Companies Must Find a Purpose That Goes Beyond Sales

How to ensure basic sanitary conditions for a hundred million souls by 2020 and how to enable mothers in Africa to prepare regular, nutritionally rich meals for their children are questions that the brand Unilever is tackling on the new platform Foundry Ideas.

The platform, which saw the light of day less than four months ago, aims to bring together consumers, opinion makers, and innovators to collaboratively devise solutions for these and many other sustainability-related issues and quality of life improvements. Teams or individuals who offer the best solutions will receive support from Unilever in implementing pilot projects, both financially and through mentorship. Thanks to the Foundry Ideas platform, as well as Unilever’s serious shift towards creating responsible brands and, in general, responsible business practices, the consulting firm Radley Yeldar has placed the company at the top of its ‘Fit for Purpose’ report ranking of the top hundred purpose-driven brands.

Increasing Revenue
As noted by Marketing Week, any company that operates in a way that gives its brands importance and purpose in the world has a greater chance of gaining consumers who trust it and with whom it can emotionally connect. Purpose can be defined and conveyed through slogans, campaigns, or projects through which the company, or brand, invests in the local community. A place on the ranking of the top hundred companies will be earned when purposefulness becomes part of its business operations, that is, when business decisions are based on the purpose that the brand has in society. The team from Radley Yeldar assures that such responsible and altruistic business practices also provide financial benefits to companies, increasing brand value and overall revenues.
Namely, global responsible consumption (RC) is at a level of around four hundred billion dollars, and in America alone, it has been growing at a rate of nine percent over the last three years. The consulting firm calculated that the sales of brands that demonstrate sustainability and responsibility, which are on the top hundred list, are growing at a rate of ten percent.

Big Ambitions
The aforementioned Unilever has insisted in its campaigns and, of course, projects in recent years that users perceive it as a company striving to reduce pollution, costs, and provide direct benefits for the health and quality of life of consumers. PepsiCo, a brand that ranks seventh on the list, has sought to convey a similar message through its ‘Performance with Purpose’ initiative. With this corporate initiative, it aimed to convince consumers that sustainability, the foundation of its business growth, is integrated into its business strategy. What PepsiCo has emphasized with its initiative should, by ‘default’, be done by all brands that wish to remain competitive in the global market. As stated in the ‘Fit for Purpose’ report, the role of the corporate brand has radically changed in recent years, thanks to technology, the proliferation of various content, and the increasing desire of consumers to enhance their quality of life and care for the sustainability of the planet. For this reason, consumers expect companies to offer them products or brands that provide more than just basic functionality or meeting a need. Additionally, consumers today have the right, as well as the means, to publicly call out brands that do not fulfill their promises. Companies on the ranking have quite ambitiously begun to prove their purpose. For example, Philips, which ranks second on the list, plans to improve the quality of life for an incredible three billion Earth inhabitants over the next ten years.

Investing in Society
Last year, it introduced seven new ‘green’ products in the healthcare sector. Its sales reached 52 percent of total sales, and 55 percent of the energy the company uses comes from renewable sources. As Richard Wergan, global brand manager, stated for Marketing Week, the plan to improve the world is integrated into all brand activities, from product development to marketing communication.
He has also devised a special way to track the effectiveness of projects that improve quality of life, using an algorithm that measures product sales and specific improvements in consumer health. While Philips is increasingly focusing on health, and as part of The Philips Foundation on poor young people around the world, L’Oréal (25th on the list) has decided to focus on science. Eight years ago, it established a partnership with the UN’s sustainable development agency called ‘L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science’. To date, it has invested £480,000 to assist women scientists in their careers, just in the UK. Six years ago, it partnered with the Royal Institute and began investing in the L’Oréal Young Scientist center, which conducts programs aimed at promoting science among young people aged seven to eighteen. ‘Generating Genius’ is another program in which it participates, enabling young, mostly underprivileged individuals to achieve their dreams in the world of science and technology.
 
Three Categories
According to the team from Radley Yeldar, not all companies on the ranking operate flawlessly, but they share the courage and will to find and achieve their purpose that goes beyond their basic role in the market (the production and sale of light bulbs, shoes, or whatever). From this perspective, the ranking of the top hundred could be divided into four groups. The first, so-called superfit group includes 35 brands (Google, Sky, Danone…) that clearly show what they want to do for society and carry out concrete actions in line with their goals. The next level consists of ‘heavyweights’ (29 brands like BT Group, Aviva, SAB Miller), which generally do a good job but should improve their communication. Facebook, Apple, and McDonald’s fall into the ‘middleweights’ category, which is characterized by having some purpose or, better said, an idea of how they would like to improve consumers’ lives, but they lack action and do not demonstrate this daily. Finally, there are brands in the group, which Radley Yeldar calls ‘lightweights’ (e.g., Diageo, Citigroup, The Walt Disney), which generally know their purpose, but their communication is not good enough, though there is room for them to prove it through concrete actions.