Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Management, Marketing
I’ve written a ton on brand purpose.
How it’s become meaningless and is just another tool for marketing mediocrity.
[This was the latest rant]
Well, recently I found an example of purpose that is undeniably true.
No, not Patagonia …
Mainly because this is not about a powerfully good purpose, more a purpose that is simply true to them.
Or should I say, to both of them.
Because it’s for KPMG – and, bizarrely, PWC.
Fuelling/Building Prosperity … I mean, come on.
Financial organisations who exist to generate riches … no fucking shit, Sherlock.
Of course, the cynic in me thinks what they’re actually trying to say is their purpose is to find ways to generate riches for themselves. Regardless of the cost.
Maybe if they had written it in a way that included WHY or HOW they fuelled/built prosperity, I’d be less of a bastard towards it… but because they didn’t, I now think they left it out on purpose so they can exploit financial opportunities for themselves and then say, “we never said we’d do it for you”.
Is this what purpose has now become?
Where you badly explain what you do and think that’s a higher order.
The lack of self-awareness is so bad that I almost want to advice them to go and spout some of the meaningless bollocks most other brands out there, shout.
That said, I kind of respect them for it.
Because as we’ve seen countless times before, what companies say about themselves and what they do are so far apart, it’s almost refreshing to have someone own their truth.
Even if it’s a truth that has the potential to repulse more than attract.