GUEST SPEAKER
The First Rule of Purpose: Crimson Tide, Project Apollo, and the making of myths By David Gutting—Barkley US 2020 NMEDA CONFERENCE & EXPO SPEAKER
N
ick Saban, the head football
Simple enough. Why can’t we all do
Unleash the world’s creative energy
coach of the University of
that?
by designing a more enlightened way
Alabama Crimson Tide,
One reason: maybe we talk too much
of working.
when we should be taking action.
Unlock the potential of human
We talk about trust when it should
creativity
has the demeanor and drive of a film noir detective—silent, driven, zero tolerance for nonsense, and a relentless drive to prevail.
be innate. We talk about our strategy when we should mimic Herb Kelleher
If you want to understand the
when he said of Southwest Airlines,
dynamics of purpose, study him.
“We have a strategic plan. It’s called
Except he won’t tell you much. That’s
‘doing stuff.’”
the point of course. His winning
Wait, in branding, isn’t the idea of
formula is called The Process. Crimson
purpose to act demonstrably with
Tide fans know all about The Process
focus in order to answer a higher
and how it’s led to six NCAA Division
calling? Yes. Except remove the word
1 championships.
demonstrably. Act with purpose, but
But no one can explain it. Not even
quietly.
players. Yet they know it. More
Brands talk obsessively about
importantly, they know how to
purpose, but too often they generate
execute it.
more heat than light. NYU marketing
There are words associated with it:
professor Scott Galloway recently told
discipline, toughness, commitment. You could find those words on posters
the New York Times that all the recent purpose buzz in business circles was
Ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion. (See the addendum on pg. 9 to match the brands to the language.) Plus, we have proof that consumers aren’t buying the hype. In a recent study sponsored by Edelman, a majority of people think most brand purpose efforts are marketing ploys — and only 34 percent trust the brands they buy, with 54 percent saying the brands trust-wash their messages. Why does this happen? In part because brands get bad advice, which leads them to pontificate about purpose rather than practice it.
“yoga babble...as if my yoga instructor
Last year, Accenture Strategy released
they won’t score touchdowns or shut
went into investor relations.”
a white paper about purpose, “To
down menacing offenses.
Yoga babble has led to language
Maybe there’s an easy way to
like this from big-name, on-
in any high school locker room, but
understand Nick Saban. He’s the
trend companies who are all
sleuth who sees patterns that others
underperforming:
don’t and ignores all those things that
An innovation company transforming
interfere with winning.
the lives of people around the world
Affinity and Beyond: From Me to We, the Rise of the Purpose-Led Brand.” It epitomizes overthinking, such as with this poetic rallying cry: “Companies should focus less on investing for customers and more on investing with their new ecosystem partners to drive competitive agility.”
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