What you can expect purpose to do for your brand

I have been reading a few articles that question the validity of a brand taking a purpose-driven approach. The articles pointed to brands that have stumbled in their attempts. I’ve seen similar situations.

• A brand tries to serve a purpose that is too broad (it’s going to take more than one brand to solve world hunger).
• A brand tries to serve a purpose that is simply not believable to customers and prospects. People are incredibly acute and will quickly dismiss a purpose that doesn’t pass the smell test.
• A brand tries to twist its purpose to fit a leader’s whims. I’ve seen this happen when a CEO has a charity that he is fond of. The company ends up supporting that charity (which in and of itself is not a bad thing) and promoting that they support that charity. Then the organization tries to justify how, by supporting that charity, it is furthering the purpose of the organization. It ends up being confusing. If the CEO insists on supporting the charity, the organization should keep it separate from the purpose which is driven by something much deeper than the CEO’s wants.

The challenge is that too many brands have unrealistic expectations of what a purpose can do for the brand.

A report by eMarketer explains what consumers care about, “Values are important, but…