Forging foundations through brand and purpose

CIM Financial Services Summit: Brand and Purpose

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to attend CIM’s annual Financial Services Marketing Leaders’ Summit hosted at Reuters’ offices in Canary Wharf. The agenda was packed full of insightful speakers who provided interesting (and sometimes challenging) perspectives on a wide range of important topics affecting the financial services industry and the wider marketing sector, but for me, the standout moment was the discussion on brand and purpose.

The panel discussion, which brought together marketing experts Chris Strange, group brands director, Lloyds Banking Group, Christoph Woermann, global head of brand management and CMO, Corporate Bank, Deutsche Bank and CIM’s own director of marketing and communications, Mark Scott in a discussion moderated by Andrew Carrier, CMO, Quant.

One of the initial insights share by the panel was that purpose, and by extension, brand, are esoteric. They’re complex and difficult to understand. They’re concepts that reside within stakeholders and come into existence through those connected to the organisation, whether that be as a staff member, or a stakeholder.

In his recent Catalyst column, Scott had said that ‘we as marketers, need to help our businesses think more long-term’. This is something which obviously resonated with the panel, who were in agreement, that all too often, organisations end up getting it wrong because they focus on short term wins (for example sales activations) and not what’s best for the brand in the longer term.

Ensuring that purpose and brand are properly aligned creates a solid foundation that is essential for determining the optimum balance between sales activations and longer-term brand building activity which helps protect the brand, once of the most valuable assets a business can have and safeguard the bottom line.

Purpose is the narrative that encapsulates your brand’s essence, offering a quick insight into who you are and what you represent. It serves as the initial touchpoint for customers, shaping their first impressions. However, it’s also not something that should remain static; it evolves. It should adapt over time to mirror changing customer needs and market dynamics. What became clear to me as the discussion went on, was that what purpose can’t exist in isolation.

Key Takeaways:

The panel also made repeated reference to ‘bringing people with you on the journey’ something they all felt was essential. Purpose isn’t an individual thing. It’s an organisational thing. Whilst the marketing team might (and probably should) lead on developing or refining an organisation’s purpose, they certainly don’t own it, in the same way that they don’t own brand. Good marketing is about good communication and ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned with the organisation’s underlying reason for existing has the effect of creating a consistency across touch points – which is an increasingly important source of differentiation from competitors.

Purpose needs to be authentic; it can’t be something that sounds good but means nothing. The clues to purpose can often be found in the origins of the brand. Why was the organisation initially founded? What was the challenge the business was set up to address? How has this changed over time? The panel agreed that sometimes, to gain perspective, it’s necessary to strip things back, remove the jargon and the flowery language and get back to the core business proposition.

A brand driven by purpose is a powerful thing, it builds trust and helps to develop a community of loyal advocates, and this is what any brand should aspire to. From customers and consumers to suppliers, everyone should be clear about the organisation’s purpose. It should be simple, to the point, easily understood and accurately reflect what the business’ objective is.

Interested in learning how to harness the power of brand? CIM’s Strategic Brand Management course takes a holistic view of branding from brief to creation and implementation and helps delegates consider the importance of determining the personality and character of the brand and how it influences the customer experience through employees and external audiences.

CIM’s Strategic Brand Management course