Behind every successful brand, there is purpose. Take Crayola, whose stated purpose is to unleash creativity in children everywhere. Or Ted, an organization that believes full-heartedly in the concept that ideas are worth spreading.
But what many people might not realize is that this sense of purpose is often developed through careful design. “As humans, we have several fundamental needs, from the most basic physiological and safety requirements to the highest levels of belonging and esteem,” said Armen Petrosian, the co-founder and CMO of DISQO, an audience insights platform based here in LA. “Brand purpose spans across these higher-level needs.”
Petrosian believes that when a company has a meaningful purpose and evangelizes it internally and externally, team members connect their own need for purpose to that of their organization. As a result, they experience higher levels of happiness, collaboration and unity.
“Brand purpose is more than just a number to achieve or an initiative to complete. It’s a commitment that makes employees feel part of something bigger than themselves,” Petrosian said. “Most importantly, it encourages team members to think creatively, solve problems and innovate in order to fulfill that larger purpose.”
To learn more about how a clear brand purpose can serve customers, community and colleagues alike, we sat down with Petrosian for an extended conversation. He filled us in on his first-hand experiences in building for purpose and shared actionable advice he’s learned along the way.
DISQO’s Purpose
Armen, how does externally communicating DISQO’s brand purpose motivate your team?
DISQO’s brand purpose is one that’s very near and dear to my heart — and my colleagues, too. By communicating our purpose externally, we reinstill our values, drive and passion for creating trusted relationships between our clients and their consumers.
We are a technology firm and cherish the continuous learning that happens when decisions are made based on data, and this is what we also enable our clients to do. We live our data-driven ethos from the inside out. Doing this strengthens our teams internally, communicating a common purpose for teams to center around. Our goals are more easily aligned and achieved with team members motivated and collaborating for this greater cause.
By communicating our purpose externally, we reinstill our values, drive and passion for creating trusted relationships between our clients and their consumers.”
What’s a specific way that DISQO’s brand purpose has been communicated externally in the past?
In concert with the launch of DISQO’s new brand, we did some research into consumer attitudes about brand purpose and brand activism. There’s been a lot of talk about how consumers, particularly younger ones, want the brands in their lives to align with their values — and to support the social causes they care about. So, we leveraged the scale and speed of DISQO’s audience platform to survey more than 29,000 members and to analyze the behaviors of more than 6,000 of them who had opted-in to share their online activities.
A couple of big takeaways were that nearly two in three consumers (65 percent) say brands should get involved in social issues, while women are nearly three times as likely as men to search for brand activism related topics.
“Zero-Party” Data
In your opinion, what are some of the keys to successfully communicating brand purpose?
The first key is to be authentic. A brand’s purpose must provide an answer to why your brand exists and this needs to resonate with both your customers and your team members. It should come from the heart and should be communicated authentically. A brand purpose without genuine passion behind it won’t connect. Believe it or not, consumers do a very good job at identifying brands that succeed at this versus those who do not.
The second key is to be consistent. Your purpose should be ingrained into every single aspect of your business, from the products you create to the culture and processes you generate for teams internally. Don’t leave gaps or room for questioning.
The third and final key is to live your purpose. Your brand purpose isn’t just something you talk about. It’s something you live and breathe. Show your commitment to your purpose every single day and act upon it.
A brand’s purpose must provide an answer to why your brand exists and this needs to resonate with both your customers and your team members.”
Philosophically, why does brand purpose relate so much to internal motivation?
Let’s look at it from the opposite lens. If your organization doesn’t have a clearly defined purpose, it causes confusion in the workplace. KPIs may be difficult to define and even more difficult to measure and achieve. The potential lack of alignment without a shared purpose will create a culture where team members ask, “what’s in it for me?” Over time, employees will be left uninterested and disengaged, never truly stepping up to any challenge that’s presented to them.
When you have brand purpose, however, the exact opposite happens. Brand purpose creates a community where team members are motivated to challenge themselves and each other. We want the passion and drive our people feel and demonstrate internally every day to be fully and deservingly communicated externally.
DISQO’s Three Pillars of Company Culture
- Collaboration: “We believe the team is always greater than the individual.”
- Innovation: “We continuously push to learn and create breakthrough ideas not only for our members and clients, but also for ourselves.”
- Transparency: “Our transparency principle lives from the inside out, as open and honest communication is a part of our day-to-day ethic.”
While I have you — what’s something you want to see happen with DISQO in the future?
We have set out to become the most trusted insights platform fueling brand growth. This means building out our robust toolkit of solutions even further and allowing our clients to leverage the latest technologies more seamlessly than ever. As we continue to build our proprietary panel of consumer members, we keep their experience and their trust in us top of mind, because we believe the most accurate insights come from people who are engaged, respected and valued for their contributions.
