At the Brand Equity Marketing Awards 2020, Unilever’s chief digital and marketing officer, Conny Braams, spoke about the new bottom-line – People, Planet, Profit. Braams, who has been with the iconic global marketing company for three decades, shed light on the power of ‘purpose’, which is no longer a buzzword, but a business imperative. She said the events of this year have brought into sharp focus the gaining relevance of brand purpose; “Not only the need for brands to have a clear and authentic purpose, but to act with intent on that promise.”

At Unilever, Braams said, they are very demanding of their brands with purpose. “What they communicate must highlight an environmental or societal issue but more importantly they must also take meaningful, long term action with measurable results. This helps us to avoid empty statements that are not actually solving a real-world problem,” she said. “Because today, it is people who are driving culture – taking to the streets or social media to praise good behaviour and punish bad. Brands are responsible for not just reflecting culture but shaping it and we cannot ignore the seismic shift in people’s identity and values or the heightened awareness of issues and stereotypes. People expect brands to step in to fill the void left by other institutions.” Braams pulled out recent findings from Edelman’s Trust Barometer, which states that 85% of respondents want brands to ‘solve my problems’, while 80% want brands to ‘solve society’s problems’.

All over the planet today, brands are responding with a sense of urgency to consumers’ changing attitudes toward large corporations and their role in shaping, improving and saving our world. Earlier this year, the Anglo-Dutch FMCG juggernaut’s home care division announced its new global strategy: Clean Future. “Billions of people around the world are asking for products that are tough on germs and stains, but also kinder to the planet,” Braams said during her keynote. “The science and technology now exist to make this possible and we will transform our brands to become lower carbon and lower waste, with the same or even better performance. We will play our part in the fight against climate change and help to preserve, restore, and regenerate the earth’s natural resources,” she added.

Braams also spotlighted the company’s legacy that’s rooted in purpose: “We have long believed that by standing for something bigger than the products we sell; by tapping into our audience’s beliefs; and by taking decisive action to help solve society’s ills, we can connect with people on a deeper level. It’s a tradition which goes back to our founder, William Lever, who launched one of the world’s first purpose led brands, Sunlight Soap, more than 100 years ago to make ‘cleanliness commonplace’ in Victorian England.”

She highlighted Surf Excel’s ‘Dirt Is Good’ and the work for Brooke Bond Red Label in fostering inclusivity, to make a bigger point: “We know that by positioning our brands on doing real good in the world, a by product will be better financial performance. Today, we see that brands that we call Unilever Sustainable Living Brands (brands such as Dove, Domestos, and Lifebuoy) consistently outperform the average growth rate of the rest of our portfolio.” To reinforce her point, Braams used a key finding from an extensive analysis of thousands of brands globally by Kantar in its Brand Z study. The study has shown there is a very strong correlation between purpose and brand power – with brand power being the measure of a brand’s saliency, meaningfulness and differentiation. Brands with a high brand power have five times higher market share than those that do not and: shifts in brand power predict future turnover growth.

Braams concluded with a message that’s perhaps more important today, in a fractured world and society, than ever before. She said, “If I leave you with one message, it is that brands with purpose grow by taking meaningful action on the issues that people care about and building movements for positive change. Authentic and relevant brand actions inspire the best creative work that really resonates with people. And it is these progressive brands that can change the world.”

Brand Equity Marketing Awards 2020: The Winners