CRAFTING HOW FIVE BRANDS ARE DEFINING, PERFECTING, AND EXECUTING ON PURPOSE
A RAISON D’ETRE
A C O M PA N Y M AY H AV E A M I S S SIIO ON NS STAT TATEEM MEEN NTT,, AA VVIISSIIOONN, , AANNDD AA S E T O F VA L U E ES SO O R P R I N C IIP PLLE ESS — — B U TT D O A N Y YO OFF TTH HE ESSEE M ME EA AN N IITT H A S A PURPOSE P U R P O S E?? HAS
BY— MIRA
BLUMENTHAL
TAYLOR LEE
DENNIS
FAIN
KUHAN
PERAMPALADAS
WITH– SACHIN TIM
AGGARWAL
ATTIA
ALYSSA
BERTRAM
ALISON
FLEMING
MAURO
PORCINI
DESIGN–
PHOTO: JEREMY BISHOP
JEMUEL
DATILES
P
urpose, long the domain of startups and non-profits, has finally entered the world of the large corporation. While traditional business goals surrounding profit growth, expansion, and innovation persist, they are being increasingly built on the foundation of a greater corporate mission. By embracing the spirit of the startup while leveraging the scale of the multinational, many organizations are reaching wider consumer groups with more authentic and meaningful offerings. With so many companies feeling the pressure to define their “purpose” as one that goes beyond just profit, it’s no surprise that there is a sense of ambiguity around exactly what a corporate purpose should be. Often, the ethical obligations of a business become conflated with its greater purpose, with words like “authenticity,” “accountability,” and “transparency” frequently coming up in conversations and blog posts alike. Together, these qualities comprise a minimum standard of operation – one that all organizations should be held accountable to, whether they strive to be “purposeful” or not. So, what is the difference between an ethical company and a purpose-driven one? Is it possible to better quantify an organization’s purpose through a mission statement and other official objectives, or do such tools miss the mark when it comes to defining what it means to be a purposeful company? To explore these questions, we spoke with representatives from five organizations, ranging from large and established corporations like PepsiCo and Shopify, to newer players like easy. Though we heard about purpose in the context of five separate industries – insurance, ecommerce, food and beverage, research, and feminine hygiene products – we were able to glean one clear and overreaching takeaway from these very different conversations: On its own, a company cannot have a purpose. Only if its employees are able to bring their own personal goals, values, and motivations to their work can a company truly be purpose-driven – and when the team is unified in their purpose, so too will the company have a central reason for being. Each conversation we had opened our eyes to how purpose can be made tangible, regardless of industry or company size. We hope you enjoy reading the insights our participants shared. Taylor Dennis is an editor at Idea Couture.
EXPLORING
PURPOSE-DRIVEN
IDENTITY
MAURO PORCINI SVP & CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER, PEPSICO
PU UR RP PO OS SE E, A S D E F I N E D B Y M O S T M O D E R N D I C T I O N A R I E S ,, P S ““ T H E R E A S O N F O R W H I C H S O M E T IIS TH H IIN NG G IS S D O N E O R C R E AT ATE ED D..””
MAURO PORCINI JOINED PEPSICO IN 2012 AS CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER, WHERE HE WORKS TO INFUSE DESIGN THINKING INTO PEPSICO’S CULTURE, PRODUCTS, AND BRANDS. PRIOR TO JOINING PEPSICO, HE SERVED AS CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER AT 3M. HE SITS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE DESIGN MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE ITALY-AMERICA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, AND ON THE ADVISORY COUNCIL OF OTHER DESIGN AND ART INSTITUTIONS.
W
ithin large corporations, each employee should have an acute awareness of their own purpose as an individual. Each person must also be accountable for how they treat those around them, the brand(s) they support, and the performance of the corporation overall. It is essential for organizations to take the time to consider the “purpose-driven identity” being projected both within and outside of the business. We spoke with Mauro Porcini, PepsiCo’s SVP and Chief Design Officer, to gain some insight into how he views his individual purpose and what he believes the purpose of design within PepsiCo is. He also gave some advice on leveraging one’s individual purpose to help inspire the design of a brand’s purpose.
How have you been able to define purpose for your team and to cultivate a culture of design as PepsiCo’s Chief Design Officer? Purpose is essentially the point of view of a person or a brand; it is a way of looking at life. It should, and must, be applied to us first as human beings, as individuals, and then as professionals for the brand or company we represent. [These applications] must be aligned in order for the individual’s purpose and the purpose of the company to have mutual success. I am a designer at heart; that is my personal purpose for what I am doing at PepsiCo and what I was doing at 3M. Design drives me and helps me drive others. It’s part of my vision of wanting to design products that offer better experiences. I work for PepsiCo, where the CEO, Indra Nooyi, has made the primary mission statement and vision something called “Performance with Purpose.” This initiative hopes to enhance our planet’s sustainability and to help us make healthier choices in terms of the products that we create. It also focuses on taking care of society and the people within the company, and to do all this while performing and making a profit. As a designer working inside such a large organization, I aim to offer a pleasant experience that can impact people’s lives every single day – from when they wake up until they go to sleep. PepsiCo has such a diverse number of products that make up its portfolio, and we are given a very unique opportunity to design for a wide range of customers and business partners.
