Give them something to believe in

Flickr / Daniel Y. Go

In last year's "What's Next" presentation, this was (a version of) one of the closing thoughts for how brands need to start behaving differently. I was reminded of this a week or two back when the NY Times ran a piece on figuring out how much of your income should be given to donations.

In the article, they shared that Americans donated $229 billion in 2009, with about half of that going to religious institutions. Consider that for a moment.

People openly gave over two hundred billion dollars to organizations because they believed in what the organizations are doing and because of the way helping those organizations makes them feel. Not because of a product they took home to use. Not because of a service performed for them. They gave simply because they wanted to support something that they believed in.

I bring this up because it's part of how I think and talk about the "commit to something bigger than yourself" idea.

The talk around this slide wasn't about committing to adding a cause or charity to your business. It was about committing to being about something bigger than making a profit—it was about focusing on doing good things for the people who buy your products or services, not only for yourself or your shareholders.

As I look back at this now, I still agree with this but I do think it isn't worded quite right. It leans too much towards causes and charity. Not that those are bad things, but we've got several major brands around who weren't built on these principles and in trying to pull them in now, they come across as shallow ploys to try to get more people to buy their products.

I think the way I would word it now would be something like, "Give people something to believe in." It's really about committing to doing things for and with people, and then living out those commitments every day. In doing that, you're showing them that they can believe in you; and as the donations numbers show, people like to support things they believe in.

Maybe still not quite right and certainly needs more work. Would love to hear your thoughts...

Comments

[Matt J McDonald]

Great stuff as always. Reminds me of this one from Hugh

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/zzzzzz7654105.jpg

It seems like people want a thing that means something, not just a thing that does something.

[Bill Kerschbaum]

Paste Magazine's tagline is "Signs of life in music and culture." Sounds like you're going for something like signs of life in business.

I often say that work should be life-giving, not life-sucking. I think it applies to doing business with customers, too.

[paul isakson]

Matt -

Thanks for pointing out Hugh's drawing. Not sure I've seen that one, but probably have and somewhere back in the cobwebs, it stuck and influenced this.

I don't know if we want everything to mean something.

Do you really want your laundry detergent to mean something to you? Or do you just want to believe they are doing everything they can to make their detergent the all around best it can be? (Best for cleaning your clothes, best for the environment, best for helping your clothes last longer...)

Bill -

Thanks for the reminder on PASTE. Forgot about them and don't know if I ever knew their tagline. Definitely in the life-giving, not life-sucking area. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Matt J McDonald]

Paul,

I'm with you in that we don't want each product itself to mean something (very Alan Wolk's Your Brand Is Not My Friend), but maybe the act of buying/using it does.

The detergent example makes me think of Method and how crazy that brand's growth has been. It's still just laundry detergent, but the idea that is "Method" means something to people. That might be eco-friendly, good design, trendy, etc., but the fact is that you can get something that works more or less the same for less, but I think it's what Method means that drives it.

[paul isakson]

Good example, Matt. Method is exactly what I was talking about with a detergent being the all-around best it can be.

What I was taking your "meaning" statement to be was more around the idea of people wanting to feel emotions for things instead of just using them.

If I take your original statement and swap "stands for" with "means", then I agree:

"... people want a thing that stands for something, not just a thing that does something."

And this is getting to a better explanation for the slide - it's about having beliefs, values and a purpose that you actually back up with actions, rather than just pay lip service to.

Thanks for continuing to put your thoughts here.