“Think about this as purpose being deposits of goodwill in the bank. If you have no credibility, and if you have no deposits, and something goes wrong, people are going to assume the worst. If you’ve got a great track record, and you’ve been plotting along, and making these deposits of goodwill the whole time, chances are people are going to give you the benefit of the doubt. -Denise Roberson

Transcript:

Carolyn:

Today we are talking with Denise Roberson. She is the chief purpose officer at TBWA/Chiat/Day Worldwide and a marketing professor for presidents and key execs MBA at Pepperdine. Welcome to the show, Denise, it’s so nice to have you.

Denise:

Thank you. It’s so great to be here, thanks!

Carolyn:

You have studied purpose from almost every conceivable angle. It’s interesting to think about purpose chronologically. Let’s start with the birth of purpose. When and how did purpose become important for brands.

Denise:

I love that you brought to the table that purpose is really an obsession for me. It's something I've studied academically. It's something that I do out in the wild in the world and marketplace and that I'm able to do with the UN. When purpose started is a hot topic of debate.

The truth is, we can trace some of the origins back to the 1800s to George Marsh. He wrote Man and Nature, and he was postulating this notion that civilizations were creating ecological disasters with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. It's really fascinating because when people say this is trend, this is fad, this is new, it's not. It's taken on some different language, and it's taken on some different meanings. But to me, this is absolutely not new.

We saw an explosion of purpose on the global stage in the 1990s. This would become the genesis of what was to come for our current day version of purpose. A good example of this comes from our friends at Nike. The business exploded in 1970s and the 80s. So, what did they do? They offshored their labor. Why did they do that? Probably to skirt some labor laws and to reduce costs.

But the problem was they didn't do it ethically, and they found themselves on the front page of the New York Times. They were blasted for using child labor for $0.15/hour. There was an abhorrent lack of labor laws of any kind with no standards or safety. We saw all these stakeholder groups communicating and the secret was out. That prompted Nike to look at this first from a reactive stance to determine what they legally had to do to clean up the mess. But then they looked at it from a proactive stance. They acknowledged that the disaster happened and asked themselves how they could use this to be a better company—how they could actually be a leader on the forefront of this.

If we start looking at the convergence of these issues with the UN Earth Summit in 1992 when global leaders passed environmental actions that galvanized on a global stage the necessity to do some of these things. At this point, people were looking heavily at the environment, but if you look at anything with the environment, it also affects people. These two are always going to be sort of intrinsically locked together.

Then came the Internet boom and now we've got stakeholders communicating readily, and you can't keep those dirty little secrets any longer. So now we've got a vested interest to be able to look at this as opposed to a reactionary, regulatory standpoint to a proactive stance of how can we be a better company, what we can do for the world and all these stakeholders?

Now when we look at it through the lens of brand, instead of singularly creating their brand in a funnel we understand that brands can only be co-created. Across entire stakeholder groups that include citizen journalism and customers and NGOs. We have so many stakeholders that now define what a brand is that they no longer have control over their own brand definition. That sped up the process as to why we might want to more heavily consider what these stakeholder groups think of us.

Carolyn:

That’s so interesting. I would love to hear you talk about the creation of MAL in 2014. From my perspective at the time purpose was happening in communications for nonprofits. It hadn’t really migrated into the for-profit model at the time that MAL was formed. Do I have that right?

Denise:

Yeah, I think we were starting to see bits and pieces of what people were calling impact marketing, and they were very campaign driven. They were very much one-offs. We had another silo called corporate responsibility. We had all these bits and pieces sort of floating around.

