Wednesday’s installment of our virtual event series, The CTA, featured a conversation about brand purpose with Dr. Marcus Collins, head of planning at Wieden+Kennedy New York and marketing professor at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

As you might imagine, a marketing professor talking passionately to us about belief and purpose made the event feel a bit like we were graduating from something. But his talk offered insights about what it means for a brand to have a purpose, how it can be carried out, and how it impacts consumer engagement. Check out some of our takeaways below, and watch a full recording of the event here.

Flipped the script

Not long after Marketing Brew reporter Ryan Barwick started asking him questions about brand purpose, Collins flipped the concept on its head, arguing that “brand purpose” is a bit of a misnomer.

• “As a business, isn’t my purpose to make money? So instead of using ‘purpose’ as language, I like to use the language ‘brand ideology.’ A conviction. A way of seeing the world,” Collins said.
• A brand purpose or ideology, Collins elaborated, should dictate how a brand behaves in the world—beyond the assumed goal of making a profit.

Do consumers really care? Collins explained that, when a brand effectively embodies an ideology, people who share the ideology will gravitate toward that brand and use its products and services as a signal of identity.

“Those branded products that the brand creates, they transcend value propositions and they operate at an identity-based level. They become identity-congruent artifacts, objects, services, that I use to communicate to the world who I am.”

That’s a phenomenon that can “command a price premium,” Collins said, as people decide where to spend their money.

“You see things like Dr. Bronner’s and Public Goods. These are DTC brands that people use because they’re congruent with their identity,” he said. “People buy Bombas. These are socks that no one really sees except for the top of them, right? But they buy them because they’re ideologically congruent to the identity...that people want to pursue.”

Keeping it real

In a climate where consumers value authenticity more than ever, a brand that professes to believe something better mean it. As Collins put it, “Do you walk the talk?”

“If a brand says, ‘We believe this. Our conviction is this. We see the world this way,’ its behavior should be indicative of that belief,” he said, using Patagonia as an example. The brand is known for its emphasis on minimizing its impact on the environment.

“All the behaviors of Patagonia are demonstrative of that, and we say Patagonia is an authentic brand because everything it does is informed by that belief system, regardless of the context, even if it means losing money,” Collins said. “They’ll cut off a particular business opportunity or a revenue stream because it is ideologically misaligned with its belief systems.”

Read the full story here.—ZS

The cryptocurrency scene has become mainstream at this point, but it still evokes questions from the less initiated such as “Can you explain this one more time?” and “Literally what are you talking about?”

But no, that hasn’t stopped the industry from Hollywood-ifying itself. Here are some of the recent star-studded marketing pushes the crypto world has produced.

• In a commercial Crypto.com debuted last week, Matt Damon makes the case that investing in crypto is a historic act of bravery. Bloomberg reports the platform is spending more than $100 million on the campaign, which also includes endorsements from stars like astronaut Scott Kelly, Los Angeles Laker Carmelo Anthony, and pro fighter Ronda Rousey.
• Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen star in an ad for crypto exchange FTX that came out in September. They are seen calling up friends to get them onboard with crypto trading. The couple took an undisclosed equity stake in the platform earlier this year. The same week, Steph Curry announced a partnership with FTX. The company recently confirmed it bought a Super Bowl ad.
• Spike Lee directed and starred in a commercial for crypto ATM company Coin Cloud. Lee monologues about crypto’s potential to lift up the financially disenfranchised. The campaign received criticism by some who pointed out that the crypto industry is largely controlled by rich white males.
• Neil Patrick Harris promoted Bitcoin ATMs in a spot for the company CoinFlip. The actor proclaims to an empty auditorium that “the dollar bill just leveled up.”

+1: A recent Morning Consult poll found that 45% of cryptocurrency owners are likely to invest in a coin if a celebrity or influencer endorses it.—ZS

You might still be wiping off traces of face paint while fighting a Halloween hangover, but it’s officially November—which, for some, marks the true start of the holiday season. We won’t be the judges of when it’s appropriate to start playing “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” but we will tell you what marketers have going on over the next few months.

Campaigns: Major retailers have already rolled out their holiday ads. A Neiman Marcus ad stars dancers Alison Ingelstrom and Andre Malcolm, Kohl’s commercial also features dancing, and Etsy’s holiday spots each tell a story about heartfelt gifts.

You got me in chains: Supply-chain issues are affecting all sorts of products, even wrapping paper and Christmas trees. And some advertisers, like Zulily, are rolling out holiday campaigns earlier than usual this year as a result, per Business Insider, to encourage shoppers to buy gifts sooner rather than later.

Live and learn: Live shopping events are all the rage this year. Starting today, Facebook (Meta?) is hosting “daily live shopping experiences” across FB and IG with brands like Ulta and Walmart. YouTube, too, is putting on a weeklong live shopping event with creators and brands starting November 15.

: E-commerce sales are predicted to grow 11%–15% compared to 2020, per Deloitte’s holiday retail forecast.—MS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Insta: The ’gram’s new partnership tools, explained.

Stale candy: If you loved our Halloween edition’s scary stories from the marketing industry, check out these similar spooky tales from SEO and PPC professionals.

SEO: This infographic explains how to adapt your Google search strategy following its Page Experience update.

Listen up. Today’s connected consumer spends over six hours per week listening to digital audio, and as the rockstar marketer that you are, you should be capitalizing on that. StackAdapt has whipped up a Guide to Programmatic Audio Advertising—read it here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content}

Vintage Ad Browser

A fall-themed perfume ad from 1964, which we assume predated the modern “All fragrance ads must feature the clear blue waters of the Caribbean” mandate.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Lobbying leads to less-satisfied customers, but marketing can help, study finds
• Candy corn’s marketing strategy, explained
• Instagram ends “Reshare” sticker test