Now, what is the next challenge? Well, there are two levels of challenges: One is to align around what the purpose of the brand is and what it is not. The moment you take a position, you are going to be loved by some and eventually hated or not loved by others. A brand cannot be everything to all people. The second step starts with your own vision of and ideas for the world. You need to translate that purpose in your actions, which can be really difficult in big corporations at scale, because there are so many different people and partnerships, and they all must be aligned to the same brand purpose. It is a compelling design challenge to maintain consistency. The brand needs to act in the same way in different environments, but it must also be nuanced and able to adapt. How I typically think about it is as follows: I am a person, I have a vision, I have a purpose in life that gives meaning to myself, and I act on it consistently, 24/7. If I did that in an inconsistent way, I would lose all my credibility, but I act in a consistent way. Now, consistency doesn’t mean uniformity, it doesn’t mean that you are always the same,
Y O U N E E D T O C R E AT E AWA R E N E S S I N T H E C O M PA N Y T H AT A B R A N D W I T H O U T PURPOSE DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.
How have you been able to define purpose for your team and to cultivate a culture of design as PepsiCo’s Chief Design Officer? First of all, when you are lucky like I have been, you get to work on successful and iconic brands that are already established in society, such as 3M and PepsiCo; when you are less lucky, you don’t. So you need to look to brands outside of your company as examples and hope this will encourage your internal team to extract the relevant lessons. In the case of PepsiCo, I can think of brands like Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Naked Juice, and Doritos. We have iconic brands. We have brands with very, very well-defined positioning, equity, and points of view, and we can look to them to create a benchmark and say, “We could do something like this with this new brand” because of the brand’s well-established personality. The first step is to leverage examples from within or outside of the company and look to others for inspiration. You need to create awareness in the company that a brand without purpose doesn’t make any sense. I think it’s pretty obvious to everybody that brands need to have purpose nowadays, considering the advances that have been made within the marketing industry.
and it doesn’t mean you are going to be boring. The same is true for when you have to design purpose for a brand. To sum up, in order to be clear about your purpose, you need to communicate it to the entire organization, continuously look within and outside of the organization for inspiration, and behave in a consistent way, both as a representative of yourself and of your company. When you’re looking to build an in-house design team, how do you know if someone will naturally champion the branded experience or defend the brand’s design principles? In some industries, where the position of the brand is very clear – like in fashion – this is something that is pretty obvious. In fashion, you have to look like you represent the brand. You are the product. Your body language is the product. Your belief system is the product. Your style and way of thinking is the product. So the two must be one.
But there are also intangible aspects of the brand. Are you personally aligned to the brand? Are you what the brand stands for? That first impression in the fashion industry will speak to a hiring manager more than your resume will. The same goes for a designer’s portfolio and the kinds of projects or problems they are attracted to solving. When you hire at a company like PepsiCo, or 3M, or at any other big company, how many people really look at how your style, body language, and personal mindset align with the brand? I am not sure it’s top of mind. Of course, some people may take this into consideration, but it’s not as obvious in large organizations. In the past, perhaps it wasn’t necessary. But today it definitely is. Because I have this awareness, I am trying to translate it into what PepsiCo does and how we hire. I believe that it’s necessary for one reason, and that lies in the power of authenticity. Brands need to create meaning for people and become meaningful to them – otherwise, people are not going to buy in. Because people have so many choices and channels, you need to be authentic – and this stems from how you hire. Would you encourage emerging designers looking for opportunities to first understand their own purpose and then seek out the brands that best reflect their own beliefs or personality? I have met with many young designers over the past year. I am a mentor to a designer in New York, and a lot of these young designers have a purpose. They want to be doing something good in life and working on projects that promote sustainability, so they dream of working for startups and small companies. I think we should have as many of those companies, startups, and designers as possible.