Some of the greats had already figured out that they could drill this into this strategic center of their organization. Media Arts Lab is the division of Omnicom and TBWA that exclusively works with Apple. There were some brilliant folks that did stand out, insane work. One of them being Lee Clow who is now the chairman emeritus. He was hand in hand with Steve Jobs when they basically built the Apple brand. Everything you see from 1984 forward that you know. It's won almost every award on the planet. It’s a prime example of epic advertising. But as Lee meandered towards the end of his career he realized that his legacy was going to be being the Apple guy. He wanted to be known for more than that. He loved the ocean and nature. Media Arts Lab allowed him to create what was in essence an experiment called MAL: For good. They took the principles of big advertising and began applying them towards some nonprofits, some for profit, but for profit, for good. One of the biggest things they did was create a campaign called Nature Speaking. They used some of the biggest actors in the world, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Lupita Nyong'o. I mean, the list goes on and on. And they had them personify bits and pieces of nature. So, the ocean, mother earth, bees, all these incredible things. And they made some of the most spectacular films that were very attention grabbing. And they swept at Cannes. And all of a sudden everyone was like, wait a minute, this is getting interesting now, because now this isn't just some, you know, tiny little nonprofit that nobody's heard of.

Carolyn

Is it fair to say that it was a model, at that point, that wasn't fully realized? And maybe that realization led to your role being created at TBWA?

Denise

I think so. So, you've got these really high-end creatives who come with high production costs and huge expenses that most nonprofits simply can't afford. We're able to write off pro bono work and do a lot of things, but there really was an interest in making this a sustainable model. And in order for this to be a sustainable model, we really needed to be able to work with for profits. Some of the Fortune 5 and some of our multinationals that were on the roster weren't sure quite how to bridge that gap. I had been doing some doctoral work around this topic and I was teaching so when I met with a couple of the senior leaders who said, hey, we're looking to do this, I decided let's try it. I think the world is ready right now. Little did we know the pandemic was a mere couple of months behind us.

Carolyn

And how did the pandemic impact implementing your role?

Denise

Oh, it was dramatic because the whole world went into a tailspin like nobody had a rulebook for what we were going through. These businesses in particular had no idea how to care for their customers, their employees, all of these various groups that prior to this hadn't had such urgency. So, they had a crisis on every corner. Two things happened. For people that had purpose milling about in the back of their minds, it became urgent. Other people found themselves in crisis. They stepped in it unintentionally and mismanaged or misthought their way through it and needed help. So, I would say it went from a concept to kind of building the plane as we were flying it.

Carolyn

That sounds intense. I really love how you talk about how brands are either part of the problem or part of the solution. That there's no middle ground here. Can you speak to that and then help connect all the dots about purpose because it’s a pretty confusing space with a lot of labels.

Denise

Technology is the great equalizer here. How fast we can communicate globally with the push of a button was the genesis moment of how this all started. For a long stretch of time brands could simply be quiet. They didn't speak if they didn't want to engage in the conversation and they ducked down. This notion of, I don't feel like I need to say anything, and that way we'll stay safe, and for a while they did. But unfortunately, we had a couple things come together, technology being one of them; that's sort of the accelerant in all of this.

Then we had a global disaster that was sort of number two where now we've got now raw emotions, we've got people that are leaning more heavily into their values, people desperately just trying to hold on to any kind of normalcy. Then we had financial issues. I mean, we had crisis after crisis after crisis. All of a sudden, we find ourselves in this sort of new territory. That was really what took us over the edge and formalized this notion of what we're calling purpose today. But purpose can be proactive, and it can be reactive.

I always tell my customers to think about purpose as being deposits of goodwill in the bank. If you have no credibility and if you have no deposits and something goes wrong, people are going to assume the worst. If you've got a great track record and you've been plodding along making these deposits of goodwill the whole time, chances are people are going to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Silence is now a loud statement. You don't say anything, you're saying something very loud. So now we're sort of caught in these paradoxical situations where brands who have perhaps an older leadership style, people at the helm that haven't been in a position where saying nothing was saying something loudly. It's very scary. I am a firm believer that do you have to engage. Do you have to take a wild stance? No, You do have to have a purpose though, and that should be your guiding light. You're allowed to say our organization isn't entirely geared to address this problem, but here are all the wonderful things we are addressing.

To your second point, what I see every day, whether it be in boardrooms, in conference rooms, or classrooms, people are using words very interchangeably and not necessarily communicating the same things. So, I try to level set in every meeting. If we’re using the word purpose, what does that mean? If we're using words like ESG or sustainability, what does that mean? So, we're all sort of creating this common language, because I think often times we can get ourselves in trouble because someone's saying exactly what they mean, but they've switched the words out and that person has interpreted those words to mean something else. So, we've got this cauldron of, you know, confusion and misconception, which can really lead to this communication breakdown.

