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A USC CENTER FOR PR PROJECT
PROJECTING YOUR VOICE: HOW TO ENGAGE I N P U R P O S E - D R I V E N C O N V E R S AT I O N
Best Practices in Brand Purpose Communications BY BURG H A R DT T E ND E R IC H , P H . D. USC A NNE NB E RG C E N T E R FO R P R
The recent trend of brands engaging in purpose-driven conversations has been amplified by the events of 2020. From COVID-19 to #BlackLivesMatter to climate crisis, brands and organizations of any type are increasingly seizing the opportunity—but also feeling the pressure—to engage in complex conversations. This makes many corporate executives and communicators nervous, as they’re facing difficult questions: What is our topic? What is our angle? What is our voice? Practitioners are longing for guidance on how to approach this. To help fill this void, the USC Annenberg Center for PR partnered with PRWeek to research various strategies and best practices in brand purpose communication. In 2019, PRWeek seized the uptake in brand purpose communication by launching the inaugural PRWeek Purpose Award with the intention “to recognize activations that use creative ideas to genuinely further positive causes and also acknowledge the organizations and individuals behind them.” The initiative was well received by brands and 96
agencies, as indicated by the hundreds of entries to the inaugural competition. In early 2020, the USC Center for PR research conducted a content analysis of 183 campaign entries with the goal to offer insights for practitioners in these areas: ategorize predominant purpose topics: C what are the types of topics that organizations choose, and what is their prevalence? 2. Propose a typology for purpose-driven campaigns: offer insights into the authenticity of purpose as a motivator for a given campaign 3. Identify emerging best practices, along with examples of how not to approach purpose communication 1.
Here is a brief presentation of the findings. The full report can be downloaded on the Center for PR’s website. CAUSE CATEGORIES
The campaign cases considered for this study fell into five different types of cause categories,