Is Brand Purpose Dead—or More Alive Than Ever? | Conversation with Kory Marchisotto (e.l.f.Beauty), Mark Ritson (Mini MBA), Lisa Materazzo (The Ford Motor Company) and Sara Carter (adam&eveDDB)

26:51We don't need a financial prerogative to do the right thing. We should just do the right thing when we can. So yeah, I've been very annoyed by it for 10 years. I'm sick of it. And for me, it gets in the way of doing good marketing and good positioning. And we only have a couple of brain cells. We don't have room for all this high pollutant stuff. And I'm sorry that's the truth. Yeah, hear, hear. So why is it particularly bad in America, Mark? I have to get you on that. Why is it worse in America than other countries? There's a couple of reasons. Americans, first of all, are generally nicer people than English, Australian, Germans, etc., who are more cynical.

27:29That's just the way that it goes. And second, I have to tell you, there is a remarkable decline in the quality of American marketing that's taken place over the last 15 years. Again, I'm not talking about a wonderful guest tonight, of course. But when I went to study at Wharton in the 90s, it was to discover a marketing universe that was 20 years ahead of anywhere else on the planet. Now I despair at the state of American marketing. There's no knowledge of salience. There's no knowledge of excess share of voice. Most American marketers are behind places like the Netherlands and Australia, which are hardly the hotbeds of marketing excellence.

28:06And if you ask Sarah Carter, who hates being put on the spot, she'll confirm it to you. The quality of American marketing, and again, Ford's a great exception. Don't get me wrong. P &G's a great exception. But generally speaking, it's gone from being the leader in marketing to often a place where we have to pause and explain it because the effectiveness literature moved on. And for some reason, I can't quite explain, Americans stopped leading it. And they became obsessed with things like purpose, which are a distraction from the real challenge of getting this right. You know what I mean? It's a side alley.

28:42It's a lovely story, and it's full of fruity and beautiful anecdotes. But, you know, I did Brand Week last year with John Legend. You know, he's a brilliant singer. He's a lovely man. He knows bugger all about marketing. So what he was doing at Brand Week, I don't know. You know, this is the emotion approach to marketing now. Let's get, you know, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. He sells tickets, Mark. He sells tickets, but it's kind of like get Jenny Romanyuk there. Do you know what I mean? It's sad for me because I love America so much and I learned my trade in America. But I think, yeah, purpose has filled a big, soft, fluffy hole and other things should have been in that hole instead, frankly.

29:21And about five years ago, I joined a big kind of marketing training program for Unilever marketers. So the room was full of young Gen Z Unilever marketers and the person training them said, I want you all to think now, you know, someone standing in front of your brand in the supermarket, what are all the reasons that they wouldn't choose your brand? And, you know, around the room, everyone's hands get up. They don't share my values. You know, the brand doesn't live its values properly. It doesn't have the right purpose, all that kind of stuff. And it went on and on. And the person trading said, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

29:55The reasons they're not going to buy it, they can't find it on the shelf. It's not available in the right pack site. They don't like that flavor. The brand next to it is half the price. And they were genuinely flabbergasted. They just hadn't thought that any of those reasons would be the main reason. So it's just like complete distortion of marketing. Normal marketing rules still apply with purpose. It's still all about products, price, all that kind of stuff. But that sense was lost and it all kind of floated off into the kind of ether, totally disconnected from four Ps and marketing rules. So, I mean, I think that is changing now, the climbing back down that benefit ladder.

30:34But I think it's just a really interesting anecdote of just how distorting that whole kind of mantra of thinking was and distracting people from how marketing works. We saw it at Cannes, right? We've seen it over the last sort of four or five years. There's been this sort of orgy of purpose at Cannes. And suddenly now it's in quite dramatic decline in terms of the number of submissions and winners. So I think we are, I mean, again, we expect some brands genuinely to play their purpose and as they should, but it will be a small minority compared to this, you know, this bandwagon that traveled through marketing for the last 10 years, and I do hope we get back to more basic things.

