• Every company is a cause

    Posted on October 14th, 2008 by and currently 4 commenting.

    Whether you like it or not, you company is a cause. You just have to figure out what that cause is.

    As we build long-term, sustainable word of mouth movements, we’ve learned that a fundamental part of the human makeup is that everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Religion. Sports teams. Even brands.

    And as you probably already know, it’s not about that company’s product or service. It’s how that product or service fits into people’s lives. It’s the cause you provide. It’s the cause you are a part of. You, as a company, become the conduit to the cause.

    So you may be thinking, ‘What’s my cause?’ Great question. And that’s what you have to figure out. Even more importantly, you have to figure out what your clients’ causes are. And it’s not always obvious. But it usually lies in the words that come out of their fans mouths.

    For example, Brains on Fire’s cause is to create Brains on Fire. Our clients. Their fans and potential fans. Brains on Fire is a state of being. A condition. An attitude. A cause in and of itself.

    And you have a cause, too. Beyond the cause of earning money and paying the overhead. Beyond the cause of bottom lines and spreadsheets. That cause makes you a part of something bigger than yourself and your company, too. So instead of your customers belonging to you, you belong to that higher calling. That cause. And that let’s you be side-by-side with your customers instead of trying to be over them.

    Every company IS a cause. No, it’s not your brand promise or your tagline. It’s not even your ‘vision statement.’ Hopefully it’s written on the hearts and minds of your biggest fans. And if it’s not, then you’re got some work to do.

  • http://www.semiosiscommunications.com Peter Korchnak

    Thanks, Spike, great post and point. Way to set those brains on fire! Mine’s a bonfire right about now.

    I’m imagining people reading this first thing in the morning, like I did with my coffee, and trying to figure out what their company’s cause is.

    My company’s cause? Communities in an environmentally sustainable world.

  • http://www.brandidentityguru.com/wordpress BIG Kahuna

    Being from the northeast I gotta say this post frightens me a bit. First and foremost you sound like some kind of sterotypical preacher from the south. I was waiting to read I’d be healed. Not digging that vibe at all. Just my opinion.

    that said…

    You are correct it’s not a brand promise or mission statement. It is infact a company’s brand identity. Brand identity encompasses everything a company does, acts or wants to be. It’s their “cause”. I know how much BOF hates talking branding but what you are talking about is indeed brand identity. And that’s what we’re passionate about at Brand Identity Guru.

    Here’s Wiki’s definition of brand identity:

    How the brand owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand – and by extension the branded company, organisation, product or service. The brand owner will seek to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity.[2] Brand identity is fundamental to consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand’s differentiation from competitors.

    Brand identity may be defined as simply the outward expression of the brand, such as name and visual appearance.[3] Some practitioners however define brand identity as not only outward expression (or physical facet), but also in terms of the values a brand carries in the eye of the consumer. In 1992 Jean-Noel Kapferer developed the Brand Identity Prism, which charts the brand identity along a constructed source and constructed receiver axis, with externalization on the one side and internalization on the other. On the externalization side brand identity consists of “physical facet”, “relationship” and “reflected consumer”. On the internalization side brand identity consists of “personality”, “culture (values)” and “consumer mentalisation”. In this respect Kapferer positions brand personality as one factor within brand identity.[4]

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  • http://www.ZaggedEdge.com @ZaggedEdge

    If every company was a cause, then nobody would have an advantage when trying to sell. There’d be too many causes and too many choices. How would you pick one cause over another. What we need more of is GREAT causes–there are a lot of things that “go to a good cause” but we can’t support as many as we’d like. Great causes are what the world is lacking.