Corporate purpose – moving beyond the buzzword

In my work as CMO of a purpose-driven organization, I understand the critical role that marketers can play in bringing a brand’s authentic purpose to market. Being a purpose-driven enterprise is more than just traditional corporate social responsibility. It often requires understanding consumers’ needs, and today’s consumers are savvier than ever. They are looking to see that a brand’s tangible commitments and actions match their words and are sometimes willing to abandon a brand that does not live up to those words.

Beauty products retailer, Sephora, has always been a values-driven organization. Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Deborah Yeh, CMO for Sephora Americas, and she told me that over the past few years they have become even more explicit and articulate from a marketing standpoint about their purpose-driven initiatives. Even from their first days operating stores in the US in 1998, Sephora has publicly stated their goal to create a welcoming experience – the “why” of their brand’s existence.

Getting this right and creating a connection with consumers who are particular about the brands they choose is a huge undertaking. As part of Deloitte’s 2022 Global Marketing Trends Report findings, when 11,500 global consumers were asked why they choose to purchase from a specific brand across eight different categories, price and quality were individually cited as top-three purchasing criteria anywhere between 61% and 86% of the time. However, the research found that globally, 57% of respondents indicated that they are generally more loyal to brands that commit to addressing social inequities.

Deborah told me that in 2019 they started to be more overt about what they intended to do and involved marketing in how they articulated it and brought it to life. They launched a campaign called "We Belong to Something Beautiful" that included a statement they shared on the walls of their stores. To foster belonging among all clients and to publicly strive for a more inclusive vision for retail and beauty, it served as a public declaration and indication of their purpose.

Sephora was doing things that made their brand’s purpose central to their business strategy, and that was exactly what Deloitte found in its 2022 Global Marketing Trends Report survey results. The Purpose chapter of the 2022 GMT Report also offers guidance for marketers as businesses increasingly view purpose as a strategic priority. Because all brands should deliver on price and quality, marketers can position their purpose as a competitive differentiator for the brand and, as importantly, move in the direction of transparency and enhancing the experience for their customer.  

In fact, we found that high-growth brands (those with 10% or more annual growth) are looking at purpose more holistically and therefore translating purpose into action in very different ways from their lower-growth peers. CMOs in particular can help make the right connections between a brand’s purpose strategy and the customer experience. They are uniquely positioned to bring the customer voice to the organization and help deliver a brand that ensures its purpose meets customer needs and invests in solutions that embed purpose in all interactions with the customer. Ultimately, these are the brands that are likely best positioned to make purpose a competitive differentiator because they are being true to who they are and customers sense and embrace this.

Publicly, Sephora says it “believes in championing all beauty, living with courage, and standing fearlessly together to celebrate our differences.” That public commitment can be powerful for making purpose a reality, but it isn’t where Sephora’s efforts stop. They are even bringing awareness to search and content bias, bringing “Black beauty” to the top of the search algorithms as part of their recent “Black Beauty is Beauty” campaign, which promotes Black voices, creators and brand founders whose work has shaped the beauty industry.

Please check out my interview with Deborah Yeh, and then come back and share your own thoughts and experiences. What’s the hardest behavioral change your company has had to commit to in order to bring its purpose to life? I'd love to hear from you. 

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