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5 Inspiring Quotes on Finding True Purpose

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ANA events bring together some of the smartest and most-talented marketers in the industry to share insights and best practices that help ANA members get the most out of their own marketing efforts.

Naturally, when ANA members and other top marketers get together, the potential for a great soundbite or two is very high. For this reason, we'll be collecting and sharing the top quotes from ANA events during each month throughout 2022.

Below, you can find the top quotes from ANA speakers for September:

"[Marketing] nirvana is to build the brand and the business at the same time."
— Michelle Froah, SVP of global marketing strategy and science at MetLife

In a bellwether for where the marketing industry is headed, the need to update measurement programs and link brand marketing efforts to business results was a recurring theme during the 2022 ANA Measurement and Accountability Conference. At MetLife, that has meant eschewing traditional metrics in favor of measures like consideration, relationship net promoter score, and customer lifetime value. Get used to hearing about those things. Because more and more, these are the areas where the C-suite wants to see marketing success. It's going to require a new way of thinking for marketers. Speaking of which...

"You almost have to unlearn some of your understanding of what social media is or should be. Moving to a TikTok-first approach involves letting go of some of what you hold dear and letting the internet take over the reins of your brand. It can make a lot of people very nervous."
— Tom Hyde, VP of strategy at Movers+Shakers

By now, you've probably heard some variation of, "The marketing industry has changed more in the last five years than it did in the previous 20." Well, that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down. Consider that going into 2020, TikTok was a fringe social media platform. Two years later and it has industry leaders talking about forgetting everything you know about marketing. And with things like the metaverse on the horizon, marketing only seems to be getting more complex. Hey, what even is the metaverse anyway?

"I don't like to think of the metaverse as just a destination. I like to think of it as a dimension. It's a layer. The interconnection between the physical and the digital worlds."
— Jason Velliquette, EVP of digital marketing at R3

Marketers are just beginning to wrap their minds around the potential of the metaverse. If you're someone who is still struggling to understand the concept, Jason Velliquette provided a good description above. In the future, the metaverse won't just be a single platform — it will be several platforms with interoperable capabilities, making it more like an additional layer of reality. Like we said — COMPLEX.

"There is this belief that we always need to be personalizing our messaging, and that's not always the case. Personalized messaging can be very good, but it's not guaranteed to be better than something that is a powerful message that may appeal to many. We do need to think about it, whether it makes sense for different types of businesses and in what settings that makes sense."
— Paul Sinkinson, managing director of Australia at Analytic Partners

This is an interesting and refreshing take. With marketing growing more complex (do you get the point yet?) and the need for more data-driven personalization rising, Analytic Partners' Paul Sinkinson offers a reassuring argument for the enduring power of broad messaging. While personalization will certainly be a necessity in the coming decades, a resonant brand message with broad appeal can still be a useful tool in the marketing tool belt.

"Purpose is a little bit like Pokémon. Everybody is searching for it, but nobody knows why."
— Thomas Kolster, author of Goodvertising and The Hero Trap

We end this month's round-up with a critique of the popular brand purpose concept. Thomas Kolster, a certified purpose expert, argued recently that with so many brands jumping into the purpose pool, the power is becoming diluted. To counteract this, Kolster argued that purpose must be positioned in a way that centers the consumer as the driver of societal progress, with the brand only serving a supporting role.


The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the ANA or imply endorsement from the ANA.


Ryan Dinger is a director of editorial and content development at ANA.

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