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Why All the Talk About Purpose and Brand Strategy?

January 29, 2015 —

Why All the Talk About Purpose and Brand Strategy?

A HBR blog post by Graham Kenny details the difference between the increasingly popular idea of purpose and the traditional corporate drivers of vision, mission, and values. His conclusion echoes our beliefs about the role and impact of a company purpose: “If you’re crafting a purpose statement, my advice is this: To inspire your staff to do good work for you, find a way to express the organization’s impact on the lives of customers, clients, students, patients — whomever you’re trying to serve. Make them feel it.” Mr. Kenny’s closing statement, “make them feel...
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Winning Leaders Change the Conversation

October 14, 2014 —

Winning Leaders Change the Conversation

We recently came across an interview with Lee Clow, who has been responsible for a slew of famous ad campaigns, including the landmark 1984 Apple commercial. In the interview he talks about how he now describes his role: “Finding a voice as a tone for a brand is the art of what I do. I want to consider myself now as a media artist, not an advertising person, because advertising is kind of defined these days and has a negative stigma attached to it. But to be a media artist is to take a brand and find its voice and tell its story and make it interesting and likeable. I think brands are...
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Human Friendly Brands

September 22, 2014 —

Human Friendly Brands

Should brands be more like humans? Or is the real goal to be “human-friendly” in form, behavior, and function? It’s something worth thinking about. Most of us in the advertising/marketing/branding biz tend to anthropomorphize brands. We think and write about them as if they were living, breathing people. However, in a thought-provoking piece, “The Human Paradox”, Gareth Kaye, Chief Strategy Officer of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, questions if that is the right approach: “I’ve come to believe that this failure of brands is down to us blindly believing that brands that are more human...
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Purpose-Led Brands: Is Purpose Only Created by Adopting a Cause?

July 25, 2014 —

Purpose-Led Brands: Is Purpose Only Created by Adopting a Cause?

There is a fantastic post from PR company Edelman on their notion of “purpose”. They see purpose as the next evolution of cause marketing. They point to 1983 as the start of cause marketing, when American Express sponsored the restoration of the Statue of Liberty by having each American Express Card purchase trigger a donation to the cause. They now claim we are in “Cause 4.0”, which leads to what is called “Social Purpose”. This is all about business doing well by doing good, but is it really only cause marketing? We don’t believe that a business...
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Brands That Celebrate Beautiful Human Values Enjoy Well-Earned Respect

April 10, 2014 —

Brands That Celebrate Beautiful Human Values Enjoy Well-Earned Respect

Steve Fuller of The House agency in Bath, UK kindly told us about this fantastic video about the rewards of giving. Steve demonstrated generosity by sharing it with us, we are doing the same with you, and now we hope you do it as well with everyone you know and love! And while you’re doing that, think about how your brand could contribute to the social good by promoting human values in lovely ways like this. Thanks Steve! To view “Unsung Hero” please click the following link: https://youtu.be/uaWA2GbcnJU Want a more emotive brand? Learn more here....
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