Michaela

When brands say something and take a stance, how important is authenticity?

Denise

It's everything, honestly.

We've got some terrible case studies, unfortunately, of brands that have gotten it really wrong because they rushed that decision and felt some sort of compulsion to make a statement or to roll out a campaign without actually having those difficult conversations with themselves first. When you have those difficult conversations internally and ask the hard questions, if this goes sideways, are we still going to support this cause? Are we strong enough to stand up and take the heat? Those basic questions will keep not only you, but whatever you're standing up for safe.

It's better to take half of an evolutionary step that you're going to stand behind and actually be there for, than to take a full evolutionary step and then tuck tail and run the second people start getting heated, you know, and throwing rotten fruit at you, which is going to happen every time. You can't please everybody, and if you are, it's probably to diluted.

Carolyn

The Dylan Bud Light example is probably an interesting one to think about where there was some silo activity happening there and they definitely duck tailed and ran.

Denise

It was a tragic situation honestly. Here's a marginalized group that all of a sudden is put on the side of a can and sort of held up as something worthy. And I think so many people in that community were so excited to be represented and accounted for. But because they didn't have the difficult conversations internally, of course, there was going to be some backlash. And when other stakeholder groups started shooting up cans, and doing all kinds of just outrageous things the company hadn't already thought through, they started firing marketing team members and, you know, sort of taking the easy way out. But what happened was it tarnished a bit of their company and it really blackened the eyes of the poor community they were standing up for. So, it was like, catastrophe. We saw that with Kendall Jenner and Pepsi. VW and Diesel Gate, like we've seen so many moments in time where that can backfire and destroy a company.

But even worse, it destroys the stakeholders that you're standing up for that are most likely marginalized to begin with.

Cat

What you're saying is it takes time to develop purpose. What are some of the processes that a brand has to go through and how long does that take to find the right tension?

Denise

Starting small, getting the genesis idea of what it is that you believe your purpose is workshopping it, making sure it's getting to the far-reaching corners of your company, really having those open candid dialogues and please create feedback loops. If someone doesn't feel empowered to give feedback, whether there's a difference in job title, perceived power, whatever that is, you're not going to get honest feedback. So, you've got to create that space of honesty and vulnerability and give them different vehicles for feedback.

Once you've road tested it internally then you've got to formalize it. And that's focus groups internally, that's talking to external stakeholders to make sure that everything you're doing sort of aligns. And really looking at the genesis of why the company exists and how we can use it for good, for people, for the planet, for our communities, but anchor it to the company. Then it's really taking it external, that's building all of your beautiful, you know, external messages and campaigns, measuring all those things.

Then if you're really, really lucky, and I think this is a very small group of people that get to this or organizations that get to this, it becomes a global business movement. That's sort of the end state. That's our Patagonia's of the world, our Unilever's. They're lucky enough to have made something that's become a global movement.

Carolyn

Do it inside first, really build it from the inside out. That makes so much sense. The mistake a lot of companies make is they want to jump on this purpose bandwagon. They put out a press release that they haven't socialized or figured it out on the inside.

You’ve talked about this notion of a purpose gap. This might be a good time to talk about that.

Denise

Yeah. McKinsey did this great study and it illuminates one of the greatest problems. I think it was 80% of Vice Presidents and above find their purpose at work. They genuinely believe they are living their purpose. Sadly, 80% of mid-level managers to frontline workers feel like they're getting no purpose at all. So, somehow, no matter how authentic, no matter how much time or resources is being put in, there's this purpose gap that it's not getting out to the actual workers that are touching your customers that are engaging in the work itself. That is a huge watch out, and one again, I don't see it as much in smaller companies because you can usually get to the people, and you know them by name. But when we're talking about these massive multinationals, it can be very, very daunting. I had someone comment on another podcast that I had done, and they said, well, why in the world would you ever need something called a Chief Purpose Officer? Isn't purpose supposed to be everyone's job? Yes, it should be everyone's job, but who owns it? Just like the CFO is owning the financial health of an organization, the Chief purpose or Chief impact or Chief Sustainability Officer, is owning that particular discipline. They're the steward of it, making sure that it's getting where it needs to be. It's interesting that people just assume that's everybody. Yes, it should be, but you also need someone managing it and caring for it and fostering it.

