How to Find Your
Brand Purpose?

How to Find Your Brand Purpose?

How to Find Your Brand Purpose? 366 222 Shlomi Ron

Did you know that your personal purpose is directly connected to your brand purpose?

During the pandemic many experienced a wake up call that changed the old narrative: “work gives you purpose” – to a new vision: “find your purpose and then build work around it.”

The pandemic caused 114 million people around the world to lose their jobs in 2020, leading to $3.7 trillion in lost labor income. (ILO Monitor).

As you can guess, people had more time to reassess their priorities, what drives their personal purpose, their passions, and interests.

And indeed many found it by starting their own business.

A 2020’s survey by Statista confirms that the largest share of the global gig economy (52%) is coming from people who have lost their job due to the pandemic.



This dynamic also affected the corporate workplace “with upward of 40% of workers are considering quitting their jobs in what is known as the “great resignation.”

And many of them don’t just want to change jobs — they want to change industries.”

But regardless if you are a gig worker, work for a large company or running your own business – it always boils down to the strength of your motivation to find meaning in what you do that ultimately will impact your performance.

Put simply, if you or your employees are not fully motivated, why should your customer?

But here is the catch

Sadly, often people choose a career path to satisfy a borrowed narrative coming from their family or friends – not their own.

Only later in their career or after a life event (personal or public like the pandemic), people may attempt to rewrite it around their true purpose or as they say “reinvent themselves”.

And that’s exactly where the “Personal Why” connects with the “Business Why.”

And in fact, I often see brands and startups deal with what I call “identity crisis.”

They can’t answer: What does your brand stand for beyond making money?

They need help defining why their business exists to inform their overall go-to-market strategy. You gotta have an inspiring narrative for people to start caring before dressing it up with those fancy visuals and pushing your product’s speeds and feeds.

Simon Sinek aptly captures this logic:

“People don’t buy what you do but why you do it.”

Ikigai ModelFind your Ikigai.
BODETREE, ADAPTED FROM FRANCESC MIRALLES

As the above Ikigai model suggests, finding your purpose is like unlocking a safe with the right digit combination 🙂

It’s always unique.

Over time, I have developed a simple step-by-step Brand Narrative Development process to help clients uncover their true brand ethos to maximize their impact.

Need narrative alignment?

5 signs it’s time for brand narrative alignment:

1. Lack or disjointed marketing strategy.
2. Messaging is pulling or drifting to undesired directions.
3. Team’s burnout.
4. Subpar results and/or worse marketing budget cuts.
5. Ambiguity upon expanding into a new market.

The same way you take care of your car’s wheel alignment, you should ensure your brand narrative is aligned with what drives your customer and what drives you as a business leader.

At a high level, I do it by weaving your personal narrative not only to a meaningful brand narrative but equally important – to your customer’s narrative.

It’s no secret that in today’s overcrowded and fragmented attention economy, you need an inspiring brand narrative that conveys a meaningful higher purpose to stand out.

Take a look at Patagonia – a clothing company – is committed to saving the planet.

Airbnb is all about promoting a sense of belonging.

Johnson & Johnson’s purpose is “blending ❤️, science and ingenuity to profoundly change the trajectory of health and humanity.”

Check out a recent podcast interview I did with Sarah Colamarino, a former J&J’s Vice President, Corporate Brand Equity and Partnerships who discussed how she led the development of brand purpose.

You buy a Tesla, beyond all of its innovative tech, you know you do it without a drop of oil.

What’s VSI’s purpose?

If you’ve been following my stories by now you’ll see that it can be distilled into a single word:

Empowerment.

VSI stands for empowering business leaders to meld their personal purpose into a unique brand narrative that inspires and improves their customers’ lives.

Or in its official brand narrative statement:

We create wow moments that empower people to see themselves
mirrored in visual stories that matter

In short, your brand narrative works like a GPS to set a clear and differentiated direction to all your stories in your marketing. These stories function like proof points that validate and bring to life your brand narrative. Learn more about the difference between narrative and stories.

Lastly, if you’re running your own creative gig, you gotta be extra careful, though. Sometimes the lines between your personal brand and business brand can blur.

What’s your brand narrative or high purpose?

Need help crafting a fresh and unique brand narrative for your business?
I’d be happy to chat. Feel free to throw your availability on my calendar.

Shlomi Ron

Shlomi Ron is the founder and CEO of the Visual Storytelling Institute, a Miami-based think tank with a mission to bring the gospel of visual storytelling from the world of art to more human-centric and purpose-driven marketing. A digital marketing veteran with over 20 years of experience working both on the agency and brand sides for Fortune 100/500 brands such as Nokia, IBM, and American Express. He started VSI to combine his marketing expertise with his passion for visual stories stemming from his interests in classic Italian cinema and managing the estate of video art pioneer, Buky Schwartz. At VSI, he helps brands rise above the communication noise through visual storytelling consulting, training, and thought leadership. Select clients include Estée Lauder, Microsoft, and Cable & Wireless – to name a few. He currently teaches Brand Storytelling at the University of Miami’s Business School. Thought leader and speaker at key marketing conferences. He is also the host of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast, which ranks in the top 10 best business storytelling podcasts on the Web. His book: Total Acuity: Tales with Marketing Morals to Help You Create Richer Visual Brand Stories. Outside work, he is a nascent bread baker, The Moth fan, and longtime fedora wearer likely to jive with his classic Italian cinema interest.

All stories by: Shlomi Ron
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