SCABs

Rebels with purpose – By @iamvandale

By Adeline Dechaud

 

 

Rebels with purpose

Second week into D&AD and I’m spending it in bed, hardly hearing from my left ear and screaming of pain every time I drink some water. Ô, mother Sweetness.

Between pain and tears, I’ve been struggling with my partner to find the perfect cause our brand could be fighting for. Dressing a list of all the problems our audience was facing, we went from the most innocent to the darkest one. Unfortunately, not a lot of them were relevant to our brand. 

So how can a brand fight for a cause if none of its target’s problems are relevant to the brand’s vision? 

Here’s the trick: while most of the brands see causes as an opportunity to sell more stuff, others see purpose as the heart of their vision and therefore sell themselves not as against something, but for something. 

Let me quote Simon Sinek to make it clearer: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. 

Now. Because the brand still has to sell you something, the chosen purpose has to be authentic, relevant. That is also what differs a purpose to a cause. This last one could be stuck to almost any other brand, as long as it makes the consumer feel better for buying a product. 

To finish, as a non-professional-yet, I believe you can – and should – add purpose to any of your work but again, only if it is relevant. And for this, the best trick is to add a little bit of yourself in your work. What you truly believe in, what keeps you awake at night. Anything.

Authenticity is the key.

Ssome examples of brands selling with purpose, so you can have an idea:

Starbucks: 

Through their corporate responsibility initiative, Starbucks has shown its commitment to fighting hunger and helping the environment. Which means, you help them help the world by drinking their coffee sweet non?

The Body Shop:Their motto is “Enrich, not exploit”. They are against animal testing and they even proposed an alliance with Greenpeace to save the whales. 

Not only they love animals, they are committed to enrich their people with a range of natural products. And this, from start to now.

Dove:

You know them, but they probably are the best example of a brand with purpose.

They are the only ones – at least they were the first – to have recognised that low self esteem is a huge problem for girls and women and therefore, to use their power to help them increase this self esteem. 

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