Mission: Impossible

Mission statements have enormous value, but not to your customers.

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Issue № 121 | London, Sunday 19 January 2025

Read on to learn why:

① A mission statement serves a completely different audience than a slogan.

② The value in mission statements is the thought process required to write one.

③ It’s a great time to be a big American bank.

④ The UK is far behind in AI, but…err…at least it knows it?

⑤ Marketing tools are evolving fast; marketing fundamentals remain the same.

⑥ It’s not about how fast you go; it’s about how well you use your time.

⑦ Going public has lost its allure.

?? But first flashback to April 2023 when I showcased DWS (Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm) CEO Stefan Hoops’ LinkedIn posts and told you that social media marketing works when it's personal. This week, Stefan’s candid post about diversity in the workplace (accompanied by a selfie of him in his swish home gym) not only went viral on the platform itself but got picked up by Handelsblatt, Germany’s leading business newspaper. Who said social media was a waste of time? Not me.

What's new

The Washington Post unveiled a new mission statement this week, The New York Times reports.

In short:

• “After Donald Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness.’ This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: ‘Riveting Storytelling for All of America’.”
• “The statement is meant to be an internal rallying point for employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. Executives are not planning to replace its more strident public slogan.”
• “Mr. Bezos, [The Post’s owner and] the founder of Amazon, has made comments in line with the new mission statement in conversations with Post journalists in recent years. Mr. Bezos has expressed hopes that The Post would be read by more blue-collar Americans who live outside coastal cities, mentioning people like firefighters in Cleveland. He has also said that he is interested in expanding The Post’s audience among conservatives.”

Why it matters

Don’t worry, this week’s IMTW won’t be adding to the cacophony of commentary on big business compromising its integrity to ingratiate itself with the incoming US administration. I’m showcasing this story because it illustrates how misunderstood mission statements are and how easily they are confused with slogans, vision and purpose statements.

① Whereas a slogan serves to distill the essence of your brand for an external audience, a mission statement is quite different: it should rally your staff, to help with day-to-day operations and decision making.

Some of the best mission statements in finance and technology include:

• American Express: “We work hard every day to make American Express the world’s most respected service brand.”
• PayPal: “To enable global commerce by making payments easy, secure, and accessible for everyone.”
• Goldman Sachs: “We aspire to be the world’s most exceptional financial institution, united by our shared values of partnership, integrity, and client focus.”
• Mastercard: “To connect everyone to priceless possibilities.”
• Google: “To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
• Microsoft: “To empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.”
• Apple: “To bring the best user experience to its customers through innovative hardware, software, and services.”

None of these would resonate with customers, would they? They’re not supposed to. If a ‘vision’ statement is the destination, a ‘purpose’ the reason for the journey, then a ‘mission’ is the road map to get there. These matter to your team, not your customers. Instead, your customers have slogans:

• American Express: “Don’t leave home without it.”
• Mastercard: “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.”
• Visa: “Everywhere you want to be.”
• Charles Schwab: “Own your tomorrow.”
• Fidelity Investments: “Turn here.”
• Bank of America: “What would you like the power to do?”
• Apple: “Think Different.”

They work because they’re memorable, connect emotionally, and align with the brand they represent.

What to do about it

Take action

Although it’s considered best-practice to make your mission, vision and purpose statements readily available on your website, I’d suggest that the slogan is the only one of these that has any real chance of connecting with your customers. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think through all of them carefully though, for two reasons.

② The first is that your own team will likely find the others helpful in guiding their actions. The second is that the thought process required to write them in the first place is invaluable.

Forcing yourself to think deeply about the ‘why’ of your organisation, then articulating it as succinctly as you can, can result in profound insight about your commercial model. It brings to the fore your fundamental value proposition:

1. Who do you serve?
2. What problems are they struggling with?
3. How can you help?
4. Why are you better positioned than anyone else to solve their problem? And
5. How will your customers ultimately benefit?

Get help

IMTW is brought to you by InMarketing, a strategic advisory service for senior leadership teams in B2B finance and technology. It can help you with:

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To learn why:

③ It’s a great time to be a big American bank.

④ The UK is far behind in AI, but…err…at least it knows it?

⑤ Marketing tools are evolving fast; marketing fundamentals remain the same.

⑥ It’s not about how fast you go; it’s about how well you use your time.

⑦ Going public has lost its allure.

Visit InMarketing This Week for the rest of this issue >

About

Written for senior leadership teams in finance and technology, InMarketing This Week is a showcase for news likely to impact you - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it. It’s published every Sunday at six to give you a head start on the week. Read extracts?here on LinkedIn, or subscribe to?have each full issue delivered straight to your inbox, before it's available anywhere else.