31:14I see purpose at the other end of the extreme from salience. You know what I mean? What have we learned in the last 10 years from marketing science? We've learned that salience uber alice, that if you come to mind first in buying situations, as Ehrenberg Bass would have taught us, you're probably going to win 70, 80 % of the time. B2B, B2C, low involvement, high involvement. I'd like to bring Corey and Lisa into that. And thanks, Mark, for that. I actually do think that purpose can be a way to drive salience. I'll go back to my first impression was back when I was a brand manager. Question we started with was how do we impact the lives of the people who buy us more deeply?

31:50We will be remembered more. We will be more salient and they will develop an affinity for the brand. And that's at the core, at least of my thinking on purpose. And I think if it gets divorced from the business outcomes, Mark, I think we lose it all. So purpose for me is a how that you build a brand that has salience, relevance, attraction for a lot of people, maybe not all of them. That's where I think you and I are at the other end of the sausage, Jim. I think the purpose is purpose. That's the point of it, right? Why does a company follow its purpose? because it believes in it. And the minute you put a commercial outcome for it, surely you undermine that purpose and render it relatively pointless at the best of times.

32:40I think, you know, the examples we've heard in this podcast of purpose-driven activities are spectacular and fantastic. I just don't think they need to be, you know, compromised with very specious claims of commercial return, which, you know, not always, but for the most part aren't there. Let's just do good shit because it's good. because it's the right thing to do. I think that's wonderful. I just think the minute we then link it to make more money and get more customers through your brand purpose, I think we're drinking the Kool-Aid. It's funny, Mark, because that part of what you just said, the whole first part, I love and appreciate your conviction for the subject, and I was disagreeing with you the entire time.

33:20This last bit of what you just said, I'm like 100 % with you. So I think the more I listen to you, The more I'm actually aligned with what you're saying, which is, if I'm understanding you correctly, do purpose because it's the right thing to do. Serve your community. Do the right thing for the planet. Do all that. Just don't put a target on it and say that you're doing this because you're trying to drive a commercial outcome, which is a cause and effect type of scenario. Well, and one step further, Corey, it's going to cost you guys quite a lot of money to do purpose properly and be ready for that.

33:58You know what I mean? Be ready to have higher costs and be ready to lose some consumers because of what you believe. That's also cool. Now, whether your shareholders think it's called a different story, but purpose by definition is going to cost you at some point. And that's also OK, because we choose to do these things and the purpose of purpose is purpose, right? Not money. I think, again, that's Patagonia. That's Ben and Jerry's. You know, these are stories of losing enormous amounts of money and maybe making some back later. But ultimately, yeah, it's cost that defines purpose, not profit.

34:34That's a lovely quote from Bill Burrack, that a principle isn't a principle unless it costs you money, which is true. And the sort of whole purpose thing seems to have been flipped the other way, that a principle isn't a principle unless it makes you money. And that's kind of the reverse of what we've been saying, isn't it? This, to me, goes back to the definition of purpose. And I think there are two ways to level set on this. I get nervous when I hear that purpose is doing the right thing. I don't know what the right thing is. And in a world that's become increasingly fragmented and polarized, do the right thing for who?

35:11I define do the right thing as do the right thing for the company and the values the company was founded on. That's how I think about doing the right thing for Ford. It does at times cost us, but I think when we are staying true to those values, there is an ROI there in the form of loyalty, just as an example. And I will say it is loyalty beyond reason. It is loyalty that pays for itself. I have two unbelievable examples. When I introduce myself and I tell people I'm from Ford, they will still to this day say, I love that brand, I respect that brand because you didn't take the government bailout back in the recession.

35:54I met, and Jim, you'll appreciate this, I'm a huge Formula One fan. I was in Australia for the season opener Grand Prix and I met this lovely gentleman and we hit it off and started talking about cars. And as soon as he heard I was from Ford, he said, just a minute. and he reached down and started to untie his shoe. And I got very nervous. Luckily, my husband was standing there. And I'm like, what is happening now? He had a Ford tattoo on his foot. You have to love a brand at a whole other level. There are a lot of brands that I love. I do not have tattoos of those brands. So I would just poke at a little bit of the conversation to point those two things out.

