The Foundation for Leaning into Social Issues

Purpose should be a North Star for the choices we make in our lives or businesses, and the recommendations we make for clients.  

Although it is a powerful tool to frame the idea of a company’s or our own mission statements, there’s a risk as communicators that we only think about purpose in relation to this. It’s important we also consider it in the broader business context of business decision making.

A melding and awareness of both lenses for looking at purpose provides a powerful way to ensure the aspirational mission for a brand is aligned with a corporation’s need to make money – over the long term.   

The Milton Friedman idea that the sole purpose of a company is to increase profits is not only one dimensional, but widely seen as out-of-date. A focus on profit is a key driver for corporations, but surveys of business leaders underscore a consensus that it is not enough to build businesses that will stand the test of time.   

Professor Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer provide a much broader perspective of the purpose of a corporation in their seminal 2011 Harvard Business Review paper on creating shared value. This encompasses the idea that a company is not an island but integrated into a social system. In this context, a social vision and mission are integral to the idea of making business decisions that drive success over the long haul. 

This approach synergistically brings communications and profit-oriented visions of purpose together. It also provides a framework for agencies and companies to think about one of the most critical issues of the day – should companies be leaning into social issues or leaning out? 

A broad view of purpose will lead to companies leaning in, while a narrow view that purpose is simply about profit will lead a company CEO to step back if they start losing money as a consequence of taking positions on social issues.   

With Anheuser-Busch’s recent communications challenges top of mind, and culture-war trolls lobbing “woke” around as an epithet, the different visions of purpose are very much in play. 

Bud Light was always an inclusive brand with targeted advertising and outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, diversity was part of the brand’s purpose. When it came under attack, it was the profit-driven response that led it to pull back, not one driven by social mission.  

The Bud Light case highlights the risk of rupture when a purpose-driven mission collides with business economics. For all the past good words and actions, Anheuser-Busch shifted from leaning in to leaning out on diversity in the face of a significant decline in sales – which by any measure is not an easy position for any company to be in.        

When purpose around mission and profit are fully aligned – or put another way, companies fully embrace the vision that creating social value will generate profits over the long term – it’s far more likely a company will push back on critics and stick to its stated mission. A 2020 McKinsey article highlights some of the challenges and opportunities around this - Purpose: Shifting from why to how.

In boardrooms across America, the discussion of how to avoid being the next Bud Light will likely lead to either the “vanillafication” of marketing and engagement with clients and customers, or with communicators’ help, a stiffening of spines and recognition that the mission side of purpose is not something to be dumped overboard at the first sign of trouble. 

Anheuser-Busch and others’ responses to attacks by culture war protagonists have been a major test for corporate leaders of their willingness to walk-the-talk on issues around social purpose. It’s a test that many seem to be failing. 

While these initial skirmishes are currently being won by the trolls, there’s reason to remain optimistic that the long-term blowback and reputational damage that results from companies stepping back and breaking their implicit mission-driven social contract with clients and employees will actually drive a stouter response in the future as others are targeted.  

Should this prove to be the outcome – rather than wishful thinking – and businesses see clients returning once the storm has passed, the fundamental tenets of the big idea of creating social value through purpose will be validated. 

But it is important to note here that so far this doesn’t appear to be happening with Bud Light – although it is not clear whether this is the result of the original right-wing boycott or the result of consumers who feel that the firm has broken its vows on diversity walking away. Only time and more research will provide a clearer sense of what is actually happening.  

While I’d like to remain hopeful that the wheels have not come off the social purpose train, if as a society, we have gone so far down the rabbit hole that significant numbers of Americans will permanently stop drinking Bud Light, going to Disney, or eating apple pie, based on politics, then all bets are off.