Last week’s #ESAwebinar was on Partnerships with Purpose and it got me thinking: how is purpose – personal, professional and corporate – changing in the age of COVID-19? I decided that I don’t think it is. How we bring our purpose to life to resonate with the world around us might be changing, but why we act shouldn’t be changing, not if we had a true and timeless purpose to begin with.
I quote Simon Sinek with regular monotony (even in this blog), but much as I believe his Start with Why is a useful hack to meaningful strategic thinking and defining a purpose, purpose didn’t come into being a decade ago or even a decade before that. Purpose has always existed. Statistics say that 84% of the world population has faith and even the most fleeting glance back over thousands of years reveals that at the root of all religion is purpose. The texts that sit at the heart of any religion explaining ‘why’ it exists are also among the most widely read books in the world.
Purpose isn’t new, but the way that many of us engage with it is. Even in the span of my career, I can see how in recent years, the encouragement to consider why I and my organisation are making choices (beyond commercial goals) is prolific. In this particular blog, the only logical response to that observation must be: why? Why was it that at last year’s Cannes Lions pretty much everyone I spoke to named Nike’s Dream Crazy as their hands down frontrunner for the newly inaugurated Entertainment Lion for Sport?
The execution is superb with high production value and spine-tingling writing and voiceover, but most pertinently it’s the purpose that pours through, underpinned by Nike’s brave choice to put NFL star turned social activist Colin Kaepernick front and centre. It was the right thing to do and we didn’t just see that, we felt it. Nike found the Holy Grail of purpose-driven marketing – evoke a purpose which is unique and original to you. It can’t be borrowed, or blurred, it needs to be something everyone would love to do, but only you can. The yard stick I always use (highbrow as I am) is – if it were a pub quiz and all branding was removed, could someone guess who the work came from even if they’d never seen it before?
For me, some of the most powerful campaigns to be recognised in the Cannes Lions Entertainment category include Evan from Sandy Hook Promise and The Not-So Beautiful Game from the National Centre for Domestic Violence. Both from non-for-profits, their powerful and chilling content makes you stand up, take notice, and want to be counted – I’m not easily shaken, but the first time I watched Evan I both caught my breath and felt goose bumps involuntarily spring up on my arms.
What’s interesting though about Dream Crazy is how its impact is enhanced by the partnership at the core. When more than one powerful force unites due to common values and a shared purpose, the effect is astounding. A true partnership with purpose needs to be a meeting of minds and hearts. It can’t be two entities of equal importance but with disparate missions who’ve made a deal to spread the worthy word amongst one another’s communities. It must be two halves aligned in vision proving the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole. These partnerships will weather any storm – or coronavirus crisis – because they make one another better.
I could list out my favourite partnerships with purpose at this point, but there are already plenty of blogs, articles and awards out there recognising these industry-enhancing unions – including the ESA Awards very own purpose-led sponsorship category, this year won by Gillette for Changing the Face of Men’s Health with Movember.
Instead, I’d like to touch on the purposeful partnerships between people and their organisations and why finding the right pairing there is just as important to producing, and being self-motivated to produce, game-changing work. When I first met behavioural psychologist and author of Jolt Richard Tyler, he asked me what my purpose was. I paused not entirely clear what the question was, before deciding he must have been asking what my organisation’s purpose was, then politely responded. He smiled before asking again – no, your purpose, Katie. You personally. For a mind that is usually fit to burst, mine was suddenly blank. Cue: mental shrug emoji. I was stumped. If pressed I probably could’ve bumbled through – be a good person, look after the people I love… That wasn’t really going to cut it though.
In the weeks that followed, I regularly turned this question over in my mind (as I’m imagining you are right now, if I’m doing a half decent job writing this blog – and bravo by the way to anyone who’s already got their answer). It also struck me that nearly every time I sat in a brainstorm with my then colleague and WeAreFearless Creative Director Arch Sullivan and we asked the question ‘why’, his first answer would be: to make the world a better place. I suddenly realised that far from every brief having the same answer, it was his personal purpose that he was bringing to every response he was involved in (and a pretty good North Star too).
After some time, I eventually found a way to put my purpose into words in the same place that I find most of my answers to the meaning of life; the lyrics of a song. Bizarrely too, in the words of a band I don’t listen to all that often, The Script (no judgements please). The song’s called Flares and the message that resonated with me was reminding others: “You are not alone / Because someone’s out there, sending out flares.” There was a mix of satisfaction and relief in reaching this conclusion and in noticing that the professional roles I’d held where I’d been most satisfied had a purpose that sat closely aligned to mine. Working on Shakespeare Lives for the British Council, our campaign purpose was to ‘present the UK as welcoming, innovative, creative and diverse.’
As many of you know I’ve recently changed jobs, moving to the all-electric racing series Formula E (and thank you so much to everyone who’s sent me messages in response to that blog in particular, it means a lot to know I’m not talking to myself). This move was the first time I’d considered changing job since consciously engaging with what inspires me as an individual, and that was front of mind in my decision-making. There may be a few quizzical looks at this point… motorsport, flares… Where’s this going?
Firstly, sport unites supportive, passionate communities and there’s a lot to be said for the escapism and camaraderie you find. The same is true for music. AEG brings both sport and music to life and as such its purpose is one that’s always resonated with me for its simple truth: giving the world a reason to cheer. However, beyond that, what struck me from my first interview with Formula E was that its purpose to contribute to the reduction of global climate change by accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles is one which impacts the lives of everyone everywhere. A mission at scale that shows we’re all in this together, and that no one needs to feel alone, because we’re playing our part and ready to use our platform to bring others along with us.
To come back to where I started, purpose isn’t changing in the context of coronavirus, but the reverence with which we treat it needs to continue the upwards trajectory we’ve seen in recent years. Following Edelman’s Brand Trust and the Coronavirus Pandemic Special Report, their CEO Richard Edelman said: “This is a moment when brands can prove that they put people, not profits, first. Respond with compassion and make a difference; this is the true test for purpose-driven leaders. The people are counting on us to deliver.” I couldn’t agree more, but I would also refer to Edelman’s own Trust Barometer at the start of 2020 which showed that “drivers such as integrity, dependability and purpose drive close to 76 percent of the trust capital of business.” To me, these results suggest that for an organisation, having a clear purpose, finding people who share that purpose and putting them first, will in turn drive profitability.
My conclusion ends us on a high: this time it is clear that it pays in every way to be the good guy (guy in this context being gender non-specific :)).
Katie Traxton is an ESA Board Director and Chief Communications Officer at Formula E. She was previously Managing Partner at WeAreFearless, ESA’s Pan-Europe Sponsorship Agency of the Year.