Here’s a dilemma for you:
You run a business selling pasta.
An ad agency comes along to you with two taglines for your brand:
Live life generously.
And:
Grudgingly approved by Italian grandmothers.
Which one do you choose? The high, moral stance of the former, or the more easy-going humour of the latter?
All this matters because the tagline can become, if you like, the tattoo on a brand. Hey, think of Just Do It, and we know we’re not talking Adidas.
What’s interesting about these two taglines is they appear on the cardboard boxes in which the packets are transported to the shops. Now, unless their target audience is “Shelf-stackers at Sainsbury’s” (which I kinda doubt) this is a very modest and unseen place.
As I mentioned in last week’s post, here, I thought the second line was superb, so I checked out the actual packets of pasta: surely, I thought, they would use it there.
But no.
Instead: Live life generously.
So I looked at their ads. Surely they would use it there!
But no.
Again, Live life generously.
Now, you might well be thinking: OK, Grudgingly approved by Italian grandmothers line is a good line, but surely they have their reasons for not using it? And that’s a fair point.
But I mention all of this because I think it taps into a big debate in marketing today: the dominance of brand purpose. The idea, in other words, that a brand has a higher purpose than just — y’know — the dirty ol’ business of selling. Within this climate, Live life generously is very typical. It is high-minded, noble and worthy.
But it’s also a bit, er, bland.
It’s time for a little chat about brand purpose.
***
‘Brand purpose’.
Just type this phrase into Google and you’ll get five-and-a-half billion results.
I’m not going to wage a war against purpose, nor do I get angry about it1. Every brand is different. If a defined purpose brings cohesion, and focuses on business outcomes, great. What’s more, for many brands — such as NGOs and charities — it’s extremely important.
The snag comes when it gets translated directly into external brand communications. In other words, when it becomes the fluffy tosh of Live life generously.
Why?
Three pitfalls:
It’s generic
There’s a great podcast interview with Faisal Siddiqui of the Creative Business Company, here, in which he talks about exactly this subject. He argument is: “Imagine you’re an energy company: what’s your highest purpose? Let’s suppose it’s connecting people through their energy supply. Cool! Then imagine you’re a transport company: what is your highest purpose? Let’s suppose it’s connecting people through the tram network. So you both choose We connect as your tagline.”
There’s a problem here — brands become forgettable mush.
Here’s a real-life example:
Lufthansa’s line for Christmas 2021?
Together again.
Wrigley’s Extra Gum’s line for Christmas 2021?
Together again.
And it doesn’t stop there. It got so bad that copywriter and tone-of-voice expert Vikki Ross put together a list of 17 global companies that used together in their Christmas promotions2. Here it is:
You might argue that in a post-Covid world, togetherness is vital. Fair point. But the chief job of marketing communications, of course, is to stand out. And if brands all sound the same, they sure ain’t standing out.
It’s po-faced
Without getting on a downer here — hey, if you wanted that you’d be a regular subscriber to Brands & Grumpiness — life is nasty, brutish and short. So let’s lighten up, yeah? No one’s gonna arrest you for it.
In the words of ad veterans Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, ‘Clients always say [to us], “Why do you like funny commercials? Like, Whassup?” And the answer is life is not that pleasant. And so having a funny commercial is really a relief. I mean, people appreciate it.’3
Here’s the kind of thing they’re talking about:
It’s holier-than-thou
Live life generously. What does it mean? I haven’t got a clue. But it strikes me as the voice of a priest, or a rabbi, or a Zen Buddhist guru. There’s nothing wrong with that — if you’re a spiritual or religious leader.
But when it comes from a pasta brand, it’s talking down from on high and the problem there is condescension. And once a brand starts condescending to its customers, that’s a rocky path indeed. Speaking the customer’s language is vital.
We’ve had one beer commercial so, hey, let’s have a second, which brings speaking the customer’s language into full focus. Cheers.
To be clear: I’m not saying that humorous ads are in any way ‘better’ than purpose-led ones — it’s a false dichotomy. But I do think that brand purpose — when translated word-for-word into brand communications — is limiting. What’s more, it has commercial limitations too. In the words of Les Binet, the co-author of The Long and Short of It: “If you decide to pursue a purpose-driven marketing agenda you have to accept you will probably make less money. Purpose-driven marketing is about 30% less effective than normal marketing in business terms.”4
Ouch.
Will future years see a move away from brand purpose? Possibly. There are fashions in marketing as in all things: trends come and go. If there’s strong evidence why purpose-driven marketing is less financially effective that’ll eventually permeate through.
For my part I simply see humour, when used wisely and well, as a great tool to have in the marketer’s tool-box. It gets ads and brands remembered and it gets people more likely to buy5 — and this, for any business, should be purpose enough.
***
Before signing off: a short time before Christmas I had a nice chat with Jake Sanders, of Ninja Cat in Denver, Colorado, about brands and humour. He called me ‘Patrick’ in his ad for the podcast which I’m only ever called a) by my dad and b) if I’m getting told off. But thankfully he didn’t tell me off. If you’d like to take a listen, it’s here.
Many thanks for reading,
Paddy
Book a free meeting with me here / www.studiogilmore.com / pg@studiogilmore.com / +44 7866 538 233 / Twitter: @mrpaddygilmore
A good few marketers do, believe me.
A big thanks to Vikki for sharing this with me. Vikki’s smart and entertaining tweets can be found here.
Quoted in a tweet by Praveen Vaidyanathan (@v_praveen), 22nd July, 2022: my italics.
Quoted in a LinkedIn post by Nick Asbury, 5th December 2022. Nick writes a very intelligent newsletter and tackles the intricacies of brand purpose well: it’s here.
For evidence, see for example, Eisend, Martin: ‘A Meta-Analysis of Humor in Advertising’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, June 2009.