This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. A little more than a year and a half ago, we heard from the business roundtable. They came out, They talked about the purpose of a corporation, multiple stakeholders, yes, shareholders, but so much more understanding all of them. And uh, that has really come into focus big time during the pandemic the
past thirteen months. As we thought about inequities, we thought about racism, we thought about the gaps getting wider in our society, and as a result, we've seen brand stepping up, speaking out and how that is more important than ever. Our next guest gets that. We welcome Scott Goodson. He's founder and CEO of the advertising and marketing agency Strawberry Frog. Has worked with Walmart, sun Trust, Emirates, PNG, so many companies,
Coca Cola. Scott is out with a new book, Activate Brand Purpose, How to harness the power of movements to transform your company, and he joins us on the phone in New York City. It's got so nice to have you here with us. Um. First of all, how are you and what's the past year been like? For your world. I mean, you talked to a lot of companies and I'm just curious what it's been like over the last
thirteen months. Well, very pretty much appreciate being on the show. UM. We wrote Activate Brand Purpose because of what we experienced over the last year. UM. A lot of CEOs and you know, heads of HR have been grappling with this concept of purpose for the last you know, couple five years or so. Everyone's been talking about it. The problem is that, you know, it hasn't really been activated, and
then all of a sudden, you know, everything changed. The sky fail and people who had activated purpose had a rudder in the in the water. They were able to kind of navigate the seas, but those that didn't were kind of thrashing about. And I think what we're seeing coming out of Purposes that company, coming out of the last year, is that companies with the purpose that is activated at the core of business strategy are thriving well.
And I want to go right to I love that you start with HR because it's one of the things that caught my attention in the book about COVID nineteen and the changing role of HR. You right, the old HR model is no longer fit for purpose. I do feel like employees consumers really looked at companies differently. Employees looked at their employer very differently during COVID. How has that changed? And I know you've had a lot of
conversations with CEOs about this. We we had a wonderful opportunity to connect with the CEOs of some of the largest companies in the country. Uh spoke the Times of Sterburg and also Christie to who's the chr O of Verizon UM. Well, you've spoken with some of you know, rogers of Truists UM and the companies are getting it right. Understand the importance of activating purpose at the cultural level within the organization. And the people who really know that
are the people directors. And I think historically the hr group has been almost an extension of the legal Department and that they really focused on risk management. But in today's world where we have so many emotional, physical, and financial well being issues based by American workers, to see that it's really the hrro's moment in time. It's really their opportunity to shine and stand up and and many of them are doing just that. And the book, you know, looks at how and how do you deal with a
number of issues. How do you deal with the fact that people are coming out of the past year with um concerns about their health and welfare. How do you deal with the fact that, you know, people are joining companies and working for companies that work remotely, who haven't ever been inside an office. So the importance of culture bringing to life the vision of the CEO is really
a challenge. And there's another element, which is we're living increasingly in this peer to peer world where people are getting you know, their inspiration and there, let's say they're being um moved by that appears. It's a time when you can't really lead with mandate from the top anymore. You know, those days are gone. You know, you really need to lead a corporation by creating a movement inside the organization that people feel like they're belonging to something bigger. So,
you know, mandate, top down mandates just don't work anymore. Hey, Scott, in your book, uh and some of the research you guys shared with us ahead of time talked about how recent stats prove that more than eighty seven percent of consumers would purchase a product because a company advocated for an issue they cared about, and more than two thirds would refused to do so if the company supported an
issue contrary to their beliefs. I know that is very much the case with my teenage daughter, my nieces who are in their twenties and thirties, and I know I increasingly look at what a company stands for. This is what you get to and this is why it's become such an important issue for leaders and for anybody who's running a company. Yeah, if you're running a company today, you've got to move from toothless purpose to actually you need to activate your purpose um and show galvanize people.