Carolyn

Can you describe the profile of one of your executives who comes to the MBA Program and why they're coming and what they're getting out of it?

Denise

I would say that particular program, they're an interesting demographic because they're seeking some kind of change. Whether it be evolving from a C suite position to a board, whether it means stepping down and creating a nonprofit. There's this impetus of change that they're really trying to search and find. Most of them have heard of purpose. Most of them though are rather scared because they're like, I know what it is, I believe in it, but I have no idea how to turn this into an actionable strategy and put tools behind it. So I'm not the person for the job. And so walking them through that because marketing, in their mind, purpose wasn't part of the plan. That wasn't supposed to be part of the syllabus. So it's a surprise. And then by the time they get through their time with me, oh my goodness, there are so many pathways, so many new ideas, so many incredible ways that their curiosity and their creativity is starting to merge with this notion of purpose that it's an incredible thing to see.

Carolyn

What do you tell people to look for when looking for a job or an occupation if they want to keep purpose at the center of their career?

Denise

Passion and values alignment. So, if you start looking for the sexy companies with the great names and you're not looking at their culture and you're not looking at their values, you've got half of the equation. And you may be unpleasantly surprised that the other half might not be at all what you are looking for to be showing up as your whole self, having autonomy in your day. Some of these really important things that we're searching for don't usually come in brand value. That's, you know, the mark. That's the beautiful branding that goes behind everything. But if you start looking at the culture of it, how are things getting done? What does this company believe in? Not only what do they believe in, but what are they standing up for and supporting? One of the great companies that I work with, their global CMO, says there's a difference between what we stand for and what we stand up for. It's something that we lead with all the time now. Just to get the difference between those two things, it's easy to say we believe in equal rights. Show me what have you been doing to support that.

Carolyn

That’s great. Talk about how you actuate the business case for purpose and how you measure if it's going well.

Denise

It's something that I do on a daily basis. Our hope is always to get it to be a strategic operating unit. To see if we can bake it into the company, the center of the company's strategy. It's almost like digital. So, if we look at digital, ten years ago everyone was focused on How do we get it, how do we do it? It was a big buzzword and now it's just part of the DNA of how everybody does business. The hope is that purpose has a similar trajectory.

What is this company built on? What are the company's values? What does it stand for? These are the questions we focus on.

I would say to anyone wondering why they should do this, go ahead and try and hire an employee in 10 years if you don't have any of these things in place. Because values alignment’s number one, you can't pay someone enough long term for them to stay at your organization if you don't have that sort of connectivity to your purpose, to your ESG strategy and an executional style where everyone can see it and feel it.

Carolyn (to Michaela and Cat)

As representatives of your generation, what are you looking for when you're thinking about who you want to join?

Cat

Personally, I do think work culture is a big one. Related to our topic of saturation, like we feel that we're so I guess overwhelmed and, in many facets of our lives and we're worried about how that will carry into the workforce.

Michaela

I would definitely agree with that.

I think having a healthy culture around you, people that support you and really stand firm and what they believe and what they are willing to put out there, that's the most important thing to me. That authenticity of being able to say like this is who I am and I'm not afraid to say it. I think that goes back to really just how you also treat one another in the workplace. Like are you seeing your coworkers? Are you hearing them? Are you hearing, you know, the company itself? Are you hearing your customers? Because if you're not getting that feedback from the people you're actually serving, then your organization, are you really fulfilling your mission?

Cat

From the advertising point of view there’s a big pushback that people give you if you talk about going into advertising. It's like, oh, so you just sell stuff to people and take advantage of consumers. And I mean, I would love to say that, oh, I worked on this ad and it's like doing something. It's making a difference to some sort of community or doing something good. I think that's a huge appeal.