36:37Well, the second thing would be that your purpose, if you are a marketer and think you're going to fabricate this purpose that will eclipse and address inadequacies that you have in what I'll call basic marketing, it's not going to happen. It's not going to compensate for deficiencies you have in marketing excellence in world-class marketing. So those are just the two things I wanted to point out.

37:09Everyone seems to be chasing the next big thing, the fastest answer, the quickest win. But great CMOs believe the real power isn't in the speed, it's in stepping back to see the bigger picture. That's why everything Deloitte does in their CMO program, from their industry-leading capabilities to their connected network of CMOs, is designed to help you zoom out and gain fresh perspective. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture together. Learn more about the CMO program at cmo.deloitte.com.

37:42We were talking about Scott Galloway earlier. I often pick up what he puts down, and I really appreciated this line, which I think is germane to this topic. He said a brand is unearned margin because of soft power. Soft power is feeling good about the brand, empathy, goodwill. So to Lisa's point, that doesn't just come from product. And what I would argue is the world does not need another brand. There are thousands and in some cases, tens of thousands of options for every single category that there is. I would argue that the purpose of the brand, this soft power, if you will, is what is actually going to get you to be the choice because product performance is the price of entry.

38:31So if there's a thousand brands and they all perform at more or less the same level, then why would I choose Ford over insert brand here? Why would I choose Elf over insert brand here? And what I've found specifically at Elf is the more we wear our heart on our sleeve, the more we stand up for people, the more we fight for women's empowerment in the boardroom, on the playing fields, the more that we focus on the business that we're in, which is democratization of access, the more we get brand love scores off the charts, the more people trade other brands for us. And I do think there is something irrational, Mark, that perhaps you're not capturing in trying to make everything about empirical evidence only.

39:17There is an incredible valuable value to the emotional side of making choices. Most people make decisions based on emotion. So the reality of emotion is what's going to make an emotional connection with a human being. The emotional connection is going to come from making decisions that are both the head and the heart. The head is, does this thing perform? Because I don't want to waste my money on something that doesn't actually perform, right? The heart comes from, why would I choose you at the expense of every other offer on the market. And purpose, I would argue, has a lot to do with that. I don't think Mark's going to take issue with that if I know him from his writing.

39:58No, no, no. I think it's a great point. The only thing I would, again, pull us back to is when a brand comes to mind, when we have a salient initial awareness, the consumer is lazy. The brain is lazy. And what happens is they go, that's the one I'm going to feel more about. That's the one I'm going to have preference for. That's the one that I'm going to purchase. 70, 80 in the hbr last week 90 of the time if it comes to mind first i'm going to buy it because i don't want to think about these things too much now that in some cases in in cosmetics for example and automotive it does come down a little a little bit but nonetheless you know we have a an economy of ideas and money and everything else that limits what we can do right in terms of how we position our brands and how we communicate our brands and what features we focus on i think the opportunity cost of pushing more abstract purpose to the satisfaction of many marketers comes at the cost of doing the basics.

40:55I'll tell you now, I see most of the brand positioning work I see from relatively big brands. Many of them are still, you know, trundling along with positioning. I mean, first of all, brand positioning is a shit show, as most of us would acknowledge, right? There's too much, right? If you have more than a page, you've got too much, right? And second, most of it is completely bereft of distinctive brand assets, which are far more important than anything else on the planet. If you're not distinctive, if you don't have brand codes, you're not going to be noticed, right? So I despair of brands that spend their time crafting a purpose, but aren't worried about the distinctiveness of which they would come to mind.

41:31So there is an opportunity cost there. If we had unlimited money and unlimited brain cells and unlimited touch points, hey, the more the better. But we're not throwing shit against a wall here. And so I think that prioritization has to be also set in stone. What can we afford to do and where are we getting distracted? And I think if the brand doesn't come to mind, pretty much all the bets are off, right? Mark, I totally agree. If we're doing purpose and we're not getting the price right and the distribution right and the colors right and the packaging right, we're off. And you know that. I come from P &G.

42:04We do the fundamentals right. I think what at least I feel like we're not talking about is purpose as a concept with an organization helps them strive farther, reach to deeper things. When I talk about Jeff Peanutbutter changing the conversation, we grew our market share. So I do think it's a motivating concept to think beyond the current confines and constructs of the business as a chance for competitive differentiation. organization. And I know a lot of the people that call me and ask for help, their organizations are not productive, energized, and motivated. And purpose is a great way to do that if it's simple, if it's relevant to the brand, if it's relevant to the history, if it's relevant for the consumer.

42:47Jim, I don't disagree, but you raise a great point there too, right? I think the biggest single reason why marketers have become obsessed with purpose is it's kind of become a dirty word just to offer a good product that does a good job, right? Yeah, which is bad. I mean, look at Amazon. Amazon's the most loved brand. And what do they do? They always exceed your expectations with a great product and service. They keep it simple, right? And I think a lot of marketers are just not happy anymore simply selling a well-made soda that's good value and refreshing. It changed somewhere 25 years ago. It's not good enough for a lot of people to say, I work for Starbucks.

43:22You know, I mean, Starbucks is our ultimate case study, right? That's the most nonsensical positioning in the history of marketing. And my goodness, we've seen some nonsense, yeah? You look at those iterations of, you know, of what Starbucks is claiming and the problems they've got. with it as a result. Now Starbucks is more than a coffee, clearly, but it's not, you know, nourishing the neighborhoods, one neighborhood at a time, whatever the heck it is now, right? We've got to get brands back to the grounded market-oriented reality, and there's no dishonor. You know, I think you're right. I think marketers are bored just selling soft drinks and candy, but then they're in the wrong game.

43:59You know, when did it become not exciting to make a great product and sell it at a good price to lots of people. I think we've lost something. Yeah, that has to be the table stakes. I mean, you have to get that right. And then your purpose, however you define it, can be your differentiator. I will say that the consumer research is good, but consumers are, they can't, my experience has been, they cannot express emotion. They cannot express values. So I agree that there are drivers, like the product has to be there, the price has to be there. They need to be able to find it on the shelf, but you have to prod and get inside their psyche to extract that emotional attraction that they feel from the brand that is really driving their purchase, even if they can't express it.

44:48So I think that's critical as well. There is something or I think to your observations about generations, but I believe it's more nuanced than that, because when we look at it, we also look at it at a life stage because people who are young will tell you they want everything. They don't want compromises between purpose and the product and they're not going to make the trade-offs. That changes. That can change, I should say. So I worry about sweeping generalizations about generations and especially with Gen Alpha because they're so young, they're not fully into that consumer part of their life yet.

45:27And it will be, they have very different and very unique point of view. It will be interesting to see how that evolves over time, just as all the previous generations have evolved over time. Sarah, you've been quiet taking all this in. You're one of the world's great researchers. Well, I mean, Mark makes a very good point about there has been a lot of quite kind of dodgy research in this area hasn't it you're right if you ask anybody you're more likely to buy this brand if it does x to help the world or women or whatever you know you're going to get very high scores i think byron sharp once said one of the things that can corrupt science is good intention so yeah you've got to be very careful with your research i think what we could probably all agree on is that word you were using abstraction mark because i think that has been one of the issues with purpose when it becomes divorced from an attachment to products.

46:17It needs to be tethered, doesn't it? And I think, Corey, I loved your podcast you did with John Evans on Uncensored and your products are fantastic. And your purpose about democratizing your kind of products for everybody at a fraction of the price, it's just, that's fantastic. But it's very anchored in your product, isn't it? The issues we've had, particularly with me in the communication world is when these purposes have gone kind of up into the stratosphere, really. Starbucks is an example. And at that level, everything becomes the same. And because there aren't that many purposes to go around, everybody ends up bringing everybody together.

