Branding for Good and for Growth
January 14, 2020
Consumer expectations for personalization, as well as consumer preferences for brand purpose and sustainability, continue to evolve and grow.
As the way consumers digest information and advertisements change, brands are now more cognizant about building and executing purpose-driven strategies, focusing on driving societal and planetary change and creating superior consumer experiences.
“We have an opportunity to use our voice responsibly,” said Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter and Gamble (P&G) during the P&G C Space Storyteller session at CES 2020.
Cultivating a Culture of Trust
“If there is one reason for the enduring success of Unilever, it’s the trust that we’ve built up with multiple stakeholders, having a model that shows that we care about things beyond profit,” said Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever during his keynote with MediaLink and Salesforce.
The consumers — the real stakeholders in companies — want to be able to trust the companies they purchase from and work with, knowing that they can identify with the values of the brands. Beyond just delivering services and products, brands should be and are considering what their core values are, what matters to them, and how to share those beliefs with their consumers.
“Our job is to disrupt in a way that creates value for the people we serve,” Pritchard said.
To deliver superior products and services, companies are connecting with their customers and partners to anticipate and meet customer needs and champion social change together. This new approach to marketing includes delivering precision, one-to-one, personalized marketing and showcasing transparency with data and product origins. The result is both good for consumers and good for businesses.
The Power of Giving Back and Creating Change
At Salesforce, a commitment to charity since the company’s inception has resulted into more than $200 million in donations to nonprofits.
Recounting an event where he and Salesforce stood for LGBTQ rights, Marc Benioff, chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce, said, “This is what ultimately being a chief executive today is going to be about, or really just being a human being on this planet. You have to follow your heart and follow what you know is right.”
Recently, Unilever and Salesforce partnered to further promote positive societal change, notably on a food waste reduction project. Both are also focusing on many other initiatives: Benioff highlighted the Salesforce fight for pay equity and public school funding, and Jope spoke about how Unilever wants to build a diverse and inclusive workforce for individuals with disabilities, on top of tackling climate change and social injustices.
From environmental sustainability to gender and cultural inclusivity with the #SeeHer and #SeeAll movements, P&G is also showcasing how its brands are speaking with purpose and using their voices for positive change, starting conversations about bias, equity and more.
“These industry-wide efforts bring all our voices together, and that has a greater impact and make citizenship good for society and good for business,” Pritchard said.
Technology is a key to advancing these influential movements, all speakers agreed. From better understanding their customers and employees to build more inclusive and personalized workplaces and products, to analyzing the sustainability of supply chains, businesses can harness the abundance and growth of technology for good.
“Business is the greatest platform for change,” Benioff said.
