08/08
What We Can Learn About Life And Brand Purpose From An Ancient Hindu Text
The over 5,000 year old Bhagavad Gita is like War and Peace to me: always to be admired, but at over 700 pages long, never to be experienced personally.
Until listening to Jay Shetty’s audiobook, Think like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day, where he outlines how the Bhagavad Gita can be a great reference point to helping you determine your own calling in life.
Shetty details how your life’s purpose (Dharma) is created by looking at your passions and skill set (Varna) and then identifying an unmet need in the world that would be useful to people (Sava). So something like this if we could visualize it:
But Shetty also cautions that passion without addressing a real unmet need has no true purpose; and passion without skill set is really just a hobby. It is the combination of passion, skill set and an unmet need that creates true purpose in life.
And as in life so with business…
There is a lot we can learn from the teachings of ancient Hindu text to apply to building a great Brand Purpose.
So, exactly why is Brand Purpose so critical?
Well, for starters because every company CEO at some point or the other will engage their marketing arm (and that would be you) in determining what it could be for their company and brand because it’s a buzzword they’ve heard being thrown about while they were “working” at Cannes.
But there is actually solid grounding in the request: customers prefer to buy from purpose driven brands so leading with that tends to give you an upper hand—especially with the much coveted Gen Z segment.
57% of consumers have greater brand loyalty to companies that address a real purpose. Not to mention internal employee engagement also benefits immensely when people believe they’re working at, and on, something meaningful.
You know all this, but if most people struggle with figuring out how to create a solid purpose for their own lives then how likely are they to be good at building one for their company?
So let’s revisit the Bhagavad Gita “formula” via the lens of creating your company’s purpose:
And then let’s take a look at this through the examples of some famous brands:
Important caveat to above: It’s anyone’s guess if the Elon of yesteryear really meant to do what he says compared to the total dick that is Elon today. But in theory let’s give Tesla the benefit of the doubt and say that was what he intended because it certainly revolutionized the industry.
And …
But having a Brand Purpose only makes sense if your company truly believes in it beyond the intent of saying it to make money.
A company driven by true Brand Purpose recognizes that it moves beyond buzzwords to guide business, product, financial and operational processes in order to have societal impact.
None of the above examples came without serious infrastructure, product, service, operational and cost implications. It’s precisely that “cost” sacrifice to the company that resonates with the consumer and Gen Z because you’re literally putting your money where your mouth is. And if you do just give lip service you’ll be quickly torn to shreds on social media.
If your Brand Purpose doesn’t pass that simple sniff test above, don’t panic. It could simply mean you don’t have or need a purpose and it is entirely possible to build a robust, thriving brand without one. I want my Skittles tasty, I don’t need them to save the world.
In that case, just move on to developing a solid Vision (the 5-10 year horizon towards which your company constantly marches), Mission Statement (the statement that defines your everyday operations behind achieving the vision) and Brand Promise (the experience that your consumers can expect every touchpoint) that should get you all some healthy business for years to come).
Who’d have thought that ancient text from 5,000 years ago would be so informative on how to write a great Brand Purpose? It certainly wasn’t their intention, but their wisdom should be both a guiding light to us as individuals in the lives we want to lead and the brands we wish to build.
