Do More, Do Better: Purposeful Storytelling That Matters

We are at a cultural flashpoint where it’s never been more important for brands to pick up the ball that the Government has so obviously fumbled in the realm of purposeful change and meaningful inclusion.  I believe that what we have fought for so hard in the past – everything from basic civil liberties to (more specific) disability and LGBTQ rights will continue to be called into question amidst this time of great uncertainty and upheaval.  As a result, we must all step up and have our voices count as the fight has just begun.

In today’s environment, the private sector can be a powerful amplifier of our voices. Brands can be our partner to maintain the impactful changes of the past and to ensure progress that strives to make our future brighter and better for the many, and not just the few.  This is why the idea of Do More, Do Better Driven Storytelling is so powerful.  We see storytelling as a vital business competency which we advocate to all of our clients.  Using storytelling to implement what my team and I are calling The New Inclusion Equation: Access + Ideas = Purposeful Action, is however, a fresh concept that I believe most disruptive marketers will begin to embrace sooner, rather than later.

My current collaboration with Billee Howard – BRANDthropologie Media – is a creative consultancy built around purposeful inclusion that fuses my passion for creativity, content and spotting what’s next with the creation of solutions for today’s most pressing business issues.  What I’m most thrilled about in my new role is the opportunity to work with top brands, and the leaders who steward them, to begin to etch out what positive and meaningful change can and should look like in these polarizing times and then find ways of sharing those stories with the world.  To do so, we have developed a methodology that helps brands identify their purpose and then creates the content experiences that will help define distinction and positively impact the bottom line.  Think McKinsey meets NBCUniversal – McKinBC!  FINALLY, a role that gives me license to meld my business acumen with my passion for creativity and content.  FINALLY, a role that lets me unite my professional aspirations with my personal interests to make the world a more inclusive place.

In our collaborative purpose-driven economy, day-to-day business practice must demonstrate that a brand cares as much about leaving the world a better place as it does about improving its own bottom-line.  I am not alone in this assertion.  Look no further than Fast Company’s ‘Find Your Purpose’ issue or The Harvard Business Review E&Y Study:  The Business Case for Purpose. Brands can leverage the power of storytelling as agent of change and not uniquely a generator of awareness.   They can begin to demonstrate their purpose through the lens of truth and aspirational-driven, branded journalism and fill a void left in the wake of “fake news”. It has never been more important for brands to demonstrate that we are stronger together than we are divided.

More and more we are seeing leading organizations step in to provide the public with information and stories that ensure the best possible path to a brighter and more prosperous tomorrow for us all.  Look no further than the IBM Think Brand which is dedicated to exploring how cognitive driven marketing and technology will positively impact our collaborative futures; or to Airbnb’s purposeful content strategy that celebrates stories showcasing the global wave of intimacy and togetherness, spurred by their disruptive home sharing model, which has reimagined the way we travel AND how we trust in one another.

The future will be defined in part by the leading purposeful content brands of tomorrow , as brands continue to emerge as some of the leading media purveyors or “studios” of tomorrow. At BRANDthropologie, part of our purpose-driven methodology entails a proprietary approach called Executive Producing Your Brand that endeavors to identify our clients purpose through a lens of inclusion and then brings that purpose-driven narrative to life through content.

Our process involves the following three steps:

Development:

• Internal audit of Brand assets
• External audit & discovery of industry and cultural opportunity
• Define: Brand Value: Purpose + Inclusion

Production:

• Ideation to co-create narratives in partnership with stakeholders
• Produce programming that yields specific and desired outcomes:
  • Internal: Living Brands
  • External: Branded digital content
• Produce immersive events that bridge the physical and digital divide

Distribution:

• Omni-channel distribution capitalizing on Paid, Owned and Earned Media
• Proprietary measurement tools

Employing these three easy steps will enable your brand to profit with purpose and help the communities in which you operate and the people you serve.  By harnessing storytelling as a strategy to capture and share your organization’s purpose and activate meaningful change, it suddenly becomes clearer how us as marketers can commit to making tomorrow better than it is today – Do More, Do Better.