BEWARE THE 'BRAND PURPOSE BURRITO'!

Why Brands are M?tley Crüe & Brand Purpose is a Burrito.

A lot is spoken about brands needing a purpose. A bigger, more worthy role in people’s lives to ensure that brands are relevant to them. When it works, it can be fantastic, but that’s unfortunately a very rare occasion, with most attempts mimicking the behaviour of 80's Heavy Metal band M?TLEY CRüE (stay with me).

Often the utilization of a brand purpose is delivered in such a cack handed & crass way that it serves a rather different ‘purpose’. I was once speaking to RORY SUTHERLAND about this very subject and he told me that oddly enough one of the main purposes of marketing is to make capitalist organisations look as though they’re not capitalist.

This is a key issue & the cause of the insincerity that can give ‘brand purpose’ a bad name. RICHARD SHOTTON has done a cracking job at shutting down the flimsy data used to back up brand purpose leading to greater share price. But offers little insight into why marketers love the idea so much that they’ll easily accept such muddy thinking in the first place. MARK RITSON touched on this reason when he identified the unwillingness of marketers to accept their role in making lots of money, to the point that it’s a taboo to talk about.

The desire for brand purpose from marketing and agency people comes from a kind of moral-offsetting. When you spend all your days helping maximising shelf space for an FMCG brand you cling to any idea that would make that task more meaningful. SIMON SINEK becomes your savior like any motivational speaker selling self-help books. We all yearn to work towards something more, & brand purpose can work exceedingly well as a motivator of employees internally.

However, the moral-offsetting & attempts at sincerity are broken when the brand purpose is only covering up the real capitalist ideals of the corporation.

While, the 80s Heavy Metal band, M?TLEY CRüE were touring & shagging everything that moved. Upon returning to their sweethearts back home, took to rubbing burritos on their genitals to mask the smell of the other girls they had slept with.

Instead of washing themselves properly or cleaning up their acts, they masked their sins with something potent & noticeable enough to try and make themselves look(smell) innocent. Telling their girlfriends that they had merely ‘dropped a burrito in their laps’.

Would you, as one of M?TLEY CRüE’s partners, believe this? Do you think consumers believe that FMCG brands really care about whatever charity they have slapped on their packaging and donated 0.05% of profits towards?(If that!).

• Don’t just pay a footballer to wear your product. 
• Support grass roots football for a sustained amount of time.
• Don’t bang on about helping young women’s self esteem. 
• Fund sport & other esteem boosting activities for young women.
• Don’t just do pro-bono charity work around awards season. 
• Build actually useful charitable efforts into existing client’s businesses.

Put your ‘brand purpose’ money, where your ‘brand purpose’ mouth is.

Don’t use it like a M?TLEY CRüE Burrito.

To bastardise an old David Ogilvy quote.

• ‘The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your girlfriend.’