Earlier this month, we spoke with leading Chief Marketing Officers to discuss the role that purpose plays in amplifying their brands. We were joined by Mindy Barry, Global Vice President at SHEBA Mars Petcare, Ed Pilkington, Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer at Diageo, and Alicia Tillman, Chief Marketing Officer at Delta Air Lines.
All echoed a shared belief: that purpose should guide what you do with what the world needs in a meaningful way. As Pilkington stated, “Purpose is really about the role you play in society and what you're going to do in the world.”
Below, we share a snapshot of the conversations and the insights these Marketing leaders had on how purpose helps them connect with their audiences.
What is the role of purpose in an organization?
Our recent report showed that the importance of purpose has increased steadily over the last five years – a sentiment that was shared by our panellists.
Tillman stated that if purpose doesn’t play an important role in your organization, then your ability to attract talent, diverse customers, and power your brand is definitely going to face challenges.
“When we define purpose [at Delta], it's across three key components: sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion, and community engagement. These are three pillars that we invest in in terms of what we talk about, what we're focused on, and what we hold our employees accountable to.”
At Mars, purpose is embedded throughout every layer of the business, said Barry. At the Mars level, it’s about believing the world we want tomorrow starts with how they do business today – and the Mars Petcare brand echoes this with a purpose to ‘Create a better world for pets’.
“I’m always inspired by a quote from our previous CEO, Grant Reid, when he said “Performance without purpose isn't meaningful. Purpose without performance isn't achievable,” and we need to deliver on both. And that's something that really anchors us as we work toward our purpose of a better world for pets,” said Barry.
Who owns purpose?
Over the last five years, we’ve seen a shift regarding where purpose lies in an organization. In 2019, over two-thirds of leaders believed that defining purpose wasn’t their responsibility at all and that it sat with the marketing department. Now, the CEO is seen as the leader of the ship when it comes to setting the purpose and embedding it throughout the organization.
“If you had asked me this question 10 years ago, I would probably tell you it was a person who was dedicated to the charge of helping companies find and define their purpose. But if you fast-forward now, a decade later, it is so much a part of your organization's DNA. You have to make sure that your CEO is still leading it and having the right conversations and sharing the impact and the importance,” said Tillman.
Performance without purpose isn't meaningful. Purpose without performance isn't achievable.Grant Reid
Former CEO, Mars, Incorporated
Pilkington agrees that, although ultimately it’s the whole organization who needs to live the purpose, it requires real leadership from the top to ensure uptake.
How is purpose activated throughout an organization?
At Diageo, they run regular training programs around purpose, how you keep the conversation alive, structure it, and how it works at different levels of the organization. As well as that, there is the broader agenda of what does the purpose, ‘Celebrating life every day everywhere’, mean in the real world.
“Bringing that to life and doing that in a way which is very visible is important,” says Pilkington.
They do this through encouraging positive drinking, which is linked to their purpose, celebrating life, but in a way that is responsible through running education programs which discourage the harmful use of alcohol.
“The reason that links back to purpose is it links back to us doing something to ensure we are being responsible in enabling our purpose to come to life around the world. And that's so critical. People feel proud because they feel we're doing the right thing for society, for communities, and they're very aware of it.”
Being purpose-led from the outset has provided these businesses with clarity to build brands that stay true to their mission. As a brand builder, it’s often hard to get the balance right but using purpose as a guiding beacon can keep companies on the right path.
