Purpose-based brand definition & strategy

Summary

MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth Episode: Purpose-Based Brand Definition & Strategy Release Date: February 17, 2025 Host: Benjamin Shapiro Guest: Jeff Nelder, Chief Purpose Officer at Employer Funded Financial Aid Inc. (EFA)

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Introduction to Purpose-Based Brand Strategy

In this insightful episode of the MarTech Podcast™, host Benjamin Shapiro engages in a profound discussion with Jeff Nelder, the Chief Purpose Officer at Employer Funded Financial Aid Inc. (EFA). The conversation centers around the concept of purpose-based brand strategy, exploring how defining and aligning a brand's purpose can drive business growth and foster trust among stakeholders.

The Importance of Purpose in Building Trust

Jeff Nelder emphasizes that every brand inherently possesses a purpose, whether explicitly defined or not. He articulates, “Every brand can be purpose driven and every brand has a purpose” (06:36). Nelder highlights that in today’s fragmented and distrustful environment—where business trust has waned according to the Edelman Trust Barometer—having a clear and authentic purpose is crucial for building and maintaining trust.

Nelder references the Edelman Trust Barometer, noting a significant decline in trust across various sectors, including business, media, and government. This decline is attributed to widespread grievances and fears, such as concerns over AI displacing jobs and economic inequalities. In this context, a well-defined purpose becomes a beacon for brands striving to regain trust and demonstrate consistency and ethical behavior.

Purpose vs. Profit: Finding Balance

A pivotal part of the conversation addresses the relationship between a brand’s purpose and its profit motives. Jeff asserts, “The purpose of the brand… is to create a certain value. And money follows that” (11:06). He references a Bain study indicating that purpose-driven companies outperform their counterparts by a factor of five in performance metrics. This underscores the notion that while profit is essential, it should be a byproduct of delivering genuine value rather than the sole objective.

Jeff uses EFA as a case study to illustrate this balance. EFA’s mission is to reduce U.S. student debt by optimizing hiring decisions through milestone-based scholarships, thereby benefiting both students and employers. This mission-driven approach not only addresses a significant societal issue but also enhances trust and loyalty among stakeholders, ultimately driving business success.

Aligning Personal and Corporate Purpose in Marketing

Benjamin and Jeff delve into the intricacies of aligning personal and corporate purposes, especially for marketers who join established brands. Jeff outlines a structured approach: “Define the company's purpose first. Then define the personal purpose. And the personal purpose has to contribute to moving the company's mission forward” (28:26). This alignment ensures that every team member is not only aware of the brand’s higher-order goals but also personally invested in achieving them.

Jeff further explains his method for uncovering a company’s true purpose by engaging leadership in authentic, ego-free discussions. He states, “Isolate every individual, walk them through a conversation…the answers are anonymized to prevent groupthink” (28:56). This process fosters genuine articulation of purpose, ensuring that it resonates throughout the organization and informs all marketing activities.

Taglines and "Start with Why": Practical Applications

The discussion shifts to the practical aspects of encapsulating a brand’s purpose in elements like taglines. Jeff responds to Simon Sinek’s famous concept of “Start with Why” by agreeing that a tagline should reflect a brand’s underlying purpose and value proposition. Using BMW’s tagline, “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” Jeff illustrates how a succinct and consistent message can effectively communicate a brand’s promise and foster a passionate enthusiast base (30:25).

Jeff contrasts this with brands that focus solely on product features, suggesting that emphasizing purpose can create a more profound connection with consumers. He reflects on how companies like Apple and Dell could have leveraged purpose-driven messaging more effectively to differentiate themselves beyond just product specifications.

Doubling Down on Purpose-Driven Marketing

In addressing whether marketers should prioritize purpose or tactical marketing efforts, Jeff advocates for doubling down on purpose-driven strategies. He asserts, “Double down, baby, you gotta double down” (33:28). Jeff argues that a strong, authentic purpose serves as a foundational element that guides all marketing tactics, ensuring consistency and trustworthiness across all brand touchpoints.

He cites Apple as an example of a brand that has successfully built a loyal following by maintaining a clear and consistent purpose, which in turn drives profitability. Jeff warns against becoming complacent, noting that even dominant brands must continuously align their actions with their purpose to sustain trust and avoid negative word-of-mouth.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode concludes with Benjamin Shapiro reflecting on the profound importance of understanding and articulating a brand’s purpose. He acknowledges that while purpose-driven branding may seem abstract compared to the tangible metrics marketers often focus on, it is ultimately the most critical factor for long-term success and impact.

Key Takeaways:

1. Define and Align Purpose: Every brand has a purpose, and clearly defining and aligning it with both corporate and personal missions is essential for building trust and driving business growth.

2. Trust is Paramount: In a distrustful environment, authentic purpose-driven branding can differentiate a company and foster strong stakeholder relationships.

3. Purpose Over Profit: While profit is necessary, it should stem from creating genuine value, leading to sustainable performance and loyalty.

4. Consistent Messaging: Taglines and other brand elements should consistently reflect the brand’s purpose, enhancing recognition and emotional connection.

5. Double Down on Purpose: Marketers should prioritize purpose-driven strategies over purely tactical approaches to ensure long-term relevance and trustworthiness.

Notable Quotes

• Jeff Nelder on purpose-driven brands: “Every brand can be purpose driven and every brand has a purpose” (06:36).

• On aligning personal and company purpose: “Define the company's purpose first. Then define the personal purpose. And the personal purpose has to contribute to moving the company's mission forward” (28:26).

• Advocating for purpose over tactics: “Double down, baby, you gotta double down” (33:28).

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Timestamp References:

• 06:36
• 11:06
• 28:26
• 28:56
• 30:25
• 33:28

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This episode serves as a compelling reminder that in the realm of marketing and business growth, understanding and embodying a clear, authentic purpose is not just beneficial—it’s essential. By aligning every aspect of a brand with its core mission, companies can build lasting trust, drive meaningful engagement, and achieve sustainable success.

Transcript

[Benjamin Shapiro]

The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com.

From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and classes, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate.

[Jeff Nelder]

Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours. If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network. In this podcast you'll hear the stories of world class marketers that used technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro and today we're going to discuss purpose based brand strategy. Joining me is Jeff Nelder, who is the Chief Purpose Officer at Employer Funded Financial Aid Inc. Better known as efa, which is a groundbreaking platform that transforms collegiate talent acquisition by reducing turnover and risk by optimizing hiring decisions through milestone based scholarships. EFA's innovative approach empowers employees to invest directly in relationships with their potential hires, leading to improved retention, enhanced productivity and significant cost savings. And today Jeff and I are going to discuss Purpose Based Brand Strategy. All right, here's the first part of my conversation with Jeff Nelder, the Chief Purpose Officer at Employer Funded Financial Aid Inc. Jeff, what the F is up my friend?

[Jeff Nelder]

What the F up? Glad to be here Ben. Really glad.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

We've had some fits and starts here. You got sick, then I got sick. And it turns out the hardest podcast to schedules are the ones that are like with your buddies. And here all I want to do is talk about how to market toilet paper. So are you ready for this?

[Jeff Nelder]

Let's talk about toilet paper.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

All right, that sounds, dare I say, shitty. So maybe we should talk about some brand and some strategy and some marketing stuff. You're my go to guy when it comes with understanding the ethos of marketing, the human connection and the psychology behind why people make decisions, why we associate value with brands and you are a very thoughtful and purpose driven human being. So tell the rest of the world because we're all sit here mixed up and we're worried about our email open rates and artificial intelligence taking our jobs and how do we get social followers and God knows whatever PPC campaigns we're working on. And it turns out there's a psychology behind what we're doing that we probably should be thinking of. First, tell me a little bit about purpose based strategy and why it's relevant for marketers.

[Jeff Nelder]

Ben, thanks a lot for that wonderful run up. Let's start out by saying all businesses have a mission of some sort, right? It's not that purpose based brand strategy exists in a vacuum. And here's this purposeful brand right here that discovered something that nobody else knows. The real question is on focus, which we all have a lot less of these days, right? There's the distraction that comes from being tethered to a device. There's the distraction that comes from a really volatile media environment with lots of different perspectives and generally people not knowing who to trust in many cases. As I was moving towards this wonderful appointment that we have with each other, I was thinking about the state of purpose and I was feeling kind of sad. I felt like we're in an environment right now where signaling virtues has become a stance that I know a lot of people individually seem to look at with distrust. And so I went to a go to source for me, which is called the Adelman Trust Barometer. Do you know the Adelman Trust Barometer, Ben?

[Benjamin Shapiro]

No.

[Jeff Nelder]

So every year they survey about 33,000 people worldwide on the status of trust in the world. And typically business has been the most trusted entity because of a degree of competence and a degree of transparency and objective measures that support that competence that lead to a feeling that there's this demonstration of consistency and consistency is at the foundation of trust. But this year things look a little bit different. Business has taken a big hit. Media's trust is at an all time low. People don't trust the government. That's at an all time low. And it's because people are aggrieved. There's a huge sense of grievance across the board. People are afraid. They're afraid of technology, namely AI taking their jobs. They're afraid of the rich getting richer at their expense. They're afraid that they don't know who to trust. And when I think about that on first blush, that's a lousy situation for continuing to prove that purpose based brands do better, which has been the historical context. Right. It seems really sad. I can see you want to ask me a question, jump in, because this is rich.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

It's funny because I was going to make the joke, you know, every brand needs A mission statement as long as they're marketing towards millennials. And to me, there was this sort of practical stance in marketing of I'll use the toilet paper as a product that's meant to wipe your butt and you clean. And it was practical. And now every toilet paper brand has to have a mission statement and a purpose. And I feel like a lot of that is because it's so easy to spin up brands, create challenger brands, go direct to consumer. It's just easier to create and distribute products. And so the only thing we can differentiate on is the reason why we're doing it, not what it is or the values or products or purposes. You have a different take here. So give me your definition of purpose based branding. And I just want to go over like where you're coming from when it starts with the reason why a brand needs a purpose.

[Jeff Nelder]

Well, every brand has a purpose and it's a question of focus whether or not they actually crystallize their purpose. And taking your toilet paper example, if a brand can create value in your life, do it ethically and consistently and well, that's a brand that you trust. I mean, we all probably have a favorite toilet paper brand that we use. We trust that brand to do something for us and that creates a relationship. Now, it doesn't have to be toilet paper. It could be just about anything that creates a relationship with you as a value generating, consistent, trusted participant in your life. And if you can surround yourself with entities that you trust that generate value for you consistently that you feel like you have a relationship with, then your life becomes better. And in my opinion, every brand wants to become the one to trust. And that's where it starts with purpose. Purpose based brand says, like the brand I'm working for now. So we sat down at employer funded financial A and we said, what is it that we're here to do? And I'm not going to plug the company, I'm just going to say very near to me, the process that I went through. And we were here because US student debt was so high. We were all parents and it concerned us and we said, we want to reduce US student debt. And we had a mechanism to create that value to reduce U.S. student debt. Somebody has to benefit. That's a whole other story. Because a customer has to benefit from what you're doing. But US Student debt, wow. At the time when we started building our olution, it was $1.77 trillion. And for context, that's about one and a half times US credit card debt. Massive problem. As we Sit here. Today it's higher than that. Took us a while to build our product. Most current report that I've seen, it's now 2.18 trillion, which is more than US credit card debt and auto debt combined.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

It's also how much I still owe for my remaining mortgage.

[Jeff Nelder]

Right. There's lots of problems with debt. Nobody likes debt. It's a good purpose to have. But for us, if your purpose is to reduce US student debt, it's hard to argue with that. And then if you can start showing traction with that and actually creating progress against that and do it in an ethical way, a lot of people are going to say, wow, I trust that brand to create a certain value for me and I want that brand in my life. And every brand, potentially including the toilet paper brands, has that opportunity. So purpose based brand strategy means that you start by saying, what's this higher order of value that I am here to create in the lives of my stakeholders?