PHOTO: PEPSICO
My advice to these designers is to not rule out big corporations. Of course, they have positives and negatives to them, but they’re able to reach millions with their designs. And at PepsiCo, we’re a big corporation that has something unique: our people and their drive to do purposeful work. If you are able to help steer the big enterprise that you work for from within, then you can help move it in the right direction. Of course, I say this as the head of design, who is intimately connected to the company – but this direction doesn’t need to come from the top. A junior designer can have just as much impact if they act with purpose on a day-to-day basis on the projects they work on. Then you can spread that kind of mindset to your colleagues, and you can really have a huge impact. Within a small company you may impact a few people, but at a large company a small change could be huge in terms of its impact on the world. Lee Fain is co-head, design strategy at Idea Couture.
DEVELOPING THE TOOLS
FOR PURPOSEFUL CHANGE SACHIN
AGGARWAL
CEO, THINK RESEARCH
HAV AV I N G A A P U R P O S E I S A L L W E L LL A H AN ND D G O O D – B U T I T D O E S N ’’TT ME EA AN NM MU UC CH H IIFF IITT C CA AN N’’T T H HE EL P Y YO M OU PRODUCE REAL RESULTS.
SACHIN AGGARWAL IS THE CEO OF THINK
RESEARCH,
A
CANADIAN
HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDER OF
EVIDENCE-BASED
CLINICAL
TOOLS. HE PREVIOUSLY SERVED AS THE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR THE OFFICE OF THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION. SACHIN HOLDS AN MBA FROM THE ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND WAS CALLED TO THE BAR
IN
ONTARIO
AND
NEW
YORK
AFTER EARNING A LAW DEGREE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. HE ALSO SITS ON THE BOARD OF THE COUNCIL OF CANADIAN INNOVATORS AND HAS SERVED ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR NUMEROUS COMMUNITY
OUTREACH
PROGRAMS.
HE
WAS
RECENTLY CHOSEN AS A RECIPIENT OF
CANADA’S
TOP
AWARD FOR 2017.
40
UNDER
40
F
or Sachin Aggarwal, CEO at Think Research, developing and using the tools required to create important change is what gives life to a purposeful organization. Which is why, after walking away from a corporate law career and completing a successful turn in federal politics, Aggarwal decided that it was time to undertake the next rewarding challenge: helping to build a healthcare software company from the ground up. From these efforts grew Think Research, a startup first conceived by Dr. Chris O’Connor in 2006 as a solution to the problem of disparate care and its negative effects on patient wellbeing. Today, Think Research operates with the same purpose at heart, helping clinicians across the world prioritize evidence-based care for patients.
How did you come to join Think Research? I was working in corporate law, which was tough for me. I found it to be really soul sucking. It was not at all rewarding. I didn’t feel like I was doing “me” for a while. I was a cog in a machine helping someone who I’d never met make a lot of money, shut down a company, or lay people off. It didn’t feel like a life I wanted to live. So I left. I went and worked in Canadian federal politics for a couple of years. I’d already been involved in politics for a number of years, running campaigns on the side as a volunteer. I ended up running Michael Ignatieff’s campaign to be the leader of the Liberal Party, and then I went to work for him in Ottawa after we won, where I served as the Deputy Chief of Staff. We weren’t in government, but I was able to effect a fair bit of change, even as a representative of the Opposition. After that, I never wanted to go back to something that didn’t make me feel good or excited about what I do. When I was leaving politics and moving back to Toronto, I was looking at a bunch of different options. I had offers from various law firms. I could have gone into corporate GR or something like that – or there was this little startup company that was struggling. It didn’t have enough money to meet payroll, but it had a really cool idea for how to transform healthcare. And so, I picked that struggling little five-person company. What does purpose mean to you? There are multiple aspects of purpose, in my view. You can have something that’s really meaningful to do, but you also have to layer in a sense of possibility. You have to put in place the pieces needed to be able to do what you want to do. Until all of those things come together, purpose alone is not sufficient. People can get disenchanted. There are lots of startups out there that are trying to change the world and do amazing things, but unless you’ve got a sense of possibility and you’ve got the tools – everything from cash, to know-how, to ability – put in place, then really all you have is an idea. And that’s not sufficient.
Where does Think Research and its purpose fit into the current healthcare context? Looking back through the last couple of centuries, the way that we cared for people was a form of art. The knowledge was held within a tiny number of individuals. They may have had some innate knowledge that helped them to practice their trade and be successful in certain circumstances, but there was no real evidence or information there. And then, the Industrial Revolution came. This began a scientific revolution, and the amount of information started to accelerate. It was only in 1992 that the term “evidence-based medicine” was coined. That’s actually pretty recent – that’s the concept that medicine is not an art, but a science. Since then, the amount of information being brought to bear in healthcare has just continued to accelerate. There are now thousands and thousands of publications per day in the biomedical sciences. But the amount of information that we’re bringing in is increasing [in a non-linear way]. It’s an accelerating growth spurt, and there’s a lot of evidence to show that, because we can’t keep up with this avalanche of information, we’re effectively processing extremely out-of-date medicine. You go to the doctor today, your doctor is practicing what was best practice about 15 to 17 years ago. On top of that, we have an aging population who are living longer with multiple comorbidities, and we’ve got very expensive drugs and treatments and medical devices coming to the market. The confluence of those factors – the accelerating rate of information, the change in our demographics, and the change in the cost of healthcare – means that we’re actually squeezing out the rest of what we can do as a society. Our healthcare costs are affecting our ability to spend on other valuable things, like education, defense, and roads (whether here or in the third world). Even things like space exploration, entertainment, or other things that matter to us – these are all being squeezed out, because we value healthcare more. As a consequence, we find ourselves in a precarious situation; if we don’t correct it, we’re going to be leading very, very different lives 10, 20, or 30 years from now. So, our mission at Think Research is a big mission: It’s to organize the world’s health knowledge so everyone gets the best care. Inherent to that is the need to make the whole process more efficient. When you practice in an evidence-based way, better outcomes come with lower costs.
UNLESS YOU’VE GOT A SENSE OF POSSIBILITY AND YOU’VE GOT THE TOOLS – EVERYTHING FROM CASH, TO KNOW-HOW, TO ABILITY – PUT IN PLACE, THEN REA LLY ALL YOU HAV E IS A N I D E A . A N D T H AT ’ S N O T S U F F I C I E N T.
What are some disruptive trends that will change the healthcare landscape? I think one subtle but meaningful trend is that our concept of privacy is going to change. As we start to realize that our data can help other people, what we’re willing to share about ourselves is going to change. In healthcare, that’s going to be really meaningful and material. With this, the concept of ownership of data is also going to evolve. I think there will be a confluence or convergence of several things that will happen simultaneously, which will dramatically affect healthcare. The way that we do scientific research today is the blinded study – and the limitations of that are incredible. In fact, if we were able to do giant observation studies on real-life health factors, the amount of high-quality evidence that we would be able to produce as a result would be mind-boggling. Ultimately, our approach to these things will change when we start to realize that we, as human beings, will receive multiple benefits too. It will happen when we realize, “I will get an indirect personal benefit from sharing my information because healthcare will improve.” There will be a societal impact – family, friends, and others will also benefit. And there might also be a monetary incentive. This is where technologies like blockchain will come into play; it’s not going to be big medical records companies that own the data and act as gatekeepers. It will actually be the individual who, over time, gives access to their personal information, and therefore gets a personal benefit. Healthcare organizations tend to have a high level of scrutiny and a very difficult sales cycle for prospective service providers. What is it about Think Research that inspires trust in these challenging clients?
PHOTO: SAMUEL ZELLER
First of all, the software has to be intuitive. It has to be easy. We put clinical content into our software. We’re not just healthcare software. Trust is at the very core of what we do. We have to start from trust – we don’t end with trust. We don’t try to create trust after we deploy. If our clients didn’t trust us, they would never buy our solutions. The moment they buy our solutions, they are using our content. We are helping them make their decisions on how to treat patients. They’re fundamentally licensing trust from us, and so that’s what we sell.
A S W E S TA R T T O R E A L I Z E T H AT O U R D ATA C A N H E L P O T H E R P E O P L E , W H AT WE’RE WILLING TO SHARE ABOUT O U R S E L V E S I S G O I N G TO C H A N G E .
How do you inspire your employees to maintain a singular vision of what Think Research is? First, prospective employees are screened for aptitude and ability. Then, we hire based on values and culture – that’s the final screen. Of course, as we add people, our culture is going to migrate. But if we’re hiring within the general four walls of our values, then it will migrate much more slowly. As we get bigger, it does get harder and harder. We have to put structures in place to minimize the impact of growth to our culture, or to maximize our culture within a bigger frame. So, we’ve implemented things like various communication structures. For example, every single person in our company is involved in a daily huddle of some sort. Some are involved in more than one to ensure that communication and transparency are being pushed out and that feedback keeps coming back in. There are a variety of tools and tasks that we can use to try to maintain culture as we grow. But being very explicit about the definition of that culture is a big part of it. Think Research currently has a very strong presence in Canada. Do you have a long-term vision for where you hope the company will expand in the next 5-10 years? We are exporting as much as we can, as fast we can. We’re building teams to export aggressively to the US. We have a number of clients now in the EU and the Middle East. Our goal is to have our mission applied to everybody around the world. Kuhan Perampaladas is a health innovation strategist at Idea Couture.
C R E AT I N G A N AUTHENTIC AND HONEST BRAND
ALYSSA BERTRAM CEO & FOUNDER, EASY.
WITH A PURPOSE
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ALYSSA BERTRAM IS THE CEO AND FