In the marketing world, “Brand Purpose” is a term that started popping up after Simon Sinek did his famous Ted Talk about his book, Start with Why. His point, in a nutshell, is that brands and companies with a Brand Purpose know WHY they do what they do or make what they make. Brand Purpose galvanizes employees behind a deeper meaning to their work, and consumers are drawn to the brand because of the company’s cause, or the reason WHY they exist. If you haven’t seen Sinek’s Ted Talk, watch it here.
In the Ted Talk, he refers to Apple, a brand that so many admire and almost worship, so it’s easy to see why their Brand Purpose elevates the brand. At Catalyst, Brand Purpose often comes up in conversations with our clients. They often ask – “What are some great examples of brands with purpose–that aren’t Apple?”
We’ll share three, one of which is a business-to-business (B2B) company.
- Expensify: to enable professionals to focus on what they were born to do. Their brand story, which can be found on their site, is a great one. Expensify’s founder, David Barrett, started the company because he hated doing expense reports. He saw an opportunity to give people their time back so they could focus on higher order pursuits. Had he tried to sell his product as software that scans receipts and sends them to accounting, it would have fallen flat. But he positioned his product as a solution that enables employees to do what they love by eliminating the manual tasks they don’t. This WHY it resonated with companies big and small, and helped propel Expensify to be the expense solution for more than 60,000 companies worldwide.
- Crayola: to unleash the originality in every child. As they say, “What if?” is the greatest question in the world. A question that makes the impossible permissible. What we love about this Brand Purpose is that it is so inspiring both to consumers and to employees. A great Brand Purpose drives future innovation in the company, and in Crayola’s case, employees have a clear goal of driving creativity in children.
- Dove: to help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them realize their full potential. In 2004, Dove launched their Campaign for Real Beauty, and it was revolutionary. For the first time, the world saw women of all shapes, colors, and sizes being held up as real standards of beauty. Dove’s inclusive Brand Purpose elevates Dove to be more than just a brand of soap. It’s a brand of empowerment.
Back to Simon Sinek, who says, “Working hard for something you don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something you love is called passion.”
What’s your company’s WHY?