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Give me an example here. And I want to use the toilet paper example. And I'll just say that word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing known to man. When we were talking about toilet paper in our pre planning meeting, I switched our family's toilet paper based on your recommendation. Northern, am I correct?

[Jeff Nelder]

Yeah.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I think of toilet paper as a commodity, not something that has to be purpose driven. Right. I think of Liquid Death as a purpose driven brand. Right. It's trying to do something kind of pithy to make drinking water cool. But toilet paper, I don't really care what the purpose is. But you seem to think that the toilet paper brands are all purpose driven. Walk me through what the purpose of the brand behind the toilet paper and how does that work in your head?

[Jeff Nelder]

I wouldn't say that every brand is purpose driven, but every brand can be purpose driven and every brand has a purpose. And there's a difference. Purpose driven means that you have something that continually drives you. You have to know what the promise is that you're making to the market in order for it to continually drive you. In order to know it, you have to define it. And purpose based marketing, purpose driven marketing comes from a place of being intentional and figuring out what your higher order purpose is. Now you could say, and I think a lot of the issues with trust in the US today spring from this. You could say that in counterpoint to every brand has a value to create for you as a stakeholder. You could also say every business is just in business to make money. None of this other stuff matters that.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Was going to be. My next question is all the brands should try to be purpose driven and communicate the value that they're creating and the reason why they exist. And that should dictate their marketing language and their offers and their pricing and the promotion because they have this higher calling of what they're trying to achieve. But fundamentally, isn't the purpose of a company to generate profit? We live in a capitalist society here in the United States. Like, isn't that the purpose for everyone?

[Jeff Nelder]

I would say the purpose of the brand, the purpose of the company, the purpose of the organization of people who are creating on behalf of the brand every day is to create a certain value. And money follows that. Bain did a study last year, I think maybe two years ago, found that they created some objective measures and they found that a purpose driven brand, a purpose driven company who intentionally creates a value has a delta of about 5x between its performance and companies that don't intentionally follow their purpose. So if you're just in business to make money, unless you build money printing presses or you're a hedge fund or your avowed purpose is just profit based, you're not trusted by stakeholders and trust is key. It all comes back to trust. Every brand should become the one to trust. So if I'm an investment firm and my purpose is to generate superior returns and I do that ethically, my stakeholders will say, oh, I trust that brand. It does what it says, it does what it looks like it should be doing, and it does it ethically. If my purpose is to create cleaning products that don't hurt the environment, if the purpose of my company, like a seventh generation, is to protect the environment in some way, in a very plain spoken way, that's how people think of seventh generation. And if my purpose is to protect the environment and I create products that clean really well without harming the environment, then people will trust me to do that. If my purpose is to organize the world's information and do no harm and I make an announcement that I'm going to lay off 25,000 people because that division isn't making enough money for me, well then my brand is going to take a huge trust hit, likely because people will say that brand is demonstrating that its purpose is to make money because instead of doing no harm in the lives of 25,000 people, which is significant, it's saying, you're not making enough money for me, so you're out of here. Even though that brand is making a lot of money overall, that's the difference between following a purpose of creating value. Your intentional purpose of creating value and just demonstrating that you're in the game to make money if you're not a hedge fund, if you're not an investment firm.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

So for marketers, most of us come into existing brands. Chances are most marketers are not founders. And so that means that let's take the executive marketers that are coming into a new brand and trying to figure out how to understand what the strengths of their team are, understand their existing channel mix, understand performance. But fundamentally, it seems like a large portion of the job is understand the purpose of the brand and help to communicate that. What's the way that you figure out what a brand's purpose is and then make sure that all of your marketing activities are aligned towards that purpose, but also are still the most effective marketing tactics you can have at base.

