How Can Brands Really Make Positive Change for the Future?

Uncommon> Co-founder and CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek said that the value of a company is the sum of the problems it solves. Uncommon was created to build brands that the real world wishes existed. These brands don’t just operate within a category, they see themselves in the world and recognise the power of their existence to leave the world better than they found it, to create new conversations or make change. 

When you think about the power our industry has in creating fame, behaviour change and making a difference, it’s huge, but often we don’t think hard enough about whether the subject of our attention deserves that fame. Our energy is precious, and our time short. Do what matters most to you. 

AMV BBDO> Can a business really be seen as successful if it’s not making a positive impact in the world? It’s entirely fair that consumers expect brands to do their best to not make the world a worse place. But that doesn’t mean brands have to talk about the positive impact they’re having. It doesn’t have to be central to the communications strategy. This kind of work can be very fulfilling to be involved in because it goes beyond pure capitalism. 

Brands that are doing it well include the likes of Who Gives a Crap, AB InBev’s Michelob ULTRA and our client, Mars Petcare brand Sheba.

Lucky Generals> When we set up Lucky Generals nine years ago, we set out to be "a creative company for people on a mission" so this has always been core to what we do. 

It's seen us gather clients like the Co-op, the Guardian, the Labour Party, Gamble Aware, Yorkshire Tea and Virgin Atlantic who genuinely want to make a difference.

It's also seen us launch our own initiatives like the award-winning anti-hate crime campaign Lucky Bastards, and best-selling book Go Luck Yourself (where all the royalties go to help working class talent). Of course, for some brands the mission is purely commercial rather than social, but we find that broadening it often makes it more galvanising for the organisation.

2050 London> The question conjures an image that captures all of what’s wrong with the ‘brand purpose’ bandwagon.… You’re a hardworking, successful business person. But instead of a ‘well done’ you’re bounced into adopting a post-rationalised stand on a ‘millennial’ social issue you’d never thought much about. And you’re now expected to be a part-time activist on top of your full-time job. This both smells insincere and makes no commercial sense. So ‘getting it right’ in our minds is really about being authentic, taking a stand on issues you know about and ensuring it makes commercial sense as well. 

IKEA’s embrace of the circular economy ticks those boxes. IKEA was ironically falling victim to great value and great ads. Low cost and lingering memories of ‘Chuck out the Chinz’ meant they were in danger of being seen as ‘fast furniture’ with all the negative quality and environmental associations that holds. I like the ‘circular’ initiatives they adopted in response. IKEA now buys back old IKEA furniture to resell second hand. Brilliant! 

When we set up the agency, we all wanted to do work that’s ‘positive without being worthy’. It’s built into our ethos: we change the future faster with positively bonkers ideas. If you have big ambitions for change, you need to bring people along with you - customers, staff, your community… And the power of positivity lies in its ability to make brands popular by uniting diverse people behind something they can feel good about in some small way. We’re not a charity or NGO specialist, but we aim to make a big positive change to our clients’ and their customers’ fortunes. So yes, doing work that is ‘positive without being worthy’ is not only important to us personally, but also key to doing work that works.

Uncommon> It would be easy to say that brands should all have a deep rooted purpose and then act upon it, but the truth is often that one moment, one act or initiative can be the start of something great - even for brands that previously hadn’t thought about their place in it all. One small moment can be the tugboat pulling a tanker somewhere amazing. Every act matters. 

Ultimately having a purpose or standpoint is really a mechanic for making decisions, what is or isn’t right. In a crisis or moment of change knowing what you are about is invaluable, we saw that in the pandemic. Some brands simply retreated or went silent, and some saw themselves in the moment and tried their hardest to make the difference only they could make. 

AMV BBDO> Creativity is still fundamentally important with how purpose is advertised. It still needs to have an idea and be crafted well to cut through and get noticed. Ideally a brand’s purpose would intuitively fit with their brand positioning if they are going to communicate it because the reason to communicate is to give a competitive advantage and grow the business - and branding is essential to that. 

But they shouldn’t only do good on topics that relate to their brand. They should look at their supply chains, the impact they make in the world and work to make those as positive as possible. Whether they go on to communicate those things is another question. 

To avoid gimmicks and greenwashing there needs to be authentic commitment to a true problem and initiatives developed to enact measurable change. Basically, don’t fake it. And don’t make the creative about it boring. 

