News: The Purpose of Brands: Interview in Valencia Plaza

Last October 26th at Kártica we had the pleasure of being in the Spanish digital media, created in 2010 by Enrique Lucas and Cruz Sierra, Valencia Plaza to share our experience in the sector. Here, we were able to talk about the purpose of brands, what is the reason for a brand’s existence, without it implying making a profit.

We were able to talk about the preference for purpose-driven brands which is a growing trend among consumers lately. What really offers profitability to organizations are the brands that manage to engage customers in their purpose either through their product or the service they offer.

According to Hotwire’s study ‘Brands with a conscience: the era of corporate purpose’, 83% of young Spaniards choose Brands with purpose and even up to 74% of managers in these organizations would work for a lower salary if the company had a corporate purpose they believed in.

Increasingly we find a backlash against those brands that talk about purpose without any social good. We are talking about those brands that only seek to make a profit. It is becoming easier and easier to detect if there are some that only have this purpose and this would mean ruin for the company.

The purpose, the key to humanizing brands

Many brands decide to invest in communicating that they have a purpose or a trend in sustainable development but do not invest in carrying it out. This forces brands to lie to their consumers in order to achieve simple short-term positive results. As soon as such communication breaks down, we encounter serious problems both internally and externally within the organization.

This is not to say that the problem in this case is communication. There are companies that also carry out a wrong strategy when they have an ideal purpose in their business philosophy but do not know how to communicate it properly to their target. The public needs to be aware and know what companies do in addition to their core business activities.

Transparency is one of the most important aspects that allows the organization to convey the idea they have from the beginning. A company’s greatest asset is its employees, because it knows that this will lead to better results.

The main challenge is to see if the automation of Digital Transformation content improves the communication of the purpose to the target audience or instead Digital Marketing carried out by an algorithm dehumanizes brands.

What position does it hold?

It would be interesting to know what position does the purpose of brands occupy in our mental ranking. Will it be ahead or behind the price? This is one of the main aspects for consumers, as price would always occupy the first or second place in this mental ranking. So would the purpose of brands, which is something so relevant, be at the top of the ranking?

For many brands, this question will go unanswered because they do not focus on resolving all those questions that are relevant to the organization. On the other hand, to get all the answers, you should invite your customers and consumers to the steering committee, since they are your raison d’être.

We cannot conclude without thanking Valencia Plaza and its team for inviting us and making this interview possible. Kártica would like to thank them for their work and effort in making possible the communication of our message.