Purpose-Driven Branding: A Strategy to Do Well While Doing Good with David Aaker
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Social and community programs are often kept at arm’s length from the business, taking a defensive checklist approach rather than a brand building endeavor. In his latest book, The Future of Purpose-Driven Branding, David Aaker, hailed the father of modern branding and currently serves as the Vice Chairman of Prophet shares a strategy that challenges convention.
In this interview with David, we chat about why there is still so much work to be done espousing branding, why purpose-driven branding is crucial for society and business and his journey in the world of brand. David Aaker has written 18 books in the area of brand and branding, has sold well over a million copies around the world and an inductee of the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame, among other prestigious awards.
In this episode, we cover off on a variety of topics:
Branding as an indispensable path to successful disruptive innovation
Branding allows social programs to positively impact the business and avoid being dispensable
Look beyond the business and to core values to inform a signature social program
Brand strategy is not a “fill in the box” exercise
Follow your interests when building a career
BONUS:
The Future of Purpose-Driven Branding free e-book download
Resources and mentions:
The Future of Purpose-Driven Branding by David Aaker - buy HERE
Owning Game-Changing Subcategories by David Aaker - buy HERE
Blue Ocean Strategy by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim - buy HERE
The Innovators Dilemma by Clay Christensen - buy HERE
Competitive Advantage by Michael E. Porter - buy HERE
Affiliate links – zero cost to you and a little something goes to support the Healthy Brands podcast 🙏🏽
KEY LESSONS
Branding is indispensable to successful disruptive innovation
Branding is often left out of books regarding innovation and growth, and Dave feels that it is an unfortunate oversight. And I vehemently agree. Dave laments “I look at all these books, there are dozens and dozens of important books, written by influential people like Michael Porter, Clayton Christen, The Blue Ocean Group. And there's no mention of branding in those books. None at all. The word brand is not even mentioned.”
Dave doesn’t see a world where branding is not needed when disrupting a marketplace with innovation that is sustainable.
“To become an absolute exemplar for the new subcategory, you've gotta position the subcategory, which is very much like positioning in a brand, but at the same time, quite different. You've gotta scale the subcategory, not necessarily the brand, the whole sub-category. You've gotta make sure it wins out in the marketplace. And, and then you gotta build barriers so that you are the most relevant brand within that subcategory. And those are all, enabled by branding. Without branding, you can't do any of those things”
Branding allows social programs to positively impact the business and avoid being dispensable
As we started to talk about the need for social programs, no matter the size of the organization, Dave feels that “doing good” is no longer a “nice-to-have” – society needs it, and employees are starting to demand it.
But the problem is branding is not being brought into these endeavors, ESG programs and volunteer projects are run without any branding expertise, resulting in a failure to leverage it for the good of the business.
“I think that's one of the reasons that branding is underleveraged in this context. The way you add business value is by enhancing the business brand, by enhancing its visibility and energy, by giving it an image lift, by giving it engagement opportunities. I've seen nobody do that”
An extremely important but often disregarded point is that branding is not just for marketing, it’s the basis of communication, and Dave drives the point home. “Everybody understands how important communication is, but you cannot communicate something without a brand. A brand is almost indispensable for communication, otherwise you've got a million facts and descriptions.”
And when social programs are not branded, they are not only underleveraged, they are at risk of being cut.
“So you disappear into a cloud of sameness, and as a result, people are saying, you know, maybe we should cut back on these grants and volunteering because it's costing a lot of money, and we are in tough times. We gotta survive as a company.”
Look beyond the business and to core values to inform a signature social program
Organizations might find difficulty finding a social program that’s directly relevant to their business. But if you look at the core values of the company, you may find a way to stand up programs that are deeply authentic.
See episode on How a Biotech Brand Can Live Its Purpose Beyond Medicines for more inspiration.
Dave offers a B2B example “Thrivent, for example, is a financial services firm that's adopted Habitat for Humanity as their signature program. My goodness, it gives their employees and their 2 million customers a chance to engage…They've delivered 6.2 million hours of volunteering. Just think of the engagement that those customers and employees have that have gone through that experience. Just think what a brand community that's generated. You can't do that talking about financial services.”
How did they land on this program? It might not seem like a natural fit, but it aligns with their values. “There's no connection between financial services and building homes. None whatsoever. But if you look back at the heritage values of Thrivent, they were formed over a century ago to provide insurance to Lutheran congregations in the Midwest. And they were all about giving back. Now Fortune 500 company, they’ve retained that and continue to give back”
Brand strategy is not a “fill in the box” exercise
What has always been apparent to me was David Aaker’s approach to brand strategy. It doesn’t dictate exactly what was needed in a brand strategy document, instead providing a framework to think about how to establish one.
When we discussed it, he was immediately impassioned “They would have these fill in the box models. What is your brand personality? What are your benefits? What are your attributes? What is your audience? And they would give everybody, no matter what industry, no matter what stage they were in the brand building process, you had to fill in these boxes. And so I <laugh> didn't want any fill in the boxes. My take was, you ask yourself, what do you want your brand to stand for? And don't worry about boxes. You create your own boxes for your own brand.”
There you have it, don’t worry about boxes, as long you understand the principles of building a brand, you can create the foundation required to support it.
Follow your interests when building a career
David has had a broad career, and looking back, he realized that it’s only because he was learning and working across so many disciplines that he was able to do what he does. “One of the interesting things about my career is that I was so all over the map…if I wouldn't have spent those 10 to 15 years going in all directions I would not have been able to do what I did in branding.”
He recounted a story to illustrate his point “Charlie Draper who spent, I don't know, 10, 8 years as an undergraduate. He took every engineering course there was at MIT and people laughed at him. He was just a perpetual student. He would never mount to anything. And he invented inertia guidance, without which we couldn't have airplanes. And he did that by pulling together stuff from all these different disciplines - he's a poster child for being broad.”
Follow your curiosity and interests, he says and I very much agree.
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