[Jeff Nelder]

Intentionality drives this sort of an initiative. So you have to get everybody bought in to an intention to define purpose, to define mission, to define elements like vision and values and positioning, which are all core to any sort of sophisticated brand strategy. The way into this for me when I was a consultant was usually get a group of decision makers in the company, founders, board members, the C suite, and get them to start defining what their sense of the company's purpose is, what their sense of the company's mission and vision and values and positioning is. And not everybody knows how to articulate that stuff. So I always broke it down. I said, okay, the key thing here is to start with purpose. The definition of purpose in a very crass sense is that I am here to create some value. So I would always ask people, I would isolate them so group think didn't happen. And I would say, I want you to tell me what higher order of value you believe. This company was founded to create. This company was founded, like in Apple's case, to create beautiful design that works. Which I don't know if that's the case anymore, but let's say you sat down with the leadership and people said a variety of things that amounted to beautiful design that works. They all say it in different ways. You get them together. You take the purpose statements. And my method was always, I take the purpose statements that people craft when I'm asking them just to say what they really believe without getting hung up on looking good or looking good in front of anybody. And I put everybody's articulation together and I throw it up on a wall and everybody votes. The way I did it was I said, okay, order these one to five. I have five people in the room. The lowest Score wins, like in golf, so there would always be one that won. And because everybody voted anonymously and came up with it anonymously, groupthink didn't happen. Intimidation by whoever, the biggest dog in the room didn't happen. And everybody could discuss this stuff without any ego. Now you can also scale this method where you start out with a small group and you establish some sort of a lexicon for purpose. And then you go out and you test that with other stakeholder groups and you come back and you hone it and you hone it until you actually get to a purpose statement. Everybody wants to buy into that. They all feel like they can articulate and get behind with a sense of authenticity. Right. So you start out with purpose, which is I am here to do this. And then you build on that. Usually I go next into the mission. Right. So mission. If I think about what mission is, mission is we marshal these key resources for these groups in order to achieve our purpose.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Give me a specific example. You were using Apple before, but you've got a purpose. Inspired design or functional design?

[Jeff Nelder]

I'll use efa.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Great.

[Jeff Nelder]

So we realized our purpose was to reduce US student debt. But we have multiple stakeholders, key stakeholders. We have students reducing U.S. student debt for students that benefit students. We're reducing U.S. student debt. Certainly for employers stand to benefit because higher debt means that your employees are more likely to be looking for another job while they're in the current job and employers are bleeding talent. So Gen Z is much maligned. And I don't want to malign Gen Z because I think there's a lot of reasons why Gen Z shows up differently in the workplace right now. But Gen Z tends to churn very highly in a job. The entry level gets into a job and estimates as high as 40% within year one are out the door. And it takes six months for somebody to become productive in a job. And about three quarters of that churn. So about 30%, three out of your 10 workers that you hire are going to come in the door and be out in the first six months by themselves, by their own choice. This isn't even people that you let go. So you invest in about $6,000 ahead in attracting the talent. You invest in training the talent and onboarding the talent. And then three out of 10 are out the door. And according to SHRM, it costs you one to two times the whole compensation package, salary plus tax matching, plus benefits to replace that person. This adds up. This is a hundred billion dollar problem across the US and corporations. So if we can Reduce US student debt by enabling employers to invest in the talent they wish to hire and retain, then employers really stand to benefit. And that became a very quick mission statement for us. We're on a mission to reduce U.S. student debt by helping employers invest directly in the talent they wish to hire and retain. And that very quickly succinctly describes a purpose and how we're going to achieve it.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I guess what I don't understand is the difference between how you're describing the company's purpose and the mission. And I understand you come into an organization as a marketer. You need to make sure that you, your stakeholders, you're all aligned on this center ethos. But then there's this notion of, well, what's our purpose, what's our mission? And then what's our tactical operations? Help me break down with a 3R.

