Paul Yole: Wednesday – This year’s buzz-phrase is Brand Purpose

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Paul Yole Cannes 2016.jpgPaul Yole has attended the Cannes Lions Festival as a delegate every year for the past 10 years. Here he reports from Cannes for Campaign Brief, on his highlight seminar from Wednesday.

It wasn’t “brand purpose” that attracted me to this session because let’s face it, everyone is trying to shoehorn that expression into their case study or talk this year.

No, it was partly the title; “Beyond Brand Purpose: Moving from Awareness to Activism” and very much the fact that one of the speakers was Sir Ken Robinson. His presence guaranteed this would be grounded.

In what has become an annual event at Cannes, Richard Edelman introduced the latest Edelman Intelligence Earned Brand Study. This points to the fact that the global average for brands on Edelman’s Brand Relationship Index is a paltry 38. So on a scale that ranges from ‘Indifferent’ to ‘Committed’, most brand are only just starting to bring customers into the ‘Involved’ segment.

In a nutshell, Edelman believes that people today are more likely to engage in social and owned media, the best way to persuade people is peer-to-peer, and brands need to move beyond talking about their belief towards actually doing something.

Which brings us back to Sir Ken and the final panelist, Unilever’s Aline Santo. Unilever, Edelman and Sir Ken have entered a unique partnership around the Persil brand’s brilliant and long-running ‘Dirt is Good’ campaign.

If you haven’t read Jon Steel’s description of the origins of the Dirt is Good idea, you should. It’s in his book, Perfect Pitch.

According to Ms. Santo, since Dirt is Good was introduced, Persil’s brand value has increased tenfold. No coincidence there, I’d suggest. In her words, Unilever looks for a brand’s passion point, for example Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and of course Persil. Beautiful narratives are great, but you need to show you mean it.

Or, as Ghandi said, “Be the change.”

One of the initiatives Persil has introduced is building playgrounds for kids. Child development is of course a passion of Sir Ken. It is his Element.

But here is a sad and startling fact. Most kids today spend less time outdoors than the recommended exercise time for high security prisoners. Hence Unilever’s strategy to do something practical about this. They’ve set up a panel of experts in sleep, engaging in family time, structured education, physical activity and play. Not just to communicate but also to provide resources and practical advice, and introduce other partners.

All of this is essentially the latest iteration of Dirt is Good. And incidentally, this simple but highly sustainable brand idea was based on a powerful human truth and it has led to some great, effective advertising. This year’s ‘Free the Kids’ press campaign is a brilliant example.

The panel was expertly moderated by Paul Kemp-Robertson of Contagious. I’m not just saying that because he’s a Boro supporter. He knew when to ask a probing question and when to shut up and let the panel talk. Paul asked the panel if Brand Purpose has gone beyond a fad, or if people may be getting purpose-fatigue.

The answer is of course, “only if you keep talking about it without doing anything.”

Richard Edleman is firm in his belief that it is brands that should be the activists, not big corporations or government, who in any case have no money, are not trusted and are too slow.

The final word from Sir Ken Robinson: “Creativity is what makes us human. Nothing is more important.”