Getting to Why: How We Finally Unearthed Casual's Purpose

From the moment Simon Sinek posted his iconic Start with Why presentation – if not before - the business world has been obsessed with the idea that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

The identity we derive from the products we buy is essential to the modern consumer. As another marketing weather maker of our time – Seth would say that we choose to spend our money in certain ways because we believe that people like us buy things like these.

So where does that leave a business like Casual?

For years, we have struggled to put our finger on exactly what is special about the way we do things. I have always strongly believed that there is something deeply special about our company, yet we have never quite been able to capture exactly what it is as a simple to communicate concept.

Which meant it was time for a(nother) positioning project.

Each year, I speak to around 80 of our top clients globally to understand how they view Casual. What are we doing well? What do we need to improve on? How would they describe us? What would make us the only company they would ever have to call on? … and may more varied questions.

We take all the information and process it into what we call an annual positioning summary(which is well worth doing for any business – but that’s a blog for another time).

With the help of some excellent consultants, we were able to get to our why being:

Breakthrough Audience Connection.

Now, there is definitely something in that. We know that not all video is created equal. We know that – according to Google YouTube – the vast majority (75%) of campaign effectiveness is derived from the quality of the creative messaging. And we know qualitatively and quantitatively that our work drives more engagement than standard video.

But… this still didn’t feel exactly right.

Breakthrough Audience Connection is a good thing. A great thing. But it belongs on a path to something greater. So, what lies the other side of that connection? What purpose is that connection serving? Why?

I was mulling this over lunch with my great friend Terry Brissenden and he was pushing me on it. Terry is remarkably philosophical, insightful and experienced and he could see that we needed to go further.

The eternal validity of Why

Whatever our ‘Why’ is, it will be as relevant in 20 years, when the tech is completely different, as it is now. It would even be relevant if we were in a completely different business. It is a core part of our company culture that is lived by our team through the people they are every day.

Erm…

This was a lot to process, but as we spoke it started to be clearer. As communications technology advances it becomes more immersive. When combined with powerful storytelling, the effect of this will be to reduce the distance between the audience and the communicator. Whether that is an internal or an external audience, we will have the ability to share human experience on a level that has hitherto been impossible. So the logical end point of this evolution is that the two entities become effectively inseparable. They… Become One.

Bam.

Refinement

The more we discussed it as a team, the more it reflected what Casual stands for as a business. Of course, through our creative messaging we help businesses to build more aligned and engaged audiences - but it meant so much more than that.

Casual has been able to thrive in the way it has because we have always been able to attract and retain good people. In fact, for years our ‘purpose’ has been Great People, Great Films, Happy clients. Ie. Attract and retain Great People because they make Great Films which make for Happy Clients.

After nearly 20 years in business, so many of our ex-staff have gone onto their own amazing things. It’s a fantastic thing to see. But wherever they go, they will always remain part of the Casual story.

Meanings of Become One

So Become One stands for bringing people into that global Casual team. Being one team across all the cities and countries we serve.

Beyond this, Become One reflects our appreciation that all humans are part of one humankind. We are all one people on one planet. This is reflected in our work around the world with the Casual Films Academy, giving young people their first taste of working in a professional production environment.

So, with Become One we have found why we do what we do. It has always been true and it will always be true.

So there you go. How we finally defined our why.

Bringing it to Live

And because it’s the best way to illustrate an intangible like a ‘why’ – and it’s what we do - we made a film about it: