Podcast

Park Howell

#432: Ch. 9, Moral: How to Declare Your Brand’s Purpose to Amplify Your Impact

In a Fast Company article, Adele Peters wrote, “Two-thirds (of consumers) said they’d consider the company’s purpose when deciding what to buy, and 71% said they’d buy from a purpose-driven company over the alternative if cost and quality were equal. Sixty-two percent said that they thought it was important to consider purpose even when making an impulse buy.”

But most companies aren’t connecting with caring consumers because they haven’t developed and articulated what their brand stands for that is greater than just making money.

In Jim Stengle’s 2011 book, Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies, he examines 50 purpose-driven brands that outperformed the S&P 500 by 400 percent during the global recession precisely because they understood their guiding ideal.

In Chapter 9 of Brand Bewitchery called Moral, we use all of the elements of the previous eight steps of the Story Cycle System™ to help you reveal and articular your brand purpose.

Let’s reexamine the brand purposes of the companies that you have been introduced to through this guidebook:

Airloom is an all-natural allergy supplement, but its greater purpose is to help people inhale a healthy dose of life. Let’s take it a step further. The purpose of Oasis LLC, the makers of Airloom, is to ameliorate human suffering.
Ecodriving Solutions provides fleet driver training programs to fulfill its purpose of helping people arrive healthy, happy, and safe.
While most people think of Goodwill Industries as running thrift stores that fund their workforce development programs, they truly exist to help people realize the treasure of a good job.
Adelante Healthcare is a community health center fulfilling its purpose of providing sustainable healthcare for all.
Global Water is a water utility, but it exists to help people access the renewable resource of water so they can flourish.
Red Bull exists to give wings to people and ideas.
Airbnb exists to help people feel like they belong anywhere.
Prêt, Auto, Partez sells used cars to at-risk buyers. But this is just the brand’s vehicle to serve its purpose of helping people get back on the road to financial freedom.
Crystal Head Vodka exists to help people enlighten their creative spirit.

From the list above, which is more intoxicating to you: the product or the purpose?

Discussed in this episode:

Learn how you can own a room with your storytelling like Steve Jobs did with Bill Gates.
Hear Dan Akroyd describe the purpose behind his Crystal Head vodka brand.
Use the Story Cycle System™ to find your brand purpose.