Nick Asbury: purpose sets up brands for backlash

Brand purpose has taken a battering of late.

The enthusiasm with which marketers readily adopted lofty raisons d’être and proclaimed noble causes to be drivers of business growth was contagious. Those who made exasperated and withering criticisms of brand purpose were seen as cynics who couldn’t see that profit and purpose could co-exist. 

But, somewhat inevitably, the ubiquity of brand purpose triggered scepticism and fatigue. People woke up to corporate washing and Bud Light learned the hard way that being seen to promote progressive ideals can provoke a backlash (and that hastily abandoning those ideals only makes it worse).

Moreover, when every biscuit and coffee brand purports to stand for sharing and connection, argues creative writer Nick Asbury, it all becomes a bit forgettable. ‘Purpose pushes you into very same-y territory,’ he tells Contagious in a new interview. ‘It turns every brand into another version of “we’re here to make the world a better place”.’

Asbury’s new book, The Road to Hell, outlines how, for all the good (mostly sincere) intentions behind purpose, it’s a fundamentally flawed idea that leads to bad marketing and, worse, to hazier and more complacent thinking around ethics. 

‘[Brand purpose] creates a cynicism around causes that are genuinely important,’ he argues. ‘Society in general loses when you have this culture where socially worthwhile messages always come with a logo attached for some mundane product.’

If brand purpose is not only making marketing worse (and ‘that in itself is a bad thing for society, if it means that businesses aren’t performing as well,’ says Asbury) but undermining real societal causes, who is it for? Not Gen Z, says Asbury, citing data that contradicts the frequent claims made about the generations' appetite for brand politics. 'Quite rightly,' he adds, 'they’re looking for purpose elsewhere.’

For the brands that really want to do good, brand purpose isn’t the answer, says Asbury. Mass-market brands can do useful things, like form a common ground in divisive times or pay their workers fairly — and not make too big a deal of it.

‘Even though I’m anti-purpose, I’m very pro-doing good things on a business level… because it’s good, not because it’s a marketing opportunity.’ As Bill Bernbach said, a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money — ‘for me, that’s a good North Star.’

Read the interview here.

Campaign of the Week /

In Mexico, more than 20 million people buy things on credit in neighbourhood stores, which offer small, short-term loans without asking for collateral. It’s a lifeline for low-income Mexicans who don’t have support from banks, but these shops can only do so much.

To guarantee access to this trust-based credit system, Mexican financial institution WeCapital stepped in to digitise the process, partnering with more than 60 stores across Mexico City to create an ecommerce platform where users can buy food without bank cards or guarantors.

According to agency DDB Mexico, the platform has 7,700 active users who have paid on time and continue to request food credits, and 9,500 unbanked families have used the platform so far.

The campaign follows WeCapital’s Data Tienda initiative (awarded the Grands Prix in Creative Data and Glass at last year’s Cannes Lions festival), which also provided a practical solution to promote financial inclusion in Mexico by helping women rebuild their credit histories and gain access to financial services. Contagious.

Klarna takes an AIxe to marketing budget /

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Klarna CMO David Sandstrom has explained how generative AI helped the buy-now-pay-later company cut sales and marketing spending by 11% in the first quarter of 2024.

Handing over tasks such as creating images and translating copy to generative AI tools such as Midjourney and DALL-E has saved Klarna the equivalent of $10 million, while the overall number of campaigns has increased.

'It’s almost across the board,' said Sandstrom. 'What we’ve done here is to really treat marketing as a product. And that means that you can break down marketing into a workflow. We’ve built AI copilots for each of the parts of that flow.'

It's worth noting, however, that spending cuts are occurring across the sector, with Klarna competitors such as Paypal and Affirm slashing their sales and marketing spend in 2023, points out Brian Wieser, a strategic financial analyst and author of the Madison and Wall newsletter.

'In an environment where competitors are cutting marketing spending, it’s somewhat easier to cut your own without suffering negative consequences,' he writes. 'Moreover, it’s possible that there was a lot of inefficient spending that was actually eliminated through these efforts.' Wall Street Journal. 

Contagious In Cannes /

Contagious has been attending the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity since 2005, giving talks on the main stage, hosting events and throwing parties.

We’ve got two decades of festival experience, a passion for creativity, and a swanky villa just off the Croisette. Join us this year, as we celebrate now being part of the LIONS family. 

We're just a short walk away from the Croisette – a little haven away from the bustle of the festival where you can soak up insights and creative inspiration, and enjoy some quality networking over nibbles and rosė.

If you’re heading to Cannes in June and would like to attend some of our events, you can check out the schedule and register your interest here.