in the way we view it, lies at the intersection of key cultural tensions. There's an element of "Why does Cat make the machines?" and "It's not about the machines, it's about what the machines enable our customers to do." I looked for the connection among the customers that Caterpillar serves across a wide range of industries, countries, and cultures. They are a community of doers, connected by a brand that stands for progress and helps customers physically build a better world. Marketing without direct connection to that brand purpose is just an intrusion on your everyday.

We're building the internal and external activations of our brand purpose. We're getting at the heart and the DNA of the brand, doing the work to understand what right the brand has to have a conversation that actually leaves the world a better place. One of my three key objectives is the development of that platform, that purpose, into employee engagement and marketplace activation globally.

Cat is a very consensus-driven organization, purposely moving toward a decentralization of the corporate structure, so that bodes well for being shared across our ecosystem. To begin the process of driving purpose, we created a workshop with a cross-functional group of about 20 people. It was shocking to me how quickly people aligned around some of the answers to questions like "Why do we exist?" and "What's our purpose?"

When I started to share this with members of the executive office, peers in corporate communications, dealers in China, and so on, the unanimous feedback was, "Absolutely, I can see myself in that." So we knew we had come across what was truly at the heart of the brand. The power of a brand is understanding why it became important in the first place.

However, our purpose conversation must begin with understanding customer pain points, and how the brand is uniquely positioned to solve them. As an example, rather than talking about the amazing technology on our screens, we talk about how we can increase fuel efficiency and how we can make an operator more effective, and how data can help customers get more dollars out of everything they spend.

Today, our customers have to do more with less. They have fewer operators, so each person has to be as efficient as possible. We'll talk about our filtering technology to emphasize how a customer can get the most out of every machine. It's not technology for the sake of technology. Because we are so committed to helping our customers overcome obstacles and change the world, we are investing in whatever is necessary to give them the products and services to do just that.

In the U.S., there's a lot of work to be done, because everyone is very protective of their particular customers or product groups. But we've had managers and key employees take a seat at the table. Whenever people can put their fingerprints on things, it makes a great difference. We're deliberate in starting with understanding where the brand can and cannot play. You put those guardrails on it and tell people which part is fixed and give them the flexibility for the rest.

When they have the vision of why we exist and what it is that we want customers to believe when they're done talking to Cat, then they know the right tone and delivery for the brand.

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Robert Jan d'Hond, Kantar Consulting

Turning your business from a revenue machine to being purpose-led takes time and commitment. The key is to start with a bold vision, implement key steps to get there, and then be humble in the communication. Purpose-doing is more important than purpose-saying. Each saying should be underpinned with a program of doing. Purpose is a journey, not an overnight makeover.

According to the Kantar Purpose 2020 study, purpose-led brands have seen their brand valuation increase by 175 percent over the past 12 years, compared to a median growth rate of 86 percent.

Kantar surveyed more than 20,000 consumers and carried out 100 detailed interviews with leading brands. More than three-quarters of marketing leaders surveyed believe their organization has a defined purpose, but only one in 10 actually has a corporate purpose statement backed by a meaningful activation plan. While two-thirds of marketing leaders believe purpose delivers long-term growth, only one-third said purpose is regarded as a "company-wide movement."

The Kantar Purpose 2020 study outlines the journey to become a purpose-led brand and business through three phases:

Phase 1. Articulation: Take a Stand

Purpose is not vision or mission. Purpose is the reason a brand exists. It is the positive impact a brand makes in people's lives and the world they live in. Five criteria define how to articulate purpose to move from tactics to promise:

1. Meaningful. Purpose must have a strong, relevant meaning if it is to resonate. It must tap into a societal tension that is bigger than functional and emotional benefits.
2. True. Purpose must be true to a brand's character by moving only into territories where a brand has the credibility to do so.
3. Unique. Purpose must be connected to something that is distinctive about a brand in its category.
4. Coherent. Purpose must be aligned not only with the brand but with the company as a whole. This means that purpose must be expressed through all elements, including communications, product, or even external suppliers.
5. Business-related. Purpose must be integrated with business goals, not ancillary to the core commercial focus of a brand or a company.

Phase 2. Infusion: Involve Everyone

Infusing purpose means inspiring everyone and everything, every time and everywhere. This enables purpose to become more than just a clever marketing campaign. It becomes a driving force with consumers. Organizations infused with purpose can be recognized by four characteristics that facilitate the transition from promise to strategy:

1. Leadership-driven. Senior leadership must embrace purpose and commit to it in a very explicit way.
2. Culture- and strategy-led. This is to say that purpose should engage both the heart and the mind. Ninety-one percent of over-performing companies in Kantar's Marketing 2020 study said purpose was shared throughout the organization, versus just 61 percent of under-performing companies.
3. Fully executed. Purpose must be expressed in everything a company does. All the elements of communication, product, service, and retail should combine in an integrated way to create a total experience consistent with purpose.
4. Impact-measured. The impact of purpose must be measured, both to show that a brand or company is serious about it and to have definitive feedback for continuous learning.