[Jeff Nelder]

So if our purpose is to reduce US student debt and the way that we reduce US student debt is by involving employers in investing in talent to reduce that US student debt, then employers have to benefit. We have to describe how employers benefit. So we've got a purpose, then we've got a mission that includes how we achieve our purpose. And then on top of that, we have. I want to give a shout out to these other elements which I think are incredibly important as well. We've got a vision which is how the world changes if we and other aligned organizations are successful in pursuing our mission. We've got our values, which are the road rules for how we behave as we go along pursuing our mission, trying to achieve our purpose. And then we've got positioning which is incredibly important, which is for each of these stakeholders. We help them do or achieve something so that they can achieve some sort of other states, they can become something else in an improved position. And then finally brand promise, which is all of this distilled into a very short, pithy promise that you make to the marketplace, which becomes a decision tool. So if your hallmark caring shared is their brand promise, and if they can demonstrate that at every touch point in their brand experience, they become a trusted brand in greeting cards which are supposed to do something or other, right, like in everybody knows Hallmark, then tactically speaking, once you have your brand defined with your purpose, driven brand defined with purpose, mission, vision, values, positioning and brand promise, then all your tactics are developed so that every experience across this map of brand experience, touchpoint. So maybe you come into contact with me via email, maybe you come into contact with me via my contract between you and I. Maybe you come into contact with me via the news about me vis a vis how I interact with regulators. It's not just the marketing channels. It's any touch point that one of your stakeholders might come into contact with you. You tactically orient yourself so that you can deliver on that brand promise across all of those touch points. Which sounds miserable and complex, and it is complex, but it's not miserable. As long as you're staying true to that brand promise. As long as you're telling the truth is something else that I always say, and this bears mentioning. We've all heard this. Tell the truth. It's easier. You got nothing else to remember. It's just the truth.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Jeff Nelder]

So you got to define what that truth is. And that truth comes from a deep place where you're going to consistently deliver on it. And that's this intentional orientation towards achieving your purpose.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

It seems like it's the way the world should be. We should all, as marketers, as honestly like corporate citizens, as world citizens, as people, have a sense of purpose and have our purpose, drive our mission and have our mission dictate our values, and have our values dictate our tactics and have our tactics reflect our purpose. And it sounds, as you'd lay it out, like a linear process of you go from one to the next to the next to the next. But it seems like almost every brand struggles with this definition of purpose and then the articulation of it to the marketplace. Because we're all trying all sorts of different operational tactics. We're all trying to get visibility and awareness. And I think of the metrics, like, as a marketer, what I think starts to drive the business results are things like reach and frequency and depth of message and conversion rates as opposed to like. But did it come from the heart? So how do you rationalize the practical nature of what most marketers are thinking about and doing on the daily basis with this notion that we should all have this central heartbeat in our head of what the organization is meant to be doing and what we actually do?

[Jeff Nelder]

