The 2010s were golden times for brand purpose and two events in particular contributed to its massive popularity.
Why did brand purpose become so popular?
The first was Simon Sinek’s famous 2009 TED Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (often referred to as “Start with Why”), arguing that people buy into leaders and companies who can communicate their why. While Sinek didn’t specify that “the why” should be related to societal or environmental causes, the second event led to a widespread assumption that brand purpose should define not only why the brand exists in the first place, but also what role it plays in society beyond making a profit. Over time, brand purpose got tied to broader societal or environmental goals and started overlapping with corporate social responsibility.
That second event was Unilever‘s decision, under the leadership of CEO Paul Polman, to make purpose central to its corporate strategy. In 2010, the company launched its Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), which in Unilever’s own words “set out to grow the business while increasing positive social impact and reducing the impact on the environment”. The company later reported that the brands identified as “Sustainable Living Brands”, such as Dove and Ben & Jerry’s, were growing faster than the rest of its portfolio. And although correlation is not causation, the message the industry received was that purpose pays off.
Then, in 2011, Jim Stengel, former CMO of P&G, published “Grow”, a best-selling book arguing that purpose-driven brands significantly outperform the market (a claim later widely criticised for cherry-picking data).
And the race began. Brands across every category scrambled to define their own version of purpose. Many successfully used it as the positioning tool it is and built their brand strategy around this framework. Many had been purpose-driven before it was fashionable and used the additional publicity to promote their brands (we wrote an article about purpose-driven brands in 2016).
What happened to brand purpose?
The purpose trend kept expanding. In 2016, even Philip Morris announced its brand purpose (“To deliver a smoke-free future”), essentially repositioning around vapes. Many brands ended up with similar, generic purposes: empowering or connecting people, enabling progress, improving lives. Some had no reason to define one at all (everyone knows why toilet paper exists). Some went so far as to define purpose in parallel to their strategy rather than at the centre of it. Some angered investors. And some delivered purpose-led campaigns so tone-deaf they ridiculed the very idea of purpose and undermined the work of brands that have been doing it right for decades. Pepsi and Gillette are the most well known examples.
Brand purpose started being mocked and its effectiveness debated. A series of events accelerated its decline.
First, Unilever itself began to retreat. When Hein Schumacher replaced Alan Jope as CEO in 2023, one of his early moves was to step back from the company’s purpose-first positioning. He acknowledged that purpose had been “force-fitted” onto brands where it didn’t belong and that not every product in the portfolio needed a social mission. His successor, Fernando Fernandez, signalled similar priorities. The Sustainable Living Brands framing was retired.
The economic environment didn’t help either. When post-Covid inflation surged, consumers started prioritising value over values. Brands leaned harder into price messaging and purpose-led communication started to feel out of touch.
The final blow came after the 2024 US election. When the Trump administration put pressure on DEI programmes, many companies that had loudly championed social causes began pulling back. Target scaled down its Pride merchandise. Accenture announced it would wind down its DEI goals and disband its diversity team. Amazon removed references to DEI from its annual report. Meta ended its diversity hiring programmes. McDonald’s stepped back from specific diversity targets for its leadership. John Deere announced it would no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events.
Purpose started to look like a liability. Many brands and agencies jumped on a new marketing trend: culture (read our article about it).
Does it mean the whole idea of purpose never made sense?
We don’t think so. But it clearly doesn’t work in every context. To understand where purpose still has a role, it helps to think about it on three levels.
1. When purpose is part of the business strategy
Few companies can credibly say that purpose constitutes part of their business strategy, but they exist. Patagonia (“We’re in business to save our home planet”), Danone (“Bringing health through food to as many people as possible”), Tony’s Chocolonely (“We exist to end exploitation in cocoa”) are well-known examples.
When the top-level strategy is mission-driven, the goals a company sets and the way it conducts itself are fundamentally different from those of a purely commercially driven business. This approach also means saying no to many initiatives and ideas that are simply not aligned with the higher purpose. Danone, for example, spent the first decade of the 2000s redefining its product portfolio to bring it in line with its mission. It divested all businesses that don’t generate health benefits, even profitable ones (beer, biscuits, cereal, meat, cheese, sauces, etc.) and acquired those that are health-related.
This is the purest form of brand purpose and the hardest to argue against. But it requires a level of commitment that goes far beyond marketing budgets.
2. When purpose is the brand strategy
Not every company has societal or environmental KPIs attached to its business strategy. That doesn’t mean it can’t use purpose as a positioning tool.
In our opinion, purpose doesn’t have to be about saving the world. It can be an inspiring framing of why the brand exists and what it offers people, without any social or environmental dimension.
IKEA’s vision, “creating a better everyday life for the many people”, positions the brand around democratic design and affordability. It’s not a societal cause, but it’s a clear purpose that drives every business decision.
Lego‘s mission, “to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow”, reframes play as a developmental activity. It gives parents a reason to feel good about the purchase and gives the brand a purpose that goes beyond selling toys.
What these brands have in common is that their purpose is directly connected to what they sell and why people buy them. It’s the brand strategy, not a separate initiative.
But this is also the level where most things go wrong. The risks include:
– Empty words. Too many brands adopted purpose statements that sound impressive but mean nothing in practice. Empowering, inspiring, improving. These statements often have zero impact on product, pricing, distribution or customer experience and most employees don’t know they exists.
– Greenwashing. Brands claimed to stand for sustainability or social good while their business practices told a different story. Volkswagen positioned itself as environmentally progressive while cheating emissions tests.
– Purpose running parallel to brand strategy. Some brands attempted to maintain two strategies simultaneously: their actual brand positioning (based on product benefits, price, experience) and a separate purpose platform. This never works. You can’t run two strategies at once. One will always win and it’s usually the one connected to commercial reality.
– Purpose disconnected from the product benefits. Hellman’s for some time leaned heavily into the “Make Taste, Not Waste” platform, focusing on reducing household food waste. This could never work as a primary positioning because food waste reduction will never be the main reason people buy mayonnaise. They buy it because they like the taste.
3. When purpose becomes an additional reason to believe (RTB)
Some brands are already relevant and offer something attractive to consumers: great taste, convenience, good design, competitive pricing. On top of that, they choose to be more environmentally friendly, employ people from disadvantaged communities or hold a sustainability certification, but treat it as an additional reason to buy rather than their main message.
Think of brands with B Corp certification that don’t lead with it or products that use more ecological packaging but don’t make that the headline. The purpose adds a “reason to feel good” layer but doesn’t pretend to be the primary purchase driver.
This can be an effective approach. Where it goes wrong is when brands convince themselves that the supporting credential is the main reason people buy them. It almost never is.
So, what’s the verdict? Is brand purpose dead?
We don’t think it’s dead. It should be treated for what it is: a tool that can be used wisely, in the right context and at the right level. It can still capture a brand’s differentiator or inspire a reframing of brand strategy in a way that resonates more with people. In some cases, it can even drive meaningful change within an organisation.
However, let’s not fool ourselves that just because purpose is used as a strategic tool, it will guarantee results. Nobody has clearly proved that purpose drives purchase decisions. The correlation between purpose and performance often works in reverse: successful brands can afford to invest in purpose-driven initiatives, but that doesn’t mean purpose made them successful.
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Magda Adamska is the founder of BrandStruck.
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