46:56There's no distinction. So I think we're seeing a lot of climbing down the ladder. I think, Jim, you did an interview recently with the marketer who's worked on Axe, didn't you, where they've come back down to fragrance smelling nice attraction you'll do that in a in a in a kind of purposeful way but you're not up doing toxic masculinity and bullying or whatever because from a computer communication point of view i can't talk bullying and toxicity of maleness and sell aftershave at the same time you can't do it in the same ad you can't sell opening up possibilities for girls and then leave it to a shampoo you just it's driving a generation fan is nuts trying to reconcile these things.

47:36It needs to be rooted in a product. You can go up a bit, but not too far. And I think that's been an issue. Isn't that the point, Sarah, that a lot of the purpose work, the majority of it is also about the company and what the company does and what the company thinks. And it breaks the first rule of positioning. It's not about what you think. Nobody cares. What are you doing for the consumer and the consumer's need? You're right. It's very generic. For me, the big challenges, is it's all most of it has been about and this is what we believe and this is what we do and it's like yeah but positioning is really about the consumer not about how you you take a stance on things and again you know we find ourselves in the same contradictory place which you know i do think is get coming back down to sarah's point to a more realistic level hey everybody this is Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive, and we produce the CMO podcast and are so excited to have partnered with Jim Stengel for so many years.

48:37Wanted to tell you a little bit about something that could be right for you. Vive is a program for entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to get more out of their life and become their best and happiest selves, both personally and professionally. We have a 12-month program that allows people to meet up with some of the best business leaders out there, and additionally experts in the wellness sector so that you can learn how to nurture yourself. So we teach things around sleep optimization, meditation, all those good things as well. Please reach out to us at podcasts at vibe.co to get more information.

49:12That's P O D C A S T S at V Y V E.co. Thanks for listening to the CMO podcast and hope to talk to you more about vibe.

49:26I want to come back to the point Mark brought up about purpose. The purpose of purpose is purpose. And I wanted to bring especially Corey and Lisa into that. I've just always felt if you don't have a purpose that is grounded in your company's beliefs and values and is somehow trying to result in better products and services, which result in better business for the company, it's a flawed concept. And so it drives me crazy when I hear someone talk about purpose being, Here's my purpose initiative, and I'm going to help this disadvantaged community. That might be fine to do, but you're getting too far away from the products and services that you're creating and selling to the people who you want to bring into your franchise.

50:07So I kind of feel like it has to have a connection to the business, or it's going to be disingenuous. Because these are companies that are largely public and need to make money and provide a return to the people that invest in them. And for me, purpose is a way to do that and to rise above and to make better products and services. So Lisa and Corey, where are you on that issue? And let's just open that issue up a little bit more. I agree with you, Jim. I think it goes to authenticity and it goes to, it speaks to whether or not your purpose can be enduring. And when I look at it from a Ford perspective, 120 plus year old family business, It was founded on a commitment to creating a better world through innovation and affordability.

50:51When you look at the proof points throughout 122 years, Ford has literally changed the world. When you think about Model T, putting the world on wheels, what that opened up, the businesses, the industries that were created by that and created by travel, affordable travel for a large portion of the population. When you think about the establishment of a living wage dating back to 1914, I mean, those are things that are so embedded in the founding values and principles of Ford. It has stood the test of time. Fast forward to today, you can still see that in everything we do. You can see it when you look at our dealer body.

51:39We have, I think this year, we will have 53 of our dealers that have been in existence for more than 100 years. The impact they have on their local communities, the way they bring the brand to life is really in line with those founding principles. So it has to be enduring, has to be authentic. And has to be connected to the business, right? The products and services you sell. Let's be clear. And I say this often, we are not a not-for-profit institution. That doesn't mean we don't have enormous power to change the world. And I completely agree with you, Lisa. Ford has done that in deeply meaningful ways for over a century.

52:18When you start with results looking at a company like Elf, we have 24 consecutive quarters of net sales growth and market share gains. There's only less than 600 consumer goods companies who have 24 consecutive quarters of net sales growth averaging above 20%, only six, and there's zero outside of Elf that have 24 consecutive quarters of market share gain. When you unpack that and say, okay, well, that is rare and remarkable performance. You're in rarefied territory. Unpack the why. Product is one for sure table stakes. It is not only product. It is our system and set of beliefs and our ability to create movements that are going to have a positive impact on the world.

53:03We're making the world a better place for every eye, lip, and face. And I actually don't believe in the idea that what you establish today should be the same 100 years from now. If you're listening to your community, if you're shaping culture, connecting communities, and moving along the journey with them, you're going to evolve. And brands that don't evolve will die. As Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, says, natural selection favors differentiation. What is going to make you different in a sea of sameness? And it can't just be a good product. There are plenty of people who are doing good product, strip it down to its essence, good product, good price, who have disappeared and gone extinct.

53:45So does the work that you do and the monetary investments you make have to pay off when you're a publicly traded company? Absolutely. Is your job to read the signals and lean in where the light says green absolutely and what i find specifically at elp i wouldn't tell every company to do what we do i would tell every company to codify your ethos start there if you don't have a codified ethos do not pass go then allow that to tell you what your purpose is that is then going to motivate and energize your people to go out and perform to a community of people who care about the things that you care about so i think the key part here is for each company to think about who are you?

54:26Why are you here? How does that manifest itself? And really ask the hardest question, which is what business are you actually in? If we said we're only in the business of selling color cosmetics, we would not be a$1.3 billion company today. We would not be Gen Z's number one preferred brand. What we figured out by understanding deeply the hearts and minds of our community is we're in the business of democratizing access. We opened a world to people that they were otherwise shut out of. And the emotional connection came from this idea that we took down the velvet ropes and said, no, this is not only exclusive to the happy few, we're going to make it accessible to the happy many.

55:11And when you think about your brand in broader terms like that, then you say, okay, well, where else can we democratize access and open a world that hasn't been open? And the next place we did that was for our employees. Every single employee in our company has equity. We are a team of owners and shareholders. We democratize access to something in all these other companies as in an ivory tower, only for the big dogs at the top, right? It's a ladder. And purpose is not a part of a thing over here that is linear and one vertical. It's part of all of it. It's how our beliefs come to life through our product, through our campaigns, through our actions, through our words, through our donations, through everything that we do.

55:52Corey, I absolutely agree with you. And I would argue that the brands that are doing purpose right are probably the brands that have done the best job with their brand strategy, their overarching brand strategy, and their purpose is actually embedded in part of that brand strategy. And it speaks to, I think, how a strong brand can drive financial performance. Stock price, total shareholder return, multiple studies have been done on that. The power of the brand in driving financial performance quantitatively. Yeah, I just wonder out loud if you were to look at brands that we think are getting purpose right as a differentiator, not as the solution.

56:38if you would find that they have a very thorough and well-executed brand strategy. I absolutely agree with that. I think, you know, fantastic brands like you talk about authenticity, ear to the ground, you're so close to your customers. You're not going to go wrong on that. I think the brands which have had the problem and have given purpose of Brad Wrap are the big FFG brands that have been around for decades that have kind of reverse engineered back into a purpose. Someone said like a sort of ugly sister trying to cram their foot into a kind of Cinderella glass slipper. Those are the ones that have got it wrong because it's not authentic.

57:15It's not what people want. You know, they're up there in the sphere, lost any connection with their products. And, yeah, it's given the whole game a bad rap, unfortunately. But the companies that were born to purpose, like Chocolonely or, you know, your great companies with a real driving force at the heart of it that you grow on the back of, they're the ones who are smashing it at the moment. And yeah, it's the other ones that have caused the problems, I think. But it is a key point that, and we could use Unilever as the example, it is a choice. It's a strategic choice like any other, and it can work for some brands, as Corey illustrates.