It comes back to being the one to trust and being the one to trust and making promises and keeping promises, which can sound incredibly naive in the type of volatile, polarized environment that we live right now with. The elevation of greed to the status of a value among so many, unfortunately. But in my opinion, it could be way simpler. And I keep thinking about this idea of creating value and really doing it with a sense of excellence and staying in touch with the people and the groups of people that you create value for and striving to do that better. And better, and then allowing your tactics to be more like a bat signal that you shine out into the marketplace. Something else we haven't discussed is the idea of personal brand and how that lines up. So if you have an organizational brand that is intentional, well defined, and can deliver on its promise, and the people working there don't see themselves reflected in that brand, don't understand how they play their part in an authentic way, don't see their leadership really living the brand that they're supposed to be leading, that's a huge disconnect. And so something else, as a consultant that I always recommended and worked to sell into an organization because I thought it was a good thing, a fundamentally good thing was defining personal brands. So in the same way that you define an organizational brand, as a C level executive within this company, what are you here to do? What gets you up in the morning about working this company and running this company and talking through it with them till they get to the point of crystallizing how their sense of purpose aligned with this organizational purpose? My organization is here to do this. And in my life, I am here to do this. And personally, I am here to achieve this purpose, my personal purpose, by doing certain things. And that's my mission. And if I am successful in my mission as an individual, the world and others like me are successful who are aligned with my mission, the world will change in this way. You see, Ben, if you can go deep within an organization and facilitate the ability of the leadership to line up behind that organization's purpose in an authentic way, and I say authenticity because it's incredibly important. Authenticity is projecting the truth to you. And we'll come back to the same adage, which is telling the truth is easier because you don't have to remember anything. Authenticity winds up coming out. And if you're not telling the truth, that winds up coming out too. And you wind up with creating a trust issue for your brand, because people don't trust the leadership of the brand, and then they start distrusting the brand. But if the leadership starts by determining how their own sense of purpose and mission lines up with the organization's sense of purpose and mission, and the organization is continually striving to deliver excellent value and fulfilling on their promise in a way that people trust because it's consistent, then the people working there who are looking to their leadership for leadership, actually right then the people working there start seeing how their sense of purpose lines up with that bat signal. And then all of a sudden you have an organization like REI opt outside. I Mean, REI is a co op, but it's a great example because they came up with opt outside. Seemed counterintuitive that on Black Friday a brand that was a retail brand would say, don't come and shop here, get out. But it was consistent, it was trustworthy, it was truthful, it was delivering on their promise. It lined up with creating a level of excellence in the value of facilitating outdoor adventure. And you know what happened? Profits followed purpose. And that's typically how it works. You could say it's super complex, but when you're behaving authentically and you don't have to lie and you don't have anything to remember and just doing the best you can and in the views of your stakeholders, doing it with excellence, your purpose driven brand.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

You know, I fundamentally believe in purpose driven brands and it's a really hard topic to wrap your head around. As a marketer, we have to be very tactical. We have to be thinking about what is happening in the marketplace to try to figure out how to stand out. But fundamentally, the brands that have the longest staying power, that have the biggest impact on the world, are ones that have an understanding of who they are and of what they want to be as they continue to evolve. So, Jeff, I want to thank you. And honestly, this is a different episode than what we normally have on the Martech podcast. We're normally talking very tactically, we're normally talking about our operational tactics. This is a chance for us to step back and stop and say, hey, every once in a while we need to have a check in with ourselves to understand why we're doing what we're doing. And you've always been a great reference point for me to stop and think about my purpose, about the purpose of creating content, about the purpose of supporting the brands that we support. And I think that understanding of how to think about being a purpose driven brand, while it might sound fluffy to some people, and yeah, I don't have time for that, we're busy doing other stuff. Fundamentally, this is the most important thing that you can do is understand why you and your organization are there, why do you exist? And the more that you can get behind that mission, the better off and the more profitable you'll be in the long run. Let's move on to our lightning round. First question is game plan. Okay, give me the playbook for ensuring alignment between your personal and your company's purpose.

[Jeff Nelder]

You got to define the company's purpose first. Then you got to define the personal purpose. And the personal purpose has to contribute to Moving the company's mission forward. It's as simple as that.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

It sounds like one of those things where it is very linear, but when you're starting to think about alignment between personal brands and company brands, never feels like it is that simple. How do you pull back the covers to understand what the true motivations or purpose of a company is outside of what they're actually saying?

[Jeff Nelder]

I always start with the leadership. I get the leadership together, I isolate every individual, I walk them through a conversation, I bring them back together and I throw their answers up on a board and it's totally anonymized. So that when everybody looks at their answer amidst the other answers, there's no groupthink, there's no intimidation and there's no ego involved. Ego is a big barrier that gets in the way of simple, plain spoken, impactful conversation and authentic articulation.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

All right, let's move on to our next question. We're going to talk tagline. Purpose, mission and vision are big, important words. One other person that's talked a lot about similar concepts is Simon Sinek. Talk tagline with me and react to his advice to marketers in the tagline, which is start with why.

