"Purpose" in advertising, or is it all creation?
We live in a generation, in a time, when more than ever, “purpose” is expected of us. Looking at the list of best-selling novels and buzzing Amazon Books keywords, more books on “finding your purpose” and “living your truth” are coming out than ever before. My expert strategic research from the La Guardia Airport book kiosk shows such - gone are the days of Erin Hildebrandt puff piece Nantucket rom-com novels featuring pictures of golden retrievers on the cover – here to stay, are genuinely life-enriching books including such light topics as:
Getting to THE question, we ask ourselves, WHAT is my purpose??
If you look at the most recent Cannes Awards, most of the winners had some social good purpose - whether DDB’s “Chill Boards” for Coors Light were billboards that functioned as solar panels, from past winners, including revolutionary IKEA products designed for the visually impaired.
Some of these winners feel like gimmicks. Others do not.?
If advertising is used to create a gimmick of purpose by jumping onto some social good cause to gain attention that it doesn’t believe in because research and data and strategy and users showed that Gen Z wants it, and by golly, we better adhere to Gen Z – but if the people behind the work, the brand behind the work, the agency behind the work, and the work itself DOESN’T believe in it, then it feels like another form of advertising creation – that to find purpose or to create purpose.
I’m not saying all hope is lost in using advertising for a purpose. Many companies exist solely for what one would call purpose – e.g. publishing, higher education, academia, teaching, NGOs, social good, organizations, and such.
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Yet, companies that ultimately seek to sell, persuade, and appeal to their bottom lines will have difficulty convincing customers that THEY have a purpose.
If you’re selling a candy bar, by principle, the purpose is fun or entertainment, or junk food. Still, it’s not getting to some higher societal meaning of purpose unless you think that candy is the cure for the world’s problems right now, from climate change to abortion rights. I guarantee you it’s not.
The secret to finding purpose through work is often personal. What personal good can I add to the world and my clients? What purpose am I doing outside my career to make my community a better place? How am I making my organization a better place? How does my work, and how do I positively impact the lives of others around me, including my clients and the things we create?
Yet, deep down, I feel that advertising has the potential to create MORE purpose and in a more meaningful way. Some of the internal campaigns people are doing for the Roe V. Wade stuff are purpose-driven, allowing women the freedom to choose (some could argue the opposite.)
While purpose is not always easy to find, it’s worth reflecting on how we could do so in a genuine way. Purpose starts with knowing who you (or a company) are, what you value, and what value you can add to society. Regarding value, it’s been described as the betterment of humanity, and that’s up to you to decide.?
However, we must choose our purpose wisely. When in doubt of purpose, it helps to think about morality - what is good? What is honorable? What is true? What will help the people who need it the most, and who are those people? How can our work connect to such in a meaningful way that’s real?
Otherwise, the purpose bandwagon of puffery, hoodwinks, and creation – really what advertising is –? will continue.?
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2 年One of the main challenges here is the sliding definition of purpose. The word has packed in so much meaning in marketing over the last decade, that it is difficult to shed some of that. Recently somebody shared a definition of purpose that was simply: shared goals. Through that lens, it shouldn’t really be a question as to whether a brand should have purpose. All businesses exist to satisfy customer needs, so articulating that in a meaningful way to align the resources and energy of a corporation around creating customer value is hugely important. But if you start to disassociate purpose with the needs / goals of the corporation, then you indeed get into gimmicky territory.