57:51My big despair with Unilever during that crazy period was, yeah, of course Ben & Jerry's is a purpose-driven brand. Of course Dove is. But when you start trying to find the brand purpose for, you know, Pot Noodle and Hellman's mayonnaise, you've lost the plot. I've never told you this before, but you know you wrote that article about, please tell me there's not a brand manager somewhere on Pot Noodle writing a presentation on the purpose. My plan on Pot Noodle was on a train down to Pot Noodle to have exactly that conversation when you wrote that. And that's where we were, Sarah, right? And we had those horrendous purveyors of brand purpose expertise that were telling us, you must have a brand purpose or you will fail.

58:32And it was like, what are you talking about? Since when one rule ever fit all brands, you know what I mean? Like, yes, it can work, but in many cases, it isn't going to work for exactly your points. And I think that, again, that seems to be, we've got to, again, a more realistic place now where we're recognizing there are some brands that are doing it and it's a source of their strength. There are many more brands where it's not a relevant play, you know? And I think that's also very cool. I totally agree with you, Mark. And actually, the more you talk, the more I realize we're way closer together than I thought we were in the beginning.

59:04There is a lot of stuff that I see out in the universe that makes me cringe. And what I boil that down to is what I said earlier is the word performative. When purpose is performative, purpose is pointless. And when you say performative, you mean it's a stunt. It's a tactic. Exactly. It's a tactic that you're just doing for opportunistic reasons versus doing it because it comes from a set of beliefs that your company has a legitimate earned right to play in. You should mention also the companies that do things quietly and have never talked about it. In the UK, we have Pret-a-Manger that has been carefully tidying up all of their sandwiches, and it's a very big cafe chain in the UK, and giving them to the homeless every night.

59:49It costs them a lot of money to do that, but they've never talked about it. They don't use it in their advertising. They don't mention it in their packaging. They've been doing it for 25 years. And that's the other part of our purpose is we just do it because we think it's a bloody good thing to do. And I think that's the side that, by definition, we don't know about. You know, I left P &G 15 years ago, and we've gotten a lot of calls over the years of people who want to go on the brand purpose path. My first question is always, why? Usually, when you keep asking why, it usually gets to two things.

1:00:17One is, my leadership team is dysfunctional and not aligned on a common goal. Second is, my employees are checking in and not bringing their energy to work. And those are two problems that you need to solve. and actually in many cases, having a galvanizing idea on the business you are in and a way to bring that to life is very helpful. So to me, maybe the word purpose just needs to be thrown out. I think it's endless. I don't care what you're selling, Mark, even if it's a very mundane, getting your people around a table and saying, are we doing everything we can to improve the lives of the people who are buying this brand?

1:00:49And maybe it's, no, it's hard to find. Okay, let's address that. So I think that to me is the key question. We can always elevate the impact we're making on the people that we are trying to serve. And that's endless material for creativity and innovation. And I think a lot of marketers, Mark, to your point, don't ask that question enough and don't talk about things enough and aren't close enough to the customers to be able to answer that. Yeah. And I think there's one thing we haven't brought in here. And again, when a conversation is linear in a world that is interconnected and layered and complex, we miss a lot of things, is the world of social, right?

1:01:25If you're a socially savvy brand, you're communicating every day, multiple times a day across many different channels. And the only way to be relevant is to have something to talk about. And, you know, if I go back to what you said before, Mark, if I talked about product all day, every day across all those channels, I would lose. I would lose. It can't just be about product. And let me give you, for example, because I torture our CEO, our CFO, and many of our C-suite by creating zero distance between us and our community. And by zero distance, I mean, we talk to them directly. We go on TikTok live, we go on our Twitch live streams.

1:02:06And my CFO and I, in particular, went on a Twitch live stream to talk about our Change the Board Game initiative, to explain to people, what is a board of directors? Why does that matter? All of the questions that came in for the hour and a half that we spent with the community. And just to put a number around this, 18 ,000 people showed up. You know what they wanted to talk to us about? Career advice. Wow, you're two women who have made it to a powerful position on a brand that we love. What advice do you have for us? The brand isn't just represented by me selling you a lip balm. And I think if we didn't understand that, we would actually miss a major opportunity to have an incredible impact to the communities we serve.

