Why should customers pick your organization?
There have never been more brands (and noise) than today. If you aren’t able to answer this question with confidence and evidence, it can cost your company its success. In our small and saturated Caribbean market, a strong brand is not a fluffy nice-to-have — it’s a life raft.
And it’s not just your logo or a palette of colours; consider it your organization’s soul. Within it embodies your company’s existence in the world beyond making money (brand purpose), the ideas that help guide its future (brand vision) and its action-oriented plan to serve its audience (brand mission). When you bring these three elements together and breathe life into them, the list of benefits are ENDLESS: greater differentiation, increased brand recall, favourability and profits!
You don’t have to look far to find a soul-activated brand. Right here in the Caribbean, you can find industry-leading companies that are living their purpose, mission and vision. And if you’re struggling to find examples, there are a plethora of global brands waiting to provide you with inspiration.
In this blog, you’ll discover why it’s important not to let these foundational brand assets remain as boring and useless words on your company’s website. You’ll learn how companies like Massy, Unit Trust and an international brand like IKEA have brought them to life and how the brand you champion can do it too.
Great Brands Make Their Missions Matter
If you want to define your company (who you are and what you stand for), it’s a good idea to look at your mission statement. However, the work isn’t in writing it down in your brand strategy – that’s the easy part!
In order to activate your brand mission, it must connect to your day-to-day business practices, underpin the function of every product or service you have to offer and influence the culture your employees experience every day.
Think for second: Is Facebook (Now Meta’s) mission statement activated?
“Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.”
Our Answer: Yes! There is no doubt that the platform and its updates provides this value consistently to its users.
Taking a good look into our region, Massy Stores formerly (Hi-Lo Supermarkets) is one such regional brand that ensures its mission matters. Since its birth in 1953, the chain of supermarkets has provided an essential service (a term ever-present today). It continues to reach customers at the point of their need and their locations within rural and urban communities.
But did you know that this has always been a crucial line item in their mission statement: ‘caring about the community and the environment.’
If their everyday service isn’t convincing enough about their commitment to their mission, check out their 2019 ‘Get to Green’ Initiative with its powerful call-to-action ‘#LetsAllDoOurPart’.
This earth-loving initiative encouraged shoppers to consider the environmental dangers of the excessive use of plastic bags and offered an alternative – reusable, environmentally-friendly shopping bags and guidelines on how to clean, care for and store them.
The impact of this initiative was immeasurable! In a 2019 release, Massy Stores had recorded positive customer response which led to an 80%-90% reduction in the circulation of single use plastic bags from all 48 stores across its territories of operation – Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana.
Can you imagine that this reduction translated into over 40.5 million bags removed from circulation in one year. Other initiatives like Breast Cancer Awareness and partnerships in education, hunger alleviation and female empowerment are a test to them delivering on their promises and bringing their mission to life!
What more can your organization do to live its mission? Massy provides an excellent example!
Great Brands Prioritize Purpose
Every brand has a purpose.
In essence, it’s your company’s reason for existing. Having one allows you to connect deeply with your consumers on a human level while also allowing your company to stay true to its DNA. Beyond evoking feel-good emotions in consumers, it enables disruption and innovations that can make the brand more meaningful (and profitable).
According to Forbes Magazine, consumers are four to six times more likely to buy from, trust, champion, and defend companies with a strong purpose. A study by Zeno Group revealed that leading with purpose [is] imperative for business success, yielding stronger reputations, brand affinity and bottom-line results.
IKEA—a multi-national home and furniture store activates their brand purpose of “creating a better everyday life for the many people” in nearly everything they do. They connect people to their offerings in heart-warming ways… REPEATEDLY. IKEA doesn’t hesitate to speak to who their customers are and the way in which they live.
Exercise: Take a look at the video below. How does IKEA activate its purpose in its narrative?
This video tackles the struggle a little boy caught in the middle of a difficult joint custody arrangement between his mother and his dad. However, his father’s thoughtful IKEA-style decorating provided him with much needed comfort. IKEA’s purpose is subtle but powerful; it makes life better for the young boy.
This alignment between their existence and human needs has played a significant role in their 5% year over year sales growth.