[Jeff Nelder]

I think why. And motivation and intention and genuine impactful value are all part of the same idea. I mean, he's not wrong. He's a university professor and I love that he's achieved such great success. A tagline should be a simple, catchy articulation of what you're promising the marketplace. I think BMW does a great job. Everybody knows BMW ultimate driving machine. BMW is not my ultimate driving machine, but for people who are enthusiasts, man, it's their ultimate driving machine. They love to geek out on it. They love to get together with other BMW enthusiasts.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

You could feel every pothole in the road. I don't understand it.

[Jeff Nelder]

No, but you just say ultimate driving machine. Everybody knows that's BMW immediately because they're consistent about it. One thing you can say about BMW is they sure strive to deliver that idea with excellence and their stakeholders certainly agree with them that they're delivering it with excellence.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I think that the idea of start with why? The example that always comes to mind is from Simon Sinek's old famous video comparing Apple versus Dell, where Apple sells the idea of the personal computing device, but the purpose of it is that it's going to help you be creative. And Dell sells a box with RAM and hard drives. Which one do you want? One that's going to help you solve your problems or one that has RAM and hard Drives Well, I think the market has clearly spoken. When you think about the juxtaposition of marketing towards purpose as opposed to features, how do you delineate between when you talk about yourselves and that sort of underlying purpose and vision as opposed to try to promote the how?

[Jeff Nelder]

The features all add up to the how and the why. If you shortcut things and move straight to the features. Like your example of Dell. Dell. Back in the day, Dell made computers that were affordable and they promoted making computers that were affordable. And I always felt like it was a missed opportunity. Apple's computers were always difficult to afford back in the day compared to the Dell computers. I always wondered, why didn't Dell make it sexier by saying, this is every man and woman's computer. We're inclusive about computers. I haven't thought about this in a while, but my sense was always that there was a better angle of accessibility, empowerment. We want to make this possible for everybody. And if Dell had done that, you would have sexy, expensive, battling against. We just want to do this for everybody. And things might look differently today in terms of where Dell is in the marketplace. I would argue that Dell is not a failed brand at all. I don't want to give that impression, but I do think there was always opportunity. You know what else? Let's juxtapose Microsoft with Apple and the trajectory of those two brands. I think with how Bill Gates transformed his public image through as we understand it today, you know, Melinda's influence with Gates Foundation. The name Gates became representative creating impact and creating access and positive things. And if Microsoft, instead of focusing hardcore on features and geeking out about features, had seen the opportunity with accessibility and empowerment and hit on that harder earlier, with commitment to things like the Gates foundation more aligned with Microsoft earlier on, they might have gotten to where they are now earlier, and things might look different.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I want to move on to our last question. Double down or diversify? Should marketers double down on integrating their company's purpose as a viable part of their marketing efforts or be more tactical about sharing things like product features and attributes?

[Jeff Nelder]

Double down, baby, you gotta double down. You gotta start from a deep and disciplined place and you gotta know that you need to become the one to trust. There are examples in the marketplace of brands that have become too big to fail, and I think Apple is one of them. The type of affection that I'll just say all of us felt for Apple as a brand. It was our brand. When there were problems with the brand, people owned the brand and they become evangelists of the brand, even to Steve Jobs when he was still alive, which I think had an impact. But when a brand becomes so big that it's captured you, yeah, it'll make a lot of money. But if people have an opportunity to defect, they certainly will. They always will. And word of mouth becomes not your friend. It actually becomes a deleterious force in the marketplace. So double down, figure out what you're promising. Define that promise so you can keep your promise. Keep everybody happy that way.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

All right, that wraps up this episode of the MarTech podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Jeff Nelder, the Chief Purpose Officer at the Employer Funded Financial Aid, also known as efa. If you'd like to get in touch with Jeff, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes. Or you can visit his company's website, which is EFA I.O. that's E F F A I.O. if you'd like a summary of this podcast, or if you'd like to apply to be a guest speaker on the Martech podcast, head over to martechpod.com you can also find us on YouTube, Instagram or X. And if you'd like to contact me, we can connect over on LinkedIn. My handle is Benjschapp. B E N J S H A P and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy. Foreign.

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