What Higher Purpose Means in Branding

What inspires your employees, if anything? What brings meaning to what they do on a daily basis for your company, and ultimately the brand that they are working to support and elevate?

What is your brand doing as a higher purpose, for your customers, or for the society as a whole?

While I don’t think that a brand needs a purpose to better the environment or give to the needy necessarily, I do believe brands should have a higher purpose to better society and the world around us in some way. Brands should provide value and fill a void that makes us realize we have been doing X, Y, and Z wrong all these years.

When a brand creates a higher purpose, it creates inspiration. If that purpose creates inspiration, it then fuels passion. 

When your brand fuels passion, it inspires motivation. When motivation happens, momentum begins. And when momentum begins, your brand becomes the influence for change in some capacity.

 

Brand Purpose + passion + motivation + momentum = change

This influence for passion, motivation, momentum, and then change, can be contagious. These influential elements can be used to motivate people, including your employees, stakeholders, and customers to invest time, energy, and money, into your brand.

A higher purpose can forge a path for customers, and collaborators, to connect with your momentum and become a part of the movement.

This higher purpose needs to be highly visible, and not marketing speak. It needs to be tangible to the people who mean the most to your brand, and those people should hold you accountable if your “higher purpose” isn’t being followed through or executed properly.

If you’re in business only for the money, than the most influential people, including your customers, will see right through the fluff.

If you’re wondering what your purpose is, here are some statements to start with:

I envision a world where …

My brand exists to help solve/change/inspire…

 

Now it’s your turn: What’s your higher purpose? How did this purpose come about?

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I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to leave your thoughts, comments, and feedback in the comments below.

~ Christine