But reverse the research. Stand in the grocery aisle and ask consumers why they just purchased the red toothpaste brand and they will give you a shrug, or a coupon or a long established, inch-deep category entry point. And no mention of any of the purpose hooha.
That say-do gap is a quirk of science. Almost every study that sold purpose to a boardroom asked people what they valued instead of watching what they bought. That doesn’t measure their values—it measures how they want to answer the question.
And the real bill came from the opportunity costs associated with purpose. It ate into a decade of attention that belonged to distinctiveness, availability, pricing, and the product itself. Brand teams that could not tell you their penetration number could recite their purpose platform verbatim.
But there were always exceptions. Outliers. Patagonia. Dove. Ben & Jerry’s. All of which were overused in marketing conferences everywhere. And all of which were founded on a social purpose that stayed front and center as they gained commercial success. Which is exactly why they made such a terrible template. You cannot retrofit a founding principle.
Newman’s Own is right up there with the very best genuine purpose players. The brand exists to give money away, and sells salad dressing as the mechanism. The purpose is why there is a company, and the product is the marketing.
And the new CMO knows worthiness doesn’t season a salad. The charity gets people to try your product. The dressing has to get them back. Edmonson is building a consumer goods brand first and stressing the purpose second, and that ordering is the reason it will work.
And that’s entirely in line with the brand’s founder, who was both the best looking man who’s ever lived and a damned fine actor too. You do both, if you want to become a legend.