Lucky Generals> The purpose has got to be genuine and truthfully describe how and why the business behaves every day. It can't be some made-up, bolted-on ad campaign or CSR initiative. The Co-op was set up to help communities over 175 years ago so when it ploughs money back into good causes, that's not a gimmick, "It's what we do." Likewise, Virgin Atlantic has been a pioneer of individuality, creativity and diversity for decades so, "See the world differently" isn't just a slogan, it captures a spirit that runs through the whole company. And the Guardian was set up to challenge the powerful 200 years ago, so it's no surprise that it's the first news brand to ban fossil fuel advertising. You don't have to be a storied brand to make purpose work, but you do need a track record, so put your money where your mouth is and start walking the walk before you start talking the talk.

2050 London> The irony of faking ethical interests is still lost on many brands. Championing a cause with little connection to your brand or why customers buy from you smells like bullshit and builds no valuable brand associations. Starbucks ‘Race Together’, Lush ‘SpyCops’, Pepsi’s ‘Kendall Jenner’ ad were all high-profile flops, yet Brewdog still plough this furrow with their recent ‘Anti-Sponsorship’ campaign where they attacked the Qatar World Cup while selling beer at it. 

That’s not to say you should hide your good side. There are lots of things that your brand does right and should talk about. Just don’t pretend it’s because you want to bring about peace on earth. Remember that day in the ‘00s when The Sign simultaneously appeared in every hotel bathroom across the world - the one inviting us to reuse towels to save the environment? It took ten years before I saw one saying words to the effect, “If you reuse your towel, it saves us money and in return, we’ll make a donation to an environmental fund.” The copy was knowingly written and made me smile. They’d thought about how they do business. They were refreshingly honest. I liked and trusted them. Hallelujah. So, land and connect by treating your customers as intelligent grown-ups and be straight-forward and honest about the good things you do and why.

Uncommon> Ideas that create change are harder to make. The team needs natural energy but also conviction, wisdom and importantly candour. An honest appraisal at every stage of work like this is critical: bullshit, ego and false goals can warp or corrupt work like this very easily. This type of work also has mechanics and levers to ensure success. What applies in most campaigns is doubly so in projects that really matter. 

The ideal team for this work needs to be tight, joined at the hip with one culture of progress, a clear idea of what success looks like and a clear deadline. It will need experts in sticky language and powerful convictions, iconic visuals, experienced and polymath producers unencumbered by approval processes, and clear, trusted leaders in each discipline. Critically this team will need either a founder, an exec level leader or a direct conduit to the decision makers in the business. Projects like this without a path to real decision makers can become a painful exercise in deck making vs reality and leave everyone feeling like they bled hard for change that was never really on the cards. This is the fastest way to ensure the crew will never make a difference. It kills hope. 

It is one thing to become cynical because the board didn’t buy your poster for the cheese brand, it is another to learn that the campaign that could have saved lives or changed minds was actually a folly of someone unable to make it happen in a company that never really cared.

AMV BBDO> Advertising is full of people who are interested in all sorts of topics. Who thrive on curiosity. Who adapt to different problems, brands and briefs. So there isn’t necessarily a need for a different team to that which works on a brand normally. However, there is a role to work in a more open way with outside specialists who can consult and contribute to any given subject matter. At AMV, we cultivate a culture of sharing and support within the strategy department so we can call on one another to help out and share experience and expertise to improve our work. 

Lucky Generals> As ever, it depends on the case in hand. But in our experience it helps to have a mix. Obviously, having people who are passionate about the subject is great. But there's a risk that loading the team with superfans or activists will create introspective thinking. Most people don't care as much about the big issues facing the world, so having some less involved, but still enthusiastic, people on the team can make your initiative spread further in the real world and avoid preaching to the converted.

2050 London> To change the future fast, 2050 recognises that brands need bespoke impact driven teams to get behind a project and bring passion and relevant expertise to bear. Traditionally a brand is lumped with a fixed cost, and one agency team with little flexibility. This won’t necessarily allow for the diversity of talent required to change things. Nor the agility to move quickly. 

Therefore, for brands with a serious sustainability agenda, we aim to build bespoke teams to deliver for them through an agile ecosystem called ‘highway 2050’. We draw on a network of diverse impact driven co-creators who bring production skills and relevant insights from outside the world of advertising to the project. This brings that entrepreneurial, fast and proactive way of working that can make an impact.

