What is your Brand Purpose? Lessons in how to make your brand thrive

The audience at last night’s Marketing Society “Best of the Best” event, held at Royal College of Physicians, were treated to inspiring campaigns from:

• Iain Sawbridge, Chief Marketing and Digital Content Officer at Beano
• Alyona Federchenko, Marketing Director at Mars Wrigley Confectionery UK referencing her brilliant #OneRainbow campaign
• Tanja Grubner, Global Marketing & Communications Director at Essity referencing her revolutionary and game-changing campaign for feminine hygiene

These “best-of-the-best” campaigns taught us 4 lessons about the critical path to success including:

Put faith in passion points over data points

Marketing can’t exist without an element of gut feel, in fact, it can even demonstrate just how much you understand your audience - this isn’t binary. Identify your passion points as a brand, and if they’re strong enough, you’ll fight for them despite internal and external dissenters.

Engage with a great agency partner

Genuine agency partnerships can often be integral to brand success. Take the campaigns I’ve mentioned, created by adam&eve/DDB, AMVBBDO and Red Brick Road, for example. I’ve witnessed this first-hand working with our ambitious clients, including Diageo, EDF Energy, Heathrow Airport and Universal Pictures.

Be authentic and create a genuine connection

All members of the panel agreed with Iain Sawbridge when he stated: “the need for purposeful brands is only going to increase”. As a mother of a 12-year-old daughter, all campaigns spoke to me personally and motivated me towards brand advocacy. This connection, created by relevancy, cannot be understated.

Be resilient and reinvent to stay relevant

As brand marketers, we all have the responsibility to ensure our brands thrive, not just survive. Being brave and bold is vital to achieving this. There will be those that don’t agree with you, which is why it is even more important to stand firm in your beliefs and convictions.

I left the event wholly inspired about how relevant marketing and brand activism can be utilised for important causes - creating transformative change not only for each company but wider society too. These campaigns are sure to have long-term results, which I can’t wait to see.

This piece by Kristin Magnuson first appeared on LinkedIn here. Follow her @KristinMagnuson.