How do you Brand for Good?
Should purpose-driven or social good marketing be a part of your marketing mix?
The idealistic answer is yes, but how it comes to life depends on your brand, consumers, and strategy. We think marketers need to learn how to integrate the concept of Brand for Good into their brand management practices. But, what does Brand for Good mean? For us, we advocate that brands operate from a place of purpose, with a sense of responsibility that takes into account multiple stakeholders (not just investors), and with a bias towards action.
Brand for Good goes beyond Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It’s built into the fabric of your business and brand. It’s similar to what Hanneke Faber, President Unilever Europe, articulated in her article about the need for Brand Activists and needing to run businesses from a genuine place of purpose.
When you’re building a Brand for Good, what should be your game plan?
Start with Beliefs, Purpose, & Values. Having clarity and alignment around your Mission, Vision, and Purpose that is consistent with your beliefs and values is critical. This is where you want to start when considering a program, because it will help you clearly frame objectives and strategies. These will also help guide internal behaviors and actions. Patagonia is a company that has a very clear belief structure, and over recent years seems to be deepening into its long-held commitment. The company’s clarity guides many of its actions from product development to how it shows up in the world.
Next is to build the above into your Brand Strategy and how your brand comes to life. Be clear on what you stand for overall, the promise you are making to consumers, and how you want to apply your purpose against everything you do. Don’t think just marketing communication. What are your standards for your products? For your customer service? For employee engagement? Everlane is a good example here. The company operates and presents itself with a high degree of consistency with its beliefs and mission.
When it comes to marketing communication or programs, ensure 100% alignment. If you want your marketing to reflect your Purpose, there are several factors to consider:
To define an approach, start from either your Purpose or the Action and Impact you want to have in the world. Be clear on both and find alignment between the two. Don’t think that what you activate has to speak to social issues that are charged. For example, if you’re a food brand, you might choose to stand for the value of eating together in community. That is a positive value that one would think not many would push against. Dove’s positioning and its longstanding Real Beauty campaign could be framed within this context of Purpose and Impact—a desire to change the conversation around and redefine what beauty means for women.
Create an action or message that taps into what’s relevant to your community. Just as you’d do with any marketing execution, start with your consumer and an understanding of their core motivations and what’s relevant to their beliefs in alignment with your brand. REI’s Opt Outside campaign is a good example here, encouraging and demonstrating its own commitment and love of the great outdoors.
Execute from a place of authenticity and truth. Be in alignment with your Beliefs, Purpose, and Values through and through. Audi’s 2017 Super Bowl ad that championed gender equality faced backlash, because the company created the ad based more on targeting women than being aligned with its purpose and, making matters worse, the company had skeletons in its closet on this issue.
Ensure the execution is done with integrity and is respectful and non-exploitive. It’s easy for images to be misconstrued, so be sure to get multiple perspective to avoid any negative interpretations. The Always “Like a Girl” campaign was executed well and was well received. Yet, done the wrong way, this could have gone off the rails.
To that last point, think about possible downsides and be open to feedback once you’ve executed. It can be hard to get this right, so it’s best pre-execution and launch to go through scenarios of what can happen and how different audiences might respond. There can be unintended consequences, so be prepared and ready to respond if your execution taps off resistance. Imagine if Pepsi had taken this step before they had aired its fateful Kendall Jenner ad.
Commit to ongoing action. Don’t make this a one and done type of activity. It should be thought of as a program, considering how you can extend it over time. This can be considered in relation to the impact you are seeking to have. Patagonia and Everlane again serve as good examples here. Patagonia regularly acts on behalf of environmental causes and continues to forward its product development in alignment with its values. Everlane has regularly stood up for human rights and has long been a partner and donated to the ACLU.
It should go without saying that getting behind Brand for Good requires strong leadership.
It’s imperative to have endorsement and commitment from the top of the organization when taking this approach. If one looks back to some of the initiatives championed by Dove or CVS in the early days, it took senior leaders championing ideas and ideals to the C-suite to really lean into Brand for Good activities. If your C-suite isn’t pushing and you are championing these ideas, get them onboard to have lasting impact.
We get it. Brand for Good doesn’t seem easy.
But we think it’s doable and can be executed on a level that can feel doable, inclusive, and still quite meaningful. Explore what that could look like for your brand today.