As we enter a ‘post-purpose’ era, we ask how companies can balance business, branding and the desire to be a force for good.
Purpose. Impact. Sustainability. These terms have ebbed and flowed over the years, as brands and agencies put their heads together and asked how they could sell stuff and make the world a better place.
The ‘creativity for good’ movement has provoked equal amounts of scepticism and excitement. On the one hand, agencies have set up new business models geared towards helping brands become more responsible, and companies have committed huge amounts of budget to improve sustainability and address societal challenges.
But on the other, there’s been more than one creative misstep in the pursuit of purpose, as well as a steady creep of people asking if ‘purpose-led’ is as effective as we hope.
WHAT IS PURPOSE, ANYWAY?
In 2021, in a much-read post, Nick Asbury wrote: “Brand purpose is the corporate idealism of our age”; and in 2023, Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher said that while it had been beneficial for some brands, the company wouldn’t ‘force fit’ purpose across their whole portfolio.
“Going back the last decade or so, everybody was clamouring to prove they’re not as big and nasty and corporate as we recognise they might be,” says Andy Harvey, founder and creative director at Communion – an agency set up to help brands have better, real-world impact. “Everyone’s claiming to be purpose-driven.
It doesn’t have to play by the old codes – we’re in a time where you can make a brand look like anything.
ANDY HARVEY, founder, Communion
“The bit I’m obsessed with as a creative studio is how we make this stuff weird, and desirable, and sexy, and compelling. It doesn’t have to play by the old codes – we’re in a time where you can make a brand look like anything and people go, that’s cool. Is the product good? Do you do harm to the planet?”
IS A GOOD PRODUCT ENOUGH?
To be clear, Harvey is no cynic. He believes creatives and brands are, for the most part, going about things with the best of intentions. But as he points out, committing 10% to good causes won’t cancel out the 90% that’s negative.
All of that leaves us in a strange no-man’s land, where brands are well aware they need to improve and creatives are keen to help, but both are labouring under some major question marks.
Is providing your consumer with reliable, affordable products, produced in a way that’s as gentle on the planet as possible, enough? Do companies need to be thinking about a wider range of issues? And if so, how do they tackle them with the help of their creative agencies? How do they make sure it’s a genuine effort, and not something designed to win PR or awards?
Brands would do better to close the gap and be more honest about where they are on their journey.
Andy Harvey, founder, Communion
“People want to be able to buy better stuff, use better services and have a better quality of life.” says Harvey. “There’s also a big disconnect between what brands claim, and the reality of their actions. Brands would do better to close the gap and be more honest about where they are on their journey.”
POINT YOUR INTENTIONS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
That leaves a lot of businesses in a difficult position. Few, if any, can claim to be 100% sustainable, and a vanishingly small number have the budget to meaningfully impact a major world issue. Meanwhile, others are trapped in a cycle of paying lip service to sustainability and equality with creative work that might be compelling and award-winning, but ultimately isn’t backed up by reality.
So what’s a brand to do?
According to Harvey, companies should think carefully about the causes they align themselves with, and ask whether they can truly impact them on a wider scale – or whether they’re strictly relevant for their business. “It’s finding out what’s true about your brand, versus what’s true for any brand,” he explains.
And there are hard conversations to be had about what actually connects with consumers. “Nobody’s looking at toothpaste or Toilet Duck and going, ‘I wonder what the purpose of this is?’ The purpose is there: it’s going to clean your teeth or your toilet, hopefully with minimal impact to the planet and society, and that’s enough. Too often brands create a disconnect between the product and the consumer.
“I see a lot of good intentions in all this stuff, just badly played out and badly pointed at the wrong moment in time. Or it’s just trying to be the headline and overshadow the thing you’re providing to people, which becomes really confusing.”
DOES IT SELL?
All of this leads to what is perhaps a bigger question: does creativity for good, or impact, or purpose, or whatever you want to call it, actually sell products? “Unless it has a direct bearing on what you’re paying for, probably not,” says Harvey.
“If I’m buying something that’s inherently about community or a social cause, then it makes sense – depending on how the brand communicates it. But when it’s abstracted – like, here’s your toilet paper and I’m going to talk to you about women in Gambia – then I don’t think it changes the consumer decision that much at all, no matter how well intentioned the initiative is.”
We’re in an era where consumers can find out as much information as they ever could, so you can’t bury the real story.
Andy Harvey, founder, Communion
Consumers are also becoming more suspicious around claims of sustainability, as well as marketing, advertising or brand initiatives that intend to do good. In many ways, social media platforms have become a revolutionary brand purpose tool, with influencers dedicating themselves to uncovering examples of greenwashing, and exposing the realities of manufacturing and supply chains.
“We’re in an era where consumers can find out as much information as they ever could, so you can’t bury the real story,” explains Harvey. “Eventually it’ll come out; it might be five years down the road, it might be next week, but it will come out.”
The positive side of this is that people really want to know how brands’ products are being made. Companies that can show, openly and honestly, that goods aren’t created in sweatshops, are going to win.
PURPOSE AS A PIVOT POINT
That doesn’t mean turning sustainability, or diversity, or equality efforts into the headline of every campaign either – according to Harvey, we’re at a point where these things should be baseline. Paper-thin purpose isn’t going to cut it anymore, and that leaves room for creatives to make work that’s more effective, more honest and more interesting.
And for brands, it lets them approach things like sustainability and corporate responsibility in a far more innovative way. “Take Nike and their pivot to Move to Zero – it’s not about making green trainers using recycled materials. It’s about how they talk about what Nike is about, which is better athletic performance through innovation. And you’ve seen that with a massive explosion of new types of shoes.
“It’s the embracing of it that I’m passionate about,” he continues. “If we can get clients to see purpose as a pivot point towards doing things in a more exciting way, it becomes amazing.”
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Branding work shown: Zegna, New Foundation Farms, FC Como, all by Communion
