By Joanne Woo
“Over recent years, we’ve seen a rise in purpose-driven brands — and when done well, they create differentiation and competitive advantage. But where do brands go from there? Purpose is important, but here’s the thing: people can’t act on purpose, but they can act on movements. So the opportunity for CMOs is to go to the next frontier — activate their brand’s purpose meaningfully and authentically, and create a movement with customers,” says Joanne Woo, Global VP, Head of Communications, ABB Process Industries.
Why has purpose-driven marketing been such a focus for CMOs? And what is the next step?
Having a clear purpose as a brand matters, and when done well, drives competitive advantage. Research has shown that purpose-driven companies achieve higher market share gains and grow three times faster than their competitors. Customers are also more likely to purchase a product from a brand that advocates for an issue they care about. Purpose-driven brands emotionally connect with customers when they share the same core values. The question CMOs face now is “What’s next?”.
Activating your brand’s purpose by creating a movement with customers will deepen their connection with your brand even further. When you invite them to join a movement that they can own and they can spread — then you galvanise action. This is the Holy Grail for marketers.
What steps should they take to activate their brand’s purpose?
To move into movement marketing, there are three points to focus on. Firstly, it starts from the inside. When a company or brand decides on its purpose, the first step is to bring employees along on that journey. To build a culture that embodies the purpose, making sure the actions of all leaders embody the purpose, and that employees live and breathe the purpose. It needs to be meaningful to everyone. ABB’s purpose is centred on sustainability, and it is infused in all our daily discussions on a corporate and individual level. It is at the heart of why we get up every day and come to work. And you’ll see that our employees take to external channels like LinkedIn to speak about sustainability.
Secondly, create and build a community. When you treat customers like a community rather than a passive audience, you’re putting the power in their hands to activate on the values shared between your brand and themselves. A brand that has done this very well is Strava. The platform has built the largest sports community in the world, with over 100 million people in 195 countries. Their community shares their vision of wellness and actively engages with the brand as well as fellow athletes. The community has come alive and continues to see remarkable growth.
At ABB, what has worked well in terms of building a customer community is co-creating content with our customers. We have launched campaigns and initiatives where we go out with a common challenge — diversity is one of them —and work together to bring that topic forward on everyone’s agenda. We then create ways where people can join in on the movement, for example through user generated content which they can share on social media. This helps build brand loyalty as it builds stronger connections with customers, and they feel they can actively contribute towards a shared purpose.
My third point is around authenticity and transparency. It’s not enough to say it, you have to show it. Sometimes companies communicate very lofty goals, and while it’s good to be ambitious, that is not the end of it. Brands need to frequently communicate what actions they have taken, what new products and technologies they have developed to achieve that purpose. They must communicate their success stories, but also setbacks when they happen. They need to have measurable and tangible KPIs that really back up their purpose as well. A great example of a brand which does this really well is Who Gives A Crap. They’ve carved a differentiated space despite being a fairly mundane product — toilet paper! But they show the impact they make, together with their customers, by donating 50 percent of their profits to building toilets for underprivileged communities.
Communications must always be human-centred. Ultimately, if you want to create a movement, you need to build a movement around an idea that puts the human front and centre, so that people can see the meaning in it, and the greater good that you’re striving to achieve. It cannot just benefit the brand.
What role should CMOs play in this process?
While it is every C-suite leader’s role to activate the purpose, the CMO’s role is to make sure it goes beyond words; that it is not just a marketing campaign. The CMO has to make sure that people internally are accountable and measuring against the purpose, challenging them if they are not acting towards the purpose. More and more CMOs today have a seat at the table, but with this is the responsibility to play a greater role than just creating great campaigns. CMOs can catalyze action by making sure stakeholders internally are living and breathing the purpose, and creating a space for customers to come together as a community and join a movement that’s bigger than the brand itself.
Joanne Woo is Global VP, Head of Communications for ABB Process Industries.
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