A trend that’s become increasingly important to today’s consumers is the expectation that brands take a stand, exhibiting a sense of purpose not only in their messaging, but also in the way that they conduct their business. An infographic found on the  Forrester blog, “The Power Of The Values-Based Consumer – And Of Authentic Brand Values,” by Jim Nail, offers data on the impact that purpose has on brands: “37% of values-driven firms report double-digit year-on-year revenue growth, vs. 32% of companies overall,” according to the data, showing that purpose is more than goodwill—it drives bottom-line impact. 

Exhibiting values and brand purpose are often discussed in the context of the shifting expectations of younger generations, though Forrester’s data notes that consumers ages 60 and over value social responsibility and purpose, too: 52% of them. To us, it’s clear that being more consumer-based is increasingly important to both brands and consumers of all types. 

But brands must be careful in their approach to promoting or showcasing their sense of purpose, ensuring their efforts read as authentic rather than hollow. Below are three principles that organizations can follow to infuse a sense of purpose in marketing and product development, which we have identified in the work we’ve done alongside purpose-driven brands.

Keep Your Work Consistent with Your Values

Savvy consumers are able to gauge whether a brand message is genuine or simply a marketing tactic. When a brand aims to authentically exemplify its purpose and values, it must keep a coherent message consistent to those values rather than make a one-time gambit. These values must be incorporated at all levels within a business.

A great example of a brand that consistently sticks to its values through its marketing is feminine hygiene brand Libresse, which continuously stays true to the values behind the brand—an important, yet difficult task for FMCG brands. Take, for example, its high-profile “Blood Normal” campaign, made created a stir by depicting period blood to destigmatize the shame that many young women feel about their periods. 

As the first of such advertisements to feature period blood, the campaign won a Glass Lion for Change Grand Prix award at Cannes in 2018. Saba, Libresse’s brand for the Mexican market, isn’t very shy itself in its depiction of femininity. Working with Circus, one of the latest additions to the MediaMonks fold, Saba aimed to challenge convention. 

“Our client is trying to build a global platform that is breaking the rules,” says Dauquen Chabeldin, Head Creative at Circus. The campaign, titled “We Are Ready,” features women in active lifestyles—ranging from athletes to everyday women working out—who don’t feel held back from societal judgments and perceived value based on looks. “They only see how we look, and not what we do,” says a jogger at the end of the hero video, opening up a dialogue on behalf of women everywhere who feel their ambitions and accomplishments aren’t recognized under the male gaze.

Build Impact by Committing to Your Message

To keep authentic, brands must extend purpose and value beyond just marketing and incite real action. According to data from ANA and the Ad Council, “While 78% of marketers said their company has a clearly defined purpose, only 18% strongly agree that it’s part of a companywide business strategy with specific goals.” 

This commitment is critical to building trust with consumers, notes MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar. Speaking from his experience serving on the Cannes Titanium Lions jury, he advises that the big idea must be conceived at a scale that makes a real impression. “Good ideas are great, but the scale of those ideas—the way you commit to them and have them have a real impact—defines a lot of what wins.”

Saba has taken its insight of combatting sexism by offering products that support women with active lifestyles, making good on the promise that women shouldn’t be held back by outdated notions of femininity—including the idea that women can’t exercise and remain active during their period.

Learn what separates the best from the rest among award-winning trends at Cannes.

Strike a Chord and Start a Dialogue with Relatability

No matter your brand purpose or value, relatability is key to opening space for dialogue and ensuring it has impact. “Saba’s campaign was made for Mexico, but once we went digital, we knew it could ultimately live anywhere,” says Pablo Miranda, Creative at Circus. “Sadly, the insight behind the campaign—that women viewed by their looks rather than their achievements—applies globally.” This became clear in the response that the campaign received on social: “Many women commented that they had had similar experiences in their own lives,” says Miranda.

Calvin Klein’s digital #ForAllEternity campaign similarly resolved to get people thinking about and reflecting on transformed gender roles. The integrated campaign defies the typical cologne messaging with storytelling that takes a multifaceted exploration of masculinity and what it means to a series of influencers. Just like Saba’s campaign features women who break convention in their hobbies and professions, the Eternity campaign portrays a range of roles that masculinity plays in the profiled men’s lives: as husbands, fathers and in their careers.

Based around a series of interviews, these stories are told in the men’s own words, making the message ring as true and authentic as possible. As a digital-first campaign that extends the reach of an original TVC, the influencers open up and invite a dialogue with viewers who engage with them each day on social media.

Purpose is more important to brands now than ever before—and it’s never been easier for consumers to scrutinize their actions under a microscope. These truths prompt brands to better exhibit and validate their values through consistent messaging and impactful action, ensuring brand purpose resonates authentically with their audience. 

In the past couple of years, there’s been a big push for brands to become more purposeful. What may have seemed like a buzzworthy trend has evolved into a consumer expectation that shouldn’t be taken for granted; 57% of consumers will buy or boycott a brand based on its stance on a social issue. While about 76% of brands think their organizations have a defined purpose, only one in 10 have a purpose statement that they’ve put into action, according to ANA.

While brands have embraced a sense of purpose, many miss the opportunity to fully integrate that promise throughout engagements with the consumer. Many digital-born challengers are cropping up, designed with a desire to enact some change. The idea for Dollar Shave Club, for example, came out of the founders’ frustration at the cost of razor blades.

“The purpose inherent in these brands is not just authentic; it is deeply personal,” writes VP, Principal Analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee in his Forrester report “How Direct Brands Are Transforming the Customer/Brand Relationship.” Facing increased pressure to differentiate on purpose, it’s crucial that organizations seek to successfully deliver their brand promise across the full customer experience.

Keep Your Brand Promise and Deliver

Conveying your brand promise effectively can be key to brand differentiation. In fact, your sense of purpose can extend to all branded experiences across customer journeys and the digital ecosystem. Consider the different channels your brand supports and how brand purpose can unify those experiences together. “Never approach a piece of content as a singular object,” says Jouke Vuurmans, Global Executive Creative Director at MediaMonks. Instead, each interaction should work in tandem with one another to achieve the brand promise.

With this in mind, it pays to recognize the different types of moments along the consumer journey at your disposal. At its broadest, there are the moments in which a consumer engages with a channel to fulfill some need or goal. For example, consider the end of the year when a customer might reflect back on the financial decisions they’ve made—like assessing how well their healthcare provider has served them.

This is an excellent moment for a brand to reinforce its promise to consumers. Oscar, the digital-native health insurance company, used its year in review as an opportunity to represent its unique and disruptive approach to healthcare, an industry that doesn’t always have the strongest reputation for consumer friendliness.

Oscar’s year-end review microsite—built in collaboration with MediaMonks—demonstrates key, tangible benefits it provides to its customers delivered in plain language, bright colors and whimsical animations. The overall visual style and human-centered copy were born from a desire to make a review different than the ones that other healthcare providers offer. This is where the brand promise shines through: Oscar strives to eliminate the stress and confusion that many patients feel in getting coverage or finding a medial practitioner near them by handling healthcare differently than everyone else. While the review was designed with customer retention in mind, it drove new signups as well.

Give Oscar’s Year in Review a thorough examination.

A key component to Oscar’s year in review is its series of interactive animations. Designed to be mobile-friendly, these interactions prompt readers to engage directly with what they see on the screen. Every moment is made up of micro-interactions, which are the little design elements that, together, enable a consumer to fulfill their goal or bring delight.  Micro-moments remind us that no engagement is too small or insignificant for the brand promise to manifest itself before the user; in fact, these elements when brought together define the brand’s identity and value.

Tell Your Story Through Experiences

When each interaction presents an opportunity to fulfill brand purpose, it becomes crucial that you recognize users’ goals within key moments and micro-moments, and consider how your brand meets those goals through its brand promise, much like the elements making up the Oscar year-end review as described above. Doing so shifts your focus away from UX-driven content, and instead toward content-driven UX.

This shift in thinking is important because content is crucial to defining a brand’s or product’s identity and value, particularly when it conveys the brand’s sense of purpose. Olga Osminkina-Jones, VP GM Premium Food & Beverages at PepsiCo, remarks in ANA’s Discovering Brand Purpose playbook: “I realize that people are not looking for another water brand. They are not sitting and waiting for us to launch another innovation. What they are looking for is meaning.”

There’s a fine line that brands walk between promoting themselves versus their industries—and when they do the latter, they risk advertising for their competition. Don’t center content around just the challenges faced on the consumer, but on your purpose for existing.

Blue Canyon Technologies, for example, is certainly an intriguing brand with its portfolio of spacecraft and space equipment. While you would expect its website to be dry, corporate and technical, it’s anything but. With spacecraft, planets and moons beautifully rendered by the Monks and integrated with WebGL, browsing the website takes users on a mesmerizing journey through the galaxy, examining spacecraft in their natural habitat from several angles. The experience emphasizes the vastness of the universe—an essential theme for the brand story and the resilience and versatility of Blue Canyon Technologies’ fleet of spacecraft, equipment and components.

Both of the website examples above demonstrate how visual and interactive elements can come together to fulfill your brand promise. Doing this successfully enables consumers to connect with the brand more easily through a shared sense of purpose and achieves a sense of emotional resonance that’s often missing from brands that struggle to differentiate.