1:02:51And the more we do that, when I bring our CEO on, sure, they want to tell us, hey, we want this product and we want it now because they know we're listening and we know we're going to do it. But they also want to ask him questions about his background as an immigrant who came to America and what did that mean for him and his family and how did he rise up? There's a human element behind the fact that we're not just these ivory tower executives that are here to profit off your purchases. All right, we got to wrap it up, gang. But I want, you know, like they do in the US presidential debate, you have 30 seconds at the end for a closing comment.

1:03:23I mean, we opened this conversation by saying this is a very confused concept, a very confused construct. And our discussion perhaps magnified that. But I would like you to each share for our audience, and we have substantial one, of one thing you would like them to think about coming out of this wonderful dialogue we've had over the last hour. So Sarah, would you like to begin? You have a big grin on your face. Well, I mean, I've been around a long time and I've seen a lot like a lot of you. I've seen a lot of kind of marketing pendulum. They kind of swing backwards and forwards. And I'm going to end on an optimistic note that I think it's great now that we've had like we've had today a kind of nuanced, considered discussion on purpose.

1:03:59And we've got away from that kind of reductive and kind of binary. Purpose is good. Purpose is bad. Purpose is dead. all that kind of stuff. The answer is, as always, it depends. It can be in certain cases, it isn't in others. And that's fine. That's kind of where I am. And I think we're in a much better place than we were for five years ago on it. Lisa? I love this conversation. I think what I've come to conclude is that purpose needs a rebranding. There's just so much confusion around it. But as we've talked about it today in a more nuanced way, I still believe it really does work if it is authentic, if it is integrated into the brand in a much, much deeper level than thinking about it as a tactic that's going to solve a problem or drive business results.

1:04:51If that's how you're approaching it, I guarantee you it will fail. Corey. Purpose is layered and complex. The starting point has to be the codification of your ethos. Why do you exist? Why are you here? Is that relevant? And then you tune into your community and you take the signals. And when it says green light, you go. And the brands that are more closely connected to their unique needs, wants, and desires of their community are the ones that are going to win. Mark, last word, of course. I think there's a growing schism between American and non-American marketing. And I think it's getting clearer by the year.

1:05:32And I'm not saying right or wrong. If you look at Kevin Keller, David Arca's amazing contribution from the American side, it was very much about you get brand awareness. What's the brand image? And I think what we're seeing now some 20, 30 years later is an American school of branding that really focuses on image, on purpose, on differentiation. I think what you're seeing in Europe, in Australia, in other parts of the world now is a different, newer school that focuses on salience, on that being 70, 80, 90 % of the job, distinctiveness over differentiation, where purpose doesn't really have much of a role to play for many brands.

1:06:14And I think I'm not saying one school or the other school is dominant, but it's very interesting to me how these universes are separating very quickly and living in different worlds. It's a fascinating time to be in marketing. That's a good next show, right? Let's get two or three marketers from Europe, two or three from the US and have that discussion. And get the guys that have crossed over. Yeah, yeah. Because I think there's two or three great senior American marketers that have now been in Europe for sort of 10, 15 years and a bunch of Brits and French that have been out in the States. I think that's a great conversation to have because I think they'll tell you some interesting stories.

1:06:50And I think the schism is getting wider, much wider quickly. All right, gang. Listen, I've kept you late in the UK. Thank you for this discussion. I knew it would be wonderful and it exceeded my expectations. Thank you for your generosity. I think this is going to be very helpful. This is nuanced, and I think you've all shared fabulous thinking, and I appreciate it. Thank you to the four of you. Thank you. Thank you. That was my conversation with Lisa, Corey, Sarah, and Mark. They gave you their takeaways, and I thought they did a great job. One thing that has me thinking from this recording was Mark's point at the end.

1:07:27Is there a schism in the world between American marketers and marketing and the rest of the world? So very thoughtful question, one that I want to consider further and maybe do a show based on that topic. So thank you, Mark, for the thought. And thanks to the four of these great leaders for a fabulous discussion today. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO Podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive original production. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or its personnel, nor do our sponsors advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.