MANILA – Gone are the days when agencies and brands only get creative for the sole purpose of selling products.
The millennials, who make up the majority of the purchasing population, unlike the previous generations are now linking their purchase to social good.
“The pace of change between generations is growing exponentially,” said Cheuk Chiang, Asia-Pacific CEO, Omnicom Media Group. “For brands to succeed, they have to have a very strong sense of purpose.”
According to Chiang, any brand knows what they do and how they do it but not every great brand and great leader know why they do it.
Chiang cites Hiut Denim as a brand that knew its purpose when it started. “We make jeans. That’s it. Nothing else. No distractions. Nothing to steal our focus. No kidding ourselves that we can be good at everything. No trying to conquer the whole world. We just do our best to conquer our bit of it. So each day we come in and make the best jeans we know how. Use the best quality denims. Cut them with an expert eye. And then let our ‘Grand Masters’ behind the sewing machines do the rest,” as mentioned in Hiut Denim’s profile.
“In this day and age, for brands to survive, they need to have a very strong sense of purpose. Purpose-driven advertising is very important because millennials have a very strong sense of purpose and believe it’s the right thing for us to do,” emphasized Chiang.
To do this, Chiang shared four different approaches based around ‘me’:
1. Check Me
2. Protect Me
3. Remind Me
4. Correct Me
If companies can practice these four consistently, then they can become purpose-driven brands.