Uncommon> Be more afraid of what will happen if you don’t do it, than what will happen if you do. Define what success looks like before you start. Have simple language. Have an icon for the idea. Execute with 100% conviction, craft and care the first moment. Back and amplify any success. Leave a hole in the idea for others, the public, influencers or even rivals to help push it forwards. When success starts to happen, back it. Grow it. Share it. 

When we created Britain Get Talking, we had no idea it could become the most recognised mental health campaign in the UK. But we knew if we could do something as bold as stopping national television on a Saturday, we could lodge one simple idea in the minds of millions of people that we could start something special. The secret ingredient was ITV then backing the work in every sense. It is now three years old having created over 100 million conversations.

AMV BBDO> Defining a clear problem and having long-term commitment to solve it. It’s essential that everyone - both client and agency side - has bought into it and committed to it from the start. It can’t just be a comms idea, the true problem needs to be identified and acted upon. 

Lucky Generals> You need to commit to what's right and not just chase easy headlines or creative awards. Speak to experts in the field and people with lived experience to find out what the most effective approach is. Then be as generous as possible with your thinking: if you really want to change the world, you shouldn't care if others take your idea, spread it and make it better. As one client said to us, early in our story: "I'd rather be a small part of something big than a big part of something small."

2050 London> The red flag word here is ‘campaign’. If you really want to make a long-lasting impact, your starting point has to be how you do business, not how you communicate. Marketing spreads the word, but you need something to spread - ‘be the change you wish to see’ and all that… 

Body Shop established ‘not tested on animals’ in the beauty industry, by ‘not testing on animals’ and then rallied beauty customers to the cause and shamed the world into upping their game. Dove contributed to our industry’s slow embrace of diversity by actually featuring different models in their advertising and showing it works. IKEA’s use of sustainable wood will hopefully help make that standard practice in the furniture industry. So, to make a real difference, raise the bar on doing your day job right and then campaign to get others to follow. It’s not world peace, but you will contribute to genuine, long-lasting positive impact. 

Uncommon> The last factory to go out of business was the cheapest. Brands must know why they do what they do, purpose is simply the answer to that question. It isn’t a choice between purpose and selling. Between purpose and humour. Between purpose and being commercial. Purpose is a posh word for what got someone out of bed in the first place to start the whole thing, or what will keep it going when things stop working. When shit goes down the real question is, can you afford to not have a purpose?

AMV BBDO> In a cost-of-living crisis, frivolity takes a back seat (most of the time). It depends on whether we think tackling the world’s problems is a frivolity or not.

Lucky Generals> Purpose isn't for every company. It's a luxury for organisations who don't mean it or whose customers don't care about it. But it can still be really powerful in a cost of living crisis, because for the right brand it gives people a reason to choose them (and sometimes pay a little more). Plus of course, saving people money is a purpose in itself that many brands do well.

2050 London> Warren Buffet’s adage “you only see who’s naked when the tide goes out” can equally be applied to brand purpose. Principles need to cost money or they’re not principles. The Patagonia’s of this world are genuinely ‘born purposeful’. We salute you. There should be many more brands like Patagonia. Except there aren’t. And this is where half-hearted, ‘naked advertising’ purpose is going to be quietly dropped and forgotten.

But maybe that will enable those brands to have a more realistic and honest approach to ‘good’ business. Most brands are in business to do something well enough to sell. That’s hard. And they also try to do it with some integrity. This is hard too and more multifaceted than a single-cause purpose. It includes not taking advantage of customers when you know more than them, treating staff well, paying taxes and also looking after the environment. ‘Good’ for most brands is ‘competence’ plus ‘integrity’. Or trust in old money. 

‘Trust’ seems unambitious and old fashioned compared to noble, world-changing ‘purpose’, but it’s honest, achievable and there is a reason it’s on almost every brand tracker - customers genuinely do prefer it. For many businesses, brand trust went up during the pandemic as customers saw them making huge efforts to protect their staff and go above and beyond to overcome extraordinary circumstances simply to keep serving customers. Commercial karma for ‘good’ behaviour. 

Unencumbered by the need to change the world, businesses that focus on standing by customers during this cost-of-living / energy / pandemic crisis might find that a single-minded focus on acting with integrity is what they and their customers actually needed all along.