Phase 3. Amplification: Spark a Movement

Once purpose is articulated and infused, it must be advanced beyond the company itself. This means sparking a movement and stimulating others to join the cause. There are three ways to move from strategy to create a movement:

1. Role-modeling. To inspire others through actions and decisions, a company must set the bar high and then live up to the standards it has set for others to follow.
2. Collaboration. This means working with others to accomplish a purpose, including everyone in the supply chain.
3. Cultural conversation. To keep the movement alive, it's important to refuel and revitalize the conversation about a company's purpose.

 

Mirella Amalia Vitale, The ROCKWOOL Group

Our purpose resonates strongly precisely because it's such an obvious outgrowth of our core business, and vice versa. Senior leadership prioritizes rigorous energy efficiency regulations, increased renovation rates for buildings, growing concerns for food security, and the need for safer and more resilient cities.

From a marketing perspective, we developed an integrated positioning strategy, with multiple assets demonstrating the link between our purpose and core business. We started from the top and worked our way down and throughout the organization. The executive management team supported the effort, though some were more skeptical than others, and that message of priority spread and helped secure a receptive audience. As an example, we conducted a brand audit across the company to articulate our current strengths and weaknesses relative to best practices in a systematic, professional way. We then held up a vision for what we were trying to achieve and the benefits we expected as a result. Everyone had an opportunity to share their views and concerns, ask questions, and help shape the ultimate outcome. It wasn't equally easy to secure buy-in from all parts of the organization, but I think we can honestly say now that everyone is on board and fully behind it.

The marketing department developed an integrated positioning strategy, with multiple assets demonstrating the link between our purpose and core business, which we promoted via workshops across the global ROCKWOOL organization. We visited every subsidiary to explain the purpose and brand identity face to face. Key employees were trained in further embedding the purpose in their organization's own activities and communications. We invited the organization to take part in defining our purpose and showcase the value of having a defined purpose by communicating our achievements in brand ranking and our Net Promoter Score to our employees. In addition, employees are asked to correlate their role to the company strategy during the annual goal-setting and feedback sessions facilitated by HR.

Developing a Corporate Visual Identity manual during purpose creation was key. It is a survival kit with guidelines; a brand portal with images, stationery templates, presentation templates, trademark policies, and corporate presentations; a brand film; and a message house with company key messaging.

We had one year to define our purpose and roll it out. There had been several attempts to rebrand before, giving us a wealth of information to work with from the beginning. Otherwise, the process would have taken much longer.

Today, senior management applies our purpose through their focus on our customers, our employees, and our role in society. The challenges of modern living have a huge impact on the growing needs of our customers and the type of ambitious projects they take on.

 

Manos Spanos, Formerly of Danone North America

The Danone C-suite is passionate about how it can strengthen its business and use its collective ability to make business a force for good. It is ingrained in the company's brand manifestos and culture to think sustainably, harness its influence, and set goals that are related not solely to profit, but purpose.

Although Danone is now 100 years old, a sense of purpose has permeated the company since 1919, when Isaac Carasso began making yogurt to help children with intestinal infections using cultures from the Pasteur Institute. However, that early commitment "to bring health through food" has evolved. Danone has a larger purpose-led responsibility to the planet, to the important role of all employees, to the success of local farmers, and to ensure its business model delivers for shareholders.

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The beginnings of driving the purpose process began in earnest in 1968 when Danone's founding CEO Antoine Riboud made a speech to 2,000 executives at the Assises du Patronat in Marseille, which redefined the traditional role of a business leader. He pointed out: "We only have one Earth, it is our responsibility to look after it, and as a business we should pursue a dual economic and social agenda."

