TOMS is a unique company, but maybe not for much longer. Its pioneering practices are being picked up on by companies large and small. The Santa Monica-based shoemaker manufactures and sells what appear to be samurai slippers for skateboarders, and mummy boots for vegans. But what really sets the company apart from hundreds of other upstart shoemakers isn’t the shoes, it’s the business model.
For every pair of TOMS you purchase, the company gives a pair to a child who might otherwise go barefoot.
TOMS is one of a growing number of companies embracing what PR firm Edelman designates as the “fifth ‘P’ of marketing” — Purpose. Companies have long taken into account Product, Price, Placement and Promotion, but today they’re learning the value of social responsibility. It isn’t just ethical; embedding purpose into a product is also a smart business decision.
According to a study published today by goodpurpose, a division of Edelman focused on socially responsible marketing, American consumers now value purpose above design, innovation and even brand loyalty. Seventy-nine percent of Americans think it is ethical for a brand to support a good cause and make a profit at the same time. And, 72 percent say they’re more likely to buy a product that is fairly priced and supports a good cause, than a product that is cheaper but does not contribute to a good cause.
“Entertainment marketing and sports marketing have become integral to brand marketing,” says Mitch Markson, chief creative officer at Edelman and founder of goodpurpose. “We’re finding now that so is purpose.”
Markson points to a recent Levi’s campaign as a good example of the trend. “Ready to Work,” which launched in June, paired Levi’s fall Work Wear Collection with a dozen blue-collar residents of recession-wracked Braddock, Pennsylvania. “Real People + Real Work = Real Change,” read the slogan of an initiative that refurbished Braddock’s community center and supports the town’s urban farm, which supplies produce to locals at reduced cost.
“It’s not about the company or brand saying, ‘look how great we are that we’re doing something,’” Markson says. “It’s about brand and company as catalysts for supporting passions around social issues that consumers share.” Purpose marketing isn’t about size or breath of impact, either. “It’s about making concrete connections and relationships so I, the consumer, can track what’s actually being accomplished.”
Carol Cone, managing director of Brand & Corporate Citizenship at Edelman, sees purpose as an update upon previous marketing strategies. “It is no longer enough to slap a ribbon on a product,” she says, hinting at the origins of cause-related marketing, which may be traced to the late ’70s when Marriott hitched the opening of a new hotel to The March of Dimes.
“Americans seek deeper involvement in social issues and expect brands and companies to provide various means of engagement,” Cone says. “We call this the rise of the ‘citizen consumer.’”
If the American citizen consumer is rising, the global citizen consumer is blasting off. The goodpurpose study found that people in India, China, Brazil and Mexico are significantly more likely to buy and recommend products made by a company that supports a good cause than their peers in the developed world. In Brazil and Mexico, more than 85 percent of consumers expect brands to do something to support a good cause. In the US that figure is just 63 percent, and in the Netherlands, the lowest of 13 countries surveyed, just 40 percent.
“Emerging countries are much closer to the need than The West has been,” explains Markson. “They are, in a sense, more immediately empathetic to what’s going on around them.”
Global corporations like American Express, Starbucks and Pepsi are taking note and increasingly linking purpose to their products. So too are smaller companies, like Good Pitch, which produces profitable, socially responsible documentaries, and TOMS, which has shipped more than 1 million pairs of new shoes to kids across the globe.
“We’re going to be seeing more companies putting purpose into the DNA of their brands,” says Markson.
That’s a cause we can get behind.
Photos via Facebook.