Denise

That's how I got into purpose as an occupation, that exact thought right there. I got to the point where I was like, I'm so sad to have this giant megaphone and everyone thinks I wear the Black Hat. You know, I want to do this for good. Why do I have this, and I can't use it for something good? And I had a fabulous professor who said, then do something about it. And I thought, the challenge has been thrown down. This is incredible. Think about the P&Gs of the world and Black is Beautiful and the Unilever's of the world with Dove and Ben and Jerry’s. We do have brands that are doing incredible things and those are all coming from their agencies. And I think right now we're on the precipice of your generation actually expecting that.

Carolyn

In prior conversations, you talked about how and also how you feel like we need to learn how to have open conversations and not be so divisive. And you have hope that this generation can do that.

Denise

Yes. Unfortunately, Carolyn, we're sort of doomed. We've reached a saturation point where people are living on the two extremes and this notion of having just a great conversation, empathy, hearing about somebody else's experience and being curious about it as opposed to off put by it. I mean, daily we are losing ground there and unfortunately; we're ending up on these two polar extremes but not the younger generations. I feel like they're the ones that have the capacity to, if we empower them, ask the right questions, have that curiosity and have these demands. I mean, I have seen younger generation employee groups come together and move mountains because it just was no longer acceptable. That wasn't going to be their work environment. That wasn't going to be what they were going to stand for, and they were able to make incredible change. This is a passionate, passionate group of individuals that are able to work collectively.

Carolyn (to Michaela and Cat)

Do you guys feel that?

Cat

For sure. I just think our expectations are higher and that's not a bad thing. That's the pushback that you often hear. It's like well, you just need to get to work and not complain, and it's like well maybe some things are worth complaining about.

Michaela

I definitely think that that also comes with what you mentioned: the rise of technology. I believe our generation is the first generation that's been raised on technology. Everything is so much more visible now. And so, when you see what's going on and you're seeing that like oh, I'm not happy with this, now you don't just feel it like you also are given a voice to say I'm upset about this and I’m taking a stance on a platform.

Denise

I agree. You guys have power that I couldn't have dreamt of at your age. And I think it's so cool that you guys are being bold enough to use it in those sorts of ways. I think when your generation actually, I think you were talking about like, you know, be quiet, get to work and just, you know, push the boulder up the hill, well, if you don't have that inkling in your gut, this is wrong. This is not the right way. This is not the best way. You don't have that to begin with you're just going to keep pushing that boulder up the hill. So, I think having that sort of Genesis thought, that idea of there's a got to be a better way and then coming together because you do have this powerful ability with technology to come to gather to actually share your voice. When you bring those two things together and you galvanize. I think that's when extraordinary change can happen.

Carolyn

I agree. Cat raised something and I'm curious, Denise, to hear what you would say. Next week they’re going to be at Thanksgiving and somebody's talking to Cat about what she's doing and what she's studying and when she says advertising she’ll get that kind of reaction of you're just a capitalist, you're not doing anything good. What's a good comeback for that?

Denise

Yeah, I literally work for the largest holding company on planet Earth in advertising, and a lot has been said about that. And it's very odd to have the job position that I do juxtapose to some of the preconceived ideas. But my comeback to that is always, well, guess who has the biggest megaphone? We do. And if we can start using this more and more for good, we're going to make meaningful change in the world.

Carolyn

That’s great. When I interviewed Dove’s CMO a while ago, he said that he realized a long time ago they have to stop acting like general managers of brand and think more like an NGO.

Denise

I think one of the most powerful things we can do is tap into our stakeholder groups, get out on the fringe, and talk to people. I sit on a lot of boards, and it never ceases to amaze me who's alienated from the conversation? They're the most needed, the most marginalized, the most fill in the blank or communities we're serving. Have you talked to these people? Have you literally sat down and had conversations? And so often the answer is no.

One of the most valuable things we can do is enter into these conversations, make them safe places, empower people to have real conversations about their point of view because if not we're guessing and that's not a good place to be.

Carolyn

When you say stakeholders who do you mean?

Denise

It's going to come back to that kind of anecdote I was talking about before a brand was singularly created in a sort of echo chamber of their own voice. Well, now because of connectivity, we've got investors, employees, we've got customers, we've got NGOs, we've got nonprofits, we've got citizen journalists and journalists in the media. I mean, we've got communities, we've got marginalized groups, we've got groups in totality that are super users all the way down to people that will never use your product but have big voices.