That vision has been at the core of Danone's motivation throughout the decades and has intensified today. Many examples of how the company has put purpose into action have paved the way for how Danone drives the purpose process today:

• In 1997, Danone defined its values around the acronym HOPE — humanism, openness, proximity, and enthusiasm — and set out to make them an integral part of daily management. These values projected our identity around the world.
• The rollout of "Danone Way" in 2001 encouraged all category business units (CBUs) to evaluate their own performance and launch initiatives that combined business success with responsibility to employees, stakeholders (from suppliers to consumers), and the environment.
• In 2009, Danone made an initial contribution of €100 million to fund the Danone Ecosystem Fund. Its mission is to co-create innovative business solutions with not-for-profit organizations that generate social and economic value for small players in the local economy and Danone. The fund supports 56 projects in about 26 countries and 40 CBUs with 42 partners, focusing on expanding dairy farming, local distribution systems, packaging recycling networks, personal services, and socioeconomic development.
• In 2014, Danone and Mars Inc., two of the world's leading food manufacturers, partnered to launch a new innovative investment fund, the Livelihoods Fund for Family Farming (Livelihoods 3F). The fund helps companies learn how to sustainably source the materials they need from family farms, thereby providing a significant improvement in the living conditions of those farmers and their communities. It is open to any company sharing Livelihoods 3F's mission.
• In 2020, Danone North America created a program to help eliminate food waste, or the huge amount of edible food that goes to landfills because it is not considered perfect enough for retail. Given that one in six people in the U.S. go hungry, this lost food can easily feed them. Now, when a consumer buys Danone's Two Good brand yogurt, an equal amount will go to someone in need.

Today, Danone has set its goal on building a balanced, profitable, and sustainable growth model. The company relies on a unique portfolio of strong brands, innovation, brand activation, and the development of new distribution channels. That is why B Corporation certification is so important to Danone now.

While Danone has been committed to these social, environmental, and economic values for decades, it chose to become part of today's B Corp movement. Danone North America is proud to be the largest Certified B Corporation in the world. It means as a business Danone holds itself accountable to the highest standards of performance, transparency, and accountability.

When Danone was applying for B-Corp status, it was expected to be a three-year journey. Employees were so excited and motivated by the commitment that they were able to accelerate the process. Danone was certified in one year.

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Sarah Colamarino, Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is a company that's changing health care, and our shift to a corporate brand has been an important transition for us. Our stakeholders are no longer just consumers, but the government, policymakers, and health care professionals. Our J&J corporate brand needs to be meaningful and valuable to all these groups.

We co-created our current brand purpose with our teams, and this new brand mission is to blend heart, science, and ingenuity to change the trajectory of health for all humanity. J&J has been transforming internally and refining our focus.

Previously, our brand was driven by pharma and medical devices. Now, to drive our corporate purpose, we are looking at how our brand can be reflected in all our businesses, and we are focused on how the brand can reflect a total, holistic approach to health. We are focused on total health and transformation and how innovation can resolve the world population's unmet health needs through cutting-edge solutions.

Essentially, we want to be a purpose-led organization, and the process has been a journey. We have spent 18 months integrating this idea into our organization. We have had to re-orient people's mindsets, which is a difficult task.

For example, we have in our development pipeline a vaccine for HIV. In the past, we would have taken a very traditional approach to its development cycle and would have never brought this idea forward until we had passed all our requirements and ensured it was ready for the market. Today, we are taking a more proactive role in the vaccine's development cycle, and we are speaking openly about it with organizations like Global Citizen, which has the mission of eliminating extreme poverty from impoverished groups. J&J's involvement in these organizations has increased substantially given the new goals we have with our brand. We are now speaking openly about our challenges and inviting others to help us solve them, which is something we have never done before.

 

Andrea Brimmer, Ally Financial

Leaning toward purpose must be laser-focused. You can't believe in the golden rule if you don't live up to the values of your brand.

Ally launched in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, when no one was begging for another bank. Certainly, no one was waking up in the morning exclaiming, "I can't wait to interact with my bank!" So we thought about how to be a better bank. We didn't start with research. Instead, our team talked as human beings at a business moment no one would ever forget. We asked: "What is fractured? What is broken? What don't we like? And, most importantly, how do we solve for customer pain, whether it's talking directly to someone 24/7 about their account, de-jargonizing financial terms, or speaking to people like human beings?" "Ally" would come to be used both literally and figuratively.

I believe that purpose never leaves you when it's genuine. If it's authentic and born out of the brand, then you don't have to work hard for buy-in. Purpose has to be relevant to the customer, but it also must be a force with the company. The organization has to rally around it. Driving purpose underscores the importance of an engaged workforce and the actions of the organization.

Ally is based in Michigan. We moved 2,000 people to Detroit as the city was going through economic mobility to make it our headquarters. It was a huge expense and a 20-year lease, but it helped the younger generation understand the legacy of the city and the core values of Ally as a financial company. We committed to being a solution as part of Detroit's rebirth, and in doing so inspired our employees. That doesn't have anything to do with marketing, but everything to do with driving purpose.