What's the big ideal? The business case for brand ideals

Issue 85: May 2012

Scrabble believes the world would be better if we loved words more.

Adidas believes people should push their boundaries.

Apple believes in empowering people to express themselves creatively.

Three successful brands. Three powerful brand ideals.

What does your brand believe in?

The emerging brand ideal trend describes the shared intent of everyone in an organisation to improve people's lives in small and sometimes big ways. It is an unashamedly customer-centric movement that calls on enterprises to think beyond what they do and to instead focus on why they do it.

As the rapid pace of contemporary business intensifies, Jim Strengel – the man known as the "high priest" of purpose-driven marketing – warns companies against inadvertently defining themselves by quarterly figures and quick fixes; an approach that's currently challenging many large retailers.

Strengel is on a mission to point out that the world's most successful brands clearly articulate what their organisation stands for. And far from being just another warm and fuzzy concept Strengel's research has proved that the influence of brand ideals can be quantified.

Something to believe in

In his book Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies, Strengel describes a 10-year study involving 50,000 organisations that found the 50 highest performing companies in the world all possess and communicate a higher purpose ideal.

In its study of brands with high ideals, ad agency Ogilvy UK suggests the skin care brand Dove encourages women to feel good about themselves, Red Bull seeks to energise the world, while the ideal behind Harley Davidson Motorcycles is freedom from the chains of convention.

What all of these quite different ideals have in common is their ability to use a basic human need or desire as a touch-point for meaningful communication. And once this relationship is built a brand doesn't need to talk at a consumer, it can talk with them.

Some magic in the Method

Ideal driven brands fundamentally take an open, customer-centric approach. Rather than seeing consumers as generic markets or unknowable "black boxes", they seek to dig deeply into a collective psyche. One of the best examples of this process in action is offered by US brand Method. 

In just over 10 years the cleaning products and skin care company has shaken up several sectors by doing more listening than talking to create hip, green, affordable products that people can believe in. As a result Method has managed to grow its cult-like following without a large advertising spend.

At the centre of this revolution has been Method's Humanifesto, a list of beliefs that include "good always prevails over stinky" and "weirdness is next to godliness". It's certainly an unusual approach, but one that has seen Method carve out new markets by reflecting customer beliefs that have been ignored in the past.

The pay-off for passion

The brand ideal movement isn't just about consumers; it's also relevant to employee engagement. Placing high ideals at the heart of an organisation inspires passion and encourages people to invest in their work. It's a licence to focus on people rather than on profit alone.

Importantly, ideals offer the consistency needed to unite teams working across the hall or around the world. A higher purpose also evokes the word of mouth buzz that attracts like-minded, talented workers. In many ways Google built its empire with people who embodied its famous (and famously discarded) "don't be evil" ethos.

Of course the identification of ideals is far from an uncomplicated process. By definition ideals are bespoke rather than mimicked. And there's the danger of not living up to big promises. But if the pay-off is the ability to weather rapid change and achieve long-term success can any brand afford to ignore a higher purpose?

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The Australian Institute of Management's Whitespace discusses emerging business trends, and represents a 'space to think of the future'. Register now to have this monthly feature emailed to you.