Your own people and as well as consumers. They're looking for that, that's what they're asking for. And where you know, you have to look outside in politics and in the world around us. In culture. We're living in age of activism. You know, this is the age of the conscious consumer. They're socially aware, they're connected. So you know, CEOs that are going to succeed are really going to need to
move from being woke CEOs to being warrior CEOs. CEOs can actually put purpose at the core of their business strategy and activated and that's that's what we focus on in activate around purposes, helping CEO, cmos rs and even CFOs. Like if you think about this idea of UM taking equity and moving into what I would describe as a
m share or a movement share. You know, if you're launching a movement, your company does have a purpose and you're activating that with movement thinking, then why couldn't you launch an m share that people can buy into because already buying into the idea, and that's highly motivating to your daughter or your son and the younger generation. Well,
and you know what's interesting. I recently I mentioned talking with the CEO of Tapestry and it was a CEO panel Imax, Mozilla, Hyatt Hotels, and we were talking about disruption as an economic driver that you were forced your businesses were you didn't have a choice, were disrupted by the pandemic. But in some ways it expedited some of the initiatives that you had in place. But maybe we're going to take longer, whether it was a digital strategy
or what have you. What is it about activating though a brand purpose is really important in terms of an economic driver. And I think it gets back to what I said before about consumers care right, clients care about that purpose. We just completed uh, the second Purpose Power Index. It's the world's first empirical measure of purpose brands. We had seventeen half thousands consumer responses in the United States and it's absolutely clear this is what consumers are rewarding.
Their rewarding brands that are activating their purpose and they see through brands that only put purpose in their advertising or you just use it as surface. And it is of you know, a very high um importance to the consumers who are you know, looking into the world right now. The enormity of the challenges that we face in the planet are coming home to the younger generation millennials, you know,
more than others. Of course, it's rells into everyone, but particularly in this younger generation, they think that, you know, companies have messed up the world, and they're looking for companies that are willing to put it out there that they're willing to tackle some of these bigger issues that are threatening the planet, the civilization, or our community, and
they're rewarding them for it. And that's why you're seeing, you know, company leaders coming out strongly for things that you know, historically would never come out or whether it's legislation or it's for sustainability and climate change, they are coming yet because their consumers are demanding that there's action. And that's why you're seeing some CEOs doing it and
they're being highly rewarded for it. And those that aren't, those who, as I said, have embraced what I think is a toothless purpose in other words, of purpose that they frame and they put it on the wall to wrap rapturous applause by their own leadership or executive that's not going to do anything in this through the world. You can't just put your head in the sand like an ostrig and hope everything goes away. You know, there's there's also councel culture which is a strong motivation for
leaders to activate their purpose. Well. And it's interesting too though, and we talk about this a lot, Scott. When it comes to E s G. You can't just kind of slap a label on something, do greenwashing when it comes to s G, but not actually walk the talk. And that's a lot of what you get into. And I guess that's what you mean by activating purpose. Right. You can just you can say we're a good company, we
stay them for this. But then then what well you have to you know, you can't just to your point, you know, greenwash or purpose wash. I mean, we worked on Proctor and Gamble strategy, sustainability strategy. We developed um a approach called future Friendly which took you know, elements of that company's where where they were actually making significant progress in sustainability, and we turned that into a strategy
that could be embraced by everyone inside the company. And if you ask people inside that company today, they will tell you that they are making significant impacts in water usage as as a core pillar of the strategy. Before that, you know, if you would have just ran an ad and said, well tide saves you water. Okay, that's a benefit, I guess because it's cheaper. You don't have to spend so much money with hot water in your washing machine.
But if you have consumers that are actually looking for sustainability e s g. Proof that companies are actually making impact, you need to figure out a strategy that you can take your c s R, your actual sustainability products and decisions that you're making and put in a blender and develop a purpose and then activate it with a movement. Hey listen, just got about forty seconds here. Forty five unfortunate because we're running out of time. Our audience is
a smart audience. It's investors right there looking for trends, are looking to understand things. What do you think they need to understand about what you were saying and what's in your book? And again, just got about forty seconds here. I think the key thing is there are a lot of companies out there that are doing the same kind of thing. The ones that are going to break through
are the ones that have a purpose. Companies and leaders who don't just start a business but actually try to solve the world problem are going to end up doing extremely well, and those are the companies that will will thrive. So you know, I would invest in a company that
has a purpose that is at devating it. You know, if all things being equal, if you have, for example, ten different financial lots that are helping you pay for things, and one of them is taking a stand for something that is highly motivating to a large group of people, that is going to do better now, I agree, and I think the conversation has definitely shifted a lot towards more of this uh and we're seeing it in certainly institutional investors are talking a lot more about this kind
of thing. Scott, thank you so much. Scott Goodson. He's founder and chief executive officer at Strawberry Frog. Check out the book Activate Brand Purpose, How to harness the power of movements to transform your company. This is something you know. You've been listening the CEOs that we talked to, This is on their minds big time. Have a good evening, everybody. This is Bloomberg Radio.