1. Brand purpose is a synonym for mission.
2. BMW’s is to deliver sheer driving pleasure.
3. Which leads to ‘The ultimate driving machine.’
4. Such lines serve brands effectively for years.
5. Tech revolution makes marketing efficient.
6. Budgets fall, talents leave, creativity drops.
7. Cheap targeting replaces expensive reach.
8. Marketing becomes a creepy, unethical career.
9. Simon Sinek asks brands to start with why.
10. Books like Lovemarks rebrand purpose.
11. Brands are told to become centre of our lives.
12. Love, loyalty, relationships become metrics.
13. Jim Stengel, ex P&G CMO, writes Grow.
14. Brands that do good do better, he claims.
15. Brand purposes become loftier and preachier.
16. Coffee brands begin guiding existential quests.
17. Chips brands begin selling world peace instead.
18. We smell of virtue signalling and bourgeois guilt.
19. The Mark Ritsons and Marketoonists spot bullshit.
20. Richard Shotton dismantles Stengel’s Grow.
21. No hard evidence links purpose to performance.
22. Youth are no more preoccupied on purpose themes.
23. Brands still conflate support for causes with purpose.
24. Commercial abuse of purpose reaches saturation.
25. Marketers return to distinctiveness and creativity.