‘Brand purpose and life insights have to go hand in hand’

At the e4m Do Good Conference 2024, marketing experts came together for a discussion on ‘Developing Your Brand's Social Purpose Framework’. The panel had Anshika Dhawan, Global Sector, Marketing Manager, Shell India, Ruchira Jaitly, CMO, Diageo, Harmeet Singh, Chief Brand Officer, The Body Shop- Asia South, Ajay Singh Parihar, Head of Marketing Healthcare OTC, Dabur, moderated by Somya Bhupal, MarketingComms Head, Sustainability, Zomato.

Ruchira opened the discussion by sharing her strategies for managing the challenge of integrating global social initiatives campaigns at Diageo, along with the effective approaches that helped her achieve balance.

Jaitly said, “When we look at India, we don't look at what we are going to do in a particular geography or a particular kind of a community. We give that challenge over to our brands and to our business to say how do we integrate it into the ways of working.”

“At Shell, our challenge was to reinterpret it and make it relevant for the Indian audience on what progress means to an average Indian,” Anshika added, sharing the challenge she faces at Shell India in integrating global social initiatives campaigns.

In today's fragmented media landscape, Somya asked the panelists to share their views on a universal favorite question of marketers: How can we ensure significant reach for emotional or purpose-driven campaigns when budgets are restricted?

To this, Anshika answered, “Do not treat your social purpose as a departure from your brand purpose, it has to be fully integrated.” Furthermore, she added that at Shell, some of their communication material is often around social purpose. So, they integrate product choices as a very intrinsic part of their storytelling and that helps them in achieveing their ultimate goal.

Ruchira highlighted a conscious observation that young millennials and Gen Z are seeking out conscious brands that prioritize their impact on the planet and the future. They want products and services that minimize harm to the environment and offer sustainable solutions.

Disagreeing with the statement that marketers face monetary problems for purpose-driven campaigns, Dabur’s Ajay explained, “In the last 25 years of my experience, I think money has grown only. The way we look at availability of money needs a relook because today the mediums are very sharper, you know your target group very well and you can actually in at a lesser amount of money you can reach the target group.”

Explaining how marketers can increase the impact of purpose-driven campaigns in the face of budget constraints, Parihar elaborated that to create more impact, brand purpose and life insights have to go hand in hand otherwise marketers will eventually struggle to decide communication which is either Purpose or brand driven to make better use of money.

Harmeet stated that since its inception, Body Shop has been a purpose-driven brand and shared an example of a sustainable and purpose-driven campaign Body Shop’s team has started to protect the planet and bring meaningful change in society. 

“We have started an RRR program which is to Return, Recycle and Repeat. This program we started in our stores where we encourage our customers to bring back their plastic packaging, empty bottles, empty jars and reward them with something like some points, the loyalty points which everybody loves at the end of the day to come and shop more,” Singh mentioned.