What’s the point of a business?
2020 has given business leaders and consumers plenty of reasons to panic.
The pandemic means that everyone is now in the business of saving lives – even marketers. The accompanying global economic downturn is causing widespread terror, and business decisions must be made under crushing uncertainty. Black Lives Matter protests are highlighting the need to address structural racism, forcing execs to address difficult questions about diversity and inclusion. The US faces all this amid another divisive election cycle and, all the while, the climate crisis continues to worsen.
In the middle of a year already defined by chaos and knee-jerk reactions, brand purpose runs the risk of being neglected. But, as we demonstrated in our new How Consumers View Brand Purpose in 2020 report, consumers want brands to act on, not just talk about, their principles.
Today we’ll be exploring some of the most impactful data points from the report.
The p word
Using our Consumer Research platform we looked at English-language mentions of “profit”, “profits”, and “profited” from July 2019 to July 2020. When we compared volumes to the year before, negative posts and negative emotions were trending upwards while those including positivity and joyful emotions were slipping downwards.
A common perception is that businesses only care about profit, at the expense of looking after their employees, their customers, and the planet.
But the pursuit of purpose doesn’t mean abandoning profit. In fact, as the report points out, acting with purpose can result in more profit.
When we looked at Google Trends data, we learned that consumers are actively looking for brands working towards goals that aren’t necessarily profit related.
