Being a purpose-driven brand and practising what you preach all comes down to keeping purpose simple and authentic.
It involves making sure that purpose is implemented from the top down, that it is celebrated and rewarded, measured effectively, and is shared with staff, stakeholders and customers.
Doing so allows those who work for you – and those who interact with your business or brand externally – to better understand and appreciate their day-to-day dealings and contact with the organisation and support you in progressing successfully along your path forward.
What is brand purpose?
The answer to this question is your business’s brand purpose. Brand purpose describes the ‘why’ behind a business, specifically why a business does what it does. It encapsulates a company’s unique value proposition and actively differentiates its position in the marketplace by ensuring that a business stands for more than just making a profit.
Brand purpose can manifest itself in a wide variety of ways and must be present throughout an entire company’s structure, including its processes and its communications. It’s more than just an advertising campaign or a customer service policy. Brand purpose is the core identity of a company.
Why is brand purpose important?
In a highly competitive global marketplace, it can be difficult to capture the attention of prospective customers or potential employees without an overarching purpose-led brand strategy.
People are drawn to purpose, whether it’s in individuals or businesses. Purpose-driven brands evoke positive emotions, allowing businesses to build personal, meaningful connections with both customers and the wider community. An authentic brand purpose is an extremely valuable asset to a growing company looking to extend their customer base, attract top talent and improve engagement with and contribute to the community in which they operate.
With an effective corporate brand strategy in place, a company is demonstrating that they offer more to the world than just their products or services. Prospective customers who identify with that purpose will in turn identify with your brand, encouraging them to feel good about supporting your business, and have a longer and deeper engagement.
But a purpose-led brand strategy must be a lived experience rather than a soulless policy. This is where Putting Purpose into Practice comes in.
Five Key Principles for Putting Purpose into Practice
To devise an effective putting purpose into practice (PPiP) plan, there are five principles you should remember:
1. Keep your brand purpose authentic
A purpose statement should be authentic, simple, motivating, credible and easy for people to rally behind, yet big enough to inspire and reflect the business’ ambition. The most powerful purpose-driven business models feel natural to engage with because they simply make sense for that organisation and the products or services they provide.
2. Get and keep your board and C-suite onboard with being a purpose led brand:
Successful purpose-driven companies have buy-in at every level. It is the responsibility of the board and senior leadership to own, commit to and drive the purpose forward. They need to support, budget for, report on and track the impact of purpose. The business strategy is built from the purpose out, and every strategic decision that is made at board level reflects the purpose.
3. Celebrate, reward and recognise your brand’s purpose
In purpose-driven organisations, behaviour that supports the purpose is acknowledged and celebrated. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and incentives are linked to purpose outcomes and the Employee value proposition (EVP) and Customer value proposition (CVP) are aligned. Onboarding, reviews, staff engagement and training support the purpose and the organisation’s transformation objectives.
4. Define goals and measurement
Specific goals, both financial and non-financial, should be set and tracked to ensure the purpose is prioritised and put into practice across the organisation. Regular tracking ensures you can keep moving forward and re-align your brand strategy or your PPiP plan if there are significant market challenges or opportunities. If you are in doubt of what these metrics should be, your brand purpose agency can help you with identifying and implementing brand measuring processes.
5. Keep your brand’s purpose engaging through storytelling
The purpose and its story need to be clearly articulated and compelling for each audience. It must be easy to share the purpose story with all relevant stakeholders in a way that they understand how it influences their day-to-day interaction with the organisation and each other. Compelling assets make it easy for all team members to share the story with their team, stakeholders, and customers.
Preparing your Putting Purpose into Practice plan, corporate brand strategy and measurement activity is a critical component of ensuring that your corporate brand purpose is not a wasted opportunity. It also empowers you to achieve the desired transformation, engagement (inside and out) and business objectives that you are committed to.
Need help putting your purpose into practice? Contact us!
At Brand Council, we have over 16 years of expertise helping diverse organisations successfully develop their corporate purpose, brand strategy, and next steps forward. If you’re looking for expert brand advice that will help you identify the best way to approach, implement, and practice your purpose, let’s start the conversation.
