Is Your Brand Dead or Alive?

Brands without a greater purpose are dead. Those with a story can live forever. That’s because human beings are meaning-seeking creatures.

In the past, we were happy with those brands that had a point of difference, but with a more demanding consumer comes a mindset that is no longer satisfied with functional benefits. Now we want more.

We don’t just want a brand – we want a stand.

Stands represent something greater and won’t stand for anything less.

Google is the No. 1 search engine because, in our search for purposeful brands, they stand for “Do No Evil.” Whole Foods stands for “Keeping Earth Delicious” and Nike stands for “Human Victory.”

More unusual suspects are found in Pepperidge Farm’s Goldfish Crackers, who now stand for “Serving Optimism to Kids,” and Papermate, whose purpose is “To Make the World (W)rite.”

These are stands that bring the inanimate to life.

Think Statue Of Liberty. When she arrived from France, people thought, “Nice statue for the harbor.” But it was the immigrants’ tears that poured meaning into her, turning ephemeral concrete into an eternal symbol of freedom.

Think of a rose. We have 336,000 species of flowers. Why has the rose risen above all others?

Simply because Shakespeare and Hallmark imbued the rose with meaning, and meaning matters.

Author Jag Sheth, in his seminal work Firms Of Endearment, offers metrics that prove brands with purpose return ten-fold to investors.

If your brand has no purpose, it has no reason being here. If it does, it’s time you tell people.

You are either dead without purpose or alive with it.

By Joey Reiman