You don't have control of anything any longer. You have control of what you put out, push out one way, but you do not have control of how that's interpreted or defined. You really have to be open minded, and that's why I say have the conversations first. Don't assume you know what this particular group is feeling or thinking or even needs. Talk to them.

Carolyn

As Cat mentioned earlier, the theme that these guys came up for this season is Saturated. How do you think that is impacting the, the pathway of purpose or the future of purpose? Do you think there’s a saturation, a kind of purpose fatigue happening?

Denise

I would say where we're running into some problems is compassion fatigue. We're getting bombarded so often and so many times in a day with all these crises that I think people are going a little numb. And that's the hard part. And that's why I feel like corporations have such a powerful role in all of this, because trust is at an all-time low. And if we look at who still has a little bit of trust, it's the corporations, oddly enough, which ten years ago was exactly the opposite. But since they have it, they can control what's in their universe, what's in their sphere. They can control what's happening with their fill in the blank, 100,000 employees. And if they do a good job at helping them feel like their work is meaningful and valuable and touching lives, what a great way to refuel people as opposed to exhausting people.

Michaela

Would you say when it comes to purpose that less is more?

Denise

I think in the beginning, absolutely. Get your tiny little grains of sand, put them together, make them as strong as you can and really own them. As you're evolving and as you're progressing as this takes root—and we're talking you know years four, five and six, and the entire company has embraced this and you have the CEO support. Then you go pedal to the metal and use your voice as a massive megaphone and do more good in this world.

Cat

But is there still a case for there to be different messages, like I guess for consumers, do they want to see these really purpose driven campaigns and the funny ones or does it need to be embedded in all of it?

Denise

It depends on the brand itself. I think you've always got to be cognizant of your consumer, who is your consumer? What do they need? I think if you're defining purpose as, you know, extremely emotional and heartfelt, I would not suggest beating somebody over the head constantly. Apple's a wonderful example here. Apple just released a spot and had Octavia Spencer as Mother Nature, kicking butt and taking names. Everyone got a great laugh because it was extremely humorous, but very effective in communicating what it was that Apple believes in and what they're trying to tackle right now. So, I think tone is important, but I think it has to be varied for the occasion.

If you're constantly hitting one note, you could be in trouble. It depends on the tone and tenor of your brand, what you're trying to convey. I think you've got to show up for the moment with the right message.

Carolyn

It's a really interesting point though. I mean in advertising humor is always the hardest sell. But what's interesting and I like what you're saying, Denise, is right now we hear purpose and we do think of this heart, string, single note. But purpose can have a sense of humor. That's probably the fertile ground that I could see people exploring.

Denise

Yeah. And I think purpose can use scare tactics, and purpose can use all types of tonality to convey the urgency of what you're trying to communicate. Right now, what the really great people are doing in the industry is they're trying to work with that tone. They're trying to make sure it's not being pigeonholed into soft and fluffy. And they're trying to look at range right now and appropriateness of what's needed for this moment. What do we need for this? Do we need to cut through with humor? What do we need in this

moment? And I think the more steady and the more foundational your purpose is, the more materials you have to work with creatively.

Carolyn

One thing we like to ask everybody that we interviewed, Denise, is how would you define beautiful thinking?

Denise

I think beautiful thinking is what we need to evolve our way out of the mess we've created for ourselves. And I think it's the thinkers that are able to break down walls, and instead of looking at conflicts as disastrous or off putting, embrace it, and look at it for all the rich extraordinary detail and information it can provide. And I think it allows for a lot of empathy. Our world is missing and lacking empathy. So, a beautiful thinker to me as someone who can think empathetically and to really use this time to kind of create our new narrative and our new tomorrow.

Carolyn

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. This episode was created and produced at the IU Media School as a part of The Beautiful Thinkers Podcast, IU Edition. To follow along this season, check out @thebeautifulthinkers on Instagram and Tik Tok.

Special thanks to Natalie Ingalls for our music, and the students who researched and recorded this episode, Caterina DeSantis and Michaela Bruns.