"We use short videos to tell sustainable stories about our brands, and then we reward consumers for engaging with it," Conny Braams, Unilever's chief digital and commercial officer, told The Drum. "And what we've seen from the pilots that we've been doing is that it, first of all, builds brand power, which is really important. But also, it really changes behavior."
Among critics was behavioral specialist Richard Shotton, who has drawn quite a different conclusion into the viability of purpose-led marketing from the data. The study compared and contrasted 47 brand purpose cases with 333 non-purpose cases over the same period. 57% of brand purpose campaigns studied were deemed to "perform strongly." These "well-executed" campaigns drove 15% more market share growth than standard ad campaigns, a fact many fans of purpose have grasped on to and championed.
At the recent RSA Conference - an annual IT security event, held this year in San Francisco - the expo floor was brimming with security vendors, partners and information security executives looking to advance their security posture and operations. Considering the many different perceived security challenges, solutions, products and services evidences just how dynamic - and perhaps volatile - this industry can really be.
"AI won't change the fact that audiences reward consistency, transparency and real commitment," she says. "What it will change is the signal-to-noise ratio. Purpose-driven communication that is truly lived out by a company will stand out even more because people will crave rare authenticity amidst a flood of optimized narratives."
Brand purpose has become the villain of marketing strategy. People have it confused and, quite like the word 'woke,' it has been used to bamboozle marketers into shutting down decent campaigns.