At our organization, Caribbean Ideas Limited, embedded within our DNA is the purpose of helping Caribbean brands and people become more influential and competitive on a global scale. It is drives our culture, it guides the creation of our UpTick podcast seasons and who we feature on them, it fuelled the development of our academy and it’s the force that helps us provide a premium service through our agency. We’re doing our best to live our purpose.
If you’re interested in building an unbreakable connection with customer, preserving long-term value, attract new customers and retain existing ones, investing time in find ways to activate your brand’s purpose will be worthwhile.
Great Brands Move Towards Their Vision
It is said that the soul is sacred, immortal, adaptable, timeless. A brand with soul stands the test of time. It does not seek to reinvent the wheel but holds steadfast to its vision and keeps delivering on its mission and purpose until it becomes that.
Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) is one such visionary brand and their story exemplifies it – “Generations of Growth.” To truly appreciate the financial institution’s soul-activated journey, a look into its history is key.
The UTC emerged from a mandate from citizens eager to master their financial destiny, since, at the time of independence, the six banks operating in Trinidad and Tobago were all foreign-owned.
“Through the development of the Trust, unitholders could access economies of scale by pooling resources for investment and further develop a money and capital market.” They set out in 1982 with one goal: to put power and financial autonomy in the hands of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
Some almost 40 years later, and the Unit Trust Corporation has moved from a 50-person to a 500-person team and boasts 600,000 unitholders, with Retained Earnings of just over TT $1.4 billion and more than TT $22 billion in Funds Under Management.
Despite the pandemic, the UTC, in its ‘Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements’ for the period Quarter 2, ending June 30th 2021, delivered another solid performance, with an overall net income of $47 million compared to $29 million for the comparative six months in 2020. This represents a 62% improvement over the prior period half year result.
How did they manage to experience growth in a crisis and move closer to what they set out to achieve since its inception? They stayed true to their values, vision and track-record of “the hope of a future; the hope for a better life: confidence, security, longevity, prosperity and opportunity.”
Not all brands become what they envisioned but the UTC has managed to do it even in challenging times.
Their core ideals continue to resound in the hearts and minds of customers as they lay building blocks for future generations. It assures them that throughout any stage of their lives – from birth to retirement, a global pandemic or economic crisis – the corporation is there with them.
Brands that have vision make it tangible through their everyday commitments and practicing of values. UTC has done it; what about the brand you nurture?
How to Activate Your Brand’s Soul?
The activation of a brand’s soul calls for much needed ‘soul-searching.’
Companies’ missions are usually well-stated, their visions generally clear, however, activating its soul requires:
- A much deeper reflection, revisiting and fine-tuning the clear intentions of goals.
- A knowing and practising purpose consistently, identifying and actively pursuing the ‘why’, becoming involved in the beliefs and journeys of consumers, thus making intangible concepts – tangible.
- A constant and meaningful communication, the sharing of resources, knowledge and ideas, social responsibility and community engagement, as well as an understanding that your brand may not be for all consumers but is willing to take the necessary steps to extend its reach (and by extension its revenue) exponentially.
The faster this realization, the more appreciation there will be for brand uniqueness, allowing brands the power to ‘own their difference’ and reel in the endless results.
As Caribbean-born, newly-minted, Female Billionaire and Savage x Fenty owner, Rihanna encapsulates it “Savage X Fenty celebrates fearlessness, confidence and inclusivity.”
Their purpose is simple: wanting to make people look and feel good, whilst putting emphasis on making sure that any person of all genders and body types, feel confident.” This is not just about lingerie, but rather about a movement relentless about breaking and recreating the mould of an industry that has, for so many generations, represented a specific type of consumers.
Will You Rise to the Call?
Soul Activation cannot take place unless there is a stirring, an upsetting of the status quo, a conscientious decision to not only support the change but to be the change. It means, rewriting your story if you have to, telling it without reservation, telling it honestly and authentically, owning it, welcoming others’ stories and taking action to make the narrative as real, as beautiful and as inclusive as possible.
It means finding and celebrating your customers #soulmates.
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If you’d like to ensure your organization builds the best foundation to build its brand, enrol your team in our Brand Management Essentials Course led by the Co-Founder of Caribbean Ideas and Senior Vice President of Homeward.