Last month I blogged on the pur­pose of a busi­ness and the prob­lems that can arise when orga­ni­za­tions lack a clear sense of pur­pose, or when they define suc­cess nar­rowly in finan­cial (share­holder-cen­tric) terms. Today’s post focuses on busi­ness pur­pose and its links to cor­po­rate brand strat­egy.

In the con­text of brand strat­egy, pur­pose ener­gizes the organization’s “heart” — the inter­sec­tion of cor­po­rate strat­egy, the organization’s shared val­ues, and its fun­da­men­tal rea­son for being. Pur­pose is the “zen of the brand,” in com­pa­nies wise enough to define and be guided by a clear sense of cor­po­rate pur­pose.

Purpose as the Essence of Corporate Identity

Pur­pose ani­mates the brand, infuses it with mean­ing, shapes and inspires the moti­va­tions of employ­ees. When employ­ees iden­tify with the organization’s pur­pose, when it gives mean­ing to their work, cus­tomers ben­e­fit.  The brand promise will be grounded in some­thing mean­ing­ful and endur­ing – some­thing that should out­last the cast of char­ac­ters who lead the orga­ni­za­tion at any given point in time.

For the world’s best-loved brands, employ­ees who closely self-iden­tify with the pur­pose become pas­sion­ate brand evan­ge­lists; the com­pany, its prod­ucts and the peo­ple behind them inspire cult-like loy­alty among the cus­tomer base. [Read more…]