- David Altschul

A couple of months ago I chanced upon a special report in The Economist—a periodical whose point of view I generally agree with—concerning corporate social responsibility. The article began by asserting the traditional ethos that a public corporation has no business pursuing any goal other than that of increasing shareholder value. The underpinnings of this principal are clear: Shareholders, not managers, should decide how to spend the profits of the corporation.

But, with apologies to a magazine I respect, in my professional experience I find nearly the opposite to be true. In fact, I'd go so far as to proffer my own ethos: A company that seems to have no purpose other than making money for its shareholders will have an increasingly difficult time making money for its shareholders.

This position, in turn, raises an interesting question: Are concerns about purpose or mission simply a part of a marketing/pr function, or is there a deeper and more strategic connection between brand purpose and the pursuit of shareholder value?

The way I see it, marketers are eager to develop a connection between their brands and their customers that feels authentic and emotionally compelling. Such a relationship is the only way to command loyalty, and loyalty leads directly to lower selling costs and premium pricing. For their part, most customers have no trouble understanding that a company has to have a money story, a way of acting that generates profit and allows for growth. But the money story is not the place where customers are likely to connect with a company or brand emotionally.

The money story is all about the rational transaction, the cost/benefit analysis. A company that seems to have no purpose in the world other than to make money for its shareholders will consequently fail to develop a deeper relationship between its brand and its customers. In today's highly fractured markets, that kind of failure is likely to have a deleterious impact on the bottom line.

In the world of story, a character who pursues money solely for its own sake is generally the villain. Archetypal is Charles Dickens' miserly banker Ebenezer Scrooge, who has no emotionally satisfying relationships with anyone because, as everyone around him understands, he loves only money.

When a brand's audience begins to suspect the same thing about a company, we may call it "The Scrooge Effect." And today, we have a perfect example: Wal-Mart. While Sam Walton was a driven, competitive individual, he channeled his ambition into bringing the good life to small communities that were underserved and overcharged. That was Sam's story and, initially, it had been Wal-Mart's. But after Sam died and Wal-Mart took over the planet, success for its own sake seemed to be all that mattered. Hence, Sam was no Scrooge, but you couldn't say that about his company. Recently, though, Wal-Mart has tried to recapture its former role as "servant leader." Starting with an articulation of its story, Wal-Mart has found a sense of purpose—rendered itself human, almost likeable. And lo: Despite the sour economy, it's picked up and held onto market share.

If you're responsible for building a brand, one way I've discovered to approach purpose and relationship is to think of your category in terms of story and ask yourself: What role does my brand play in that story? And how does it act to achieve its objectives? That's where you begin to get at an authentic purpose, the thing (over and above making money) that the brand exists in the world to do.

Are having a higher purpose and increasing shareholder value the same thing? Not exactly. But it's clear that they are becoming more powerfully connected. It's also clear that the conflict between them is the kind of conflict that might even connect a brand to its audience and power an emotionally compelling story. And that, friends, is no humbug.



David Altschul is president at Character, Portland, Ore., a firm (www.characterweb.com) that creates story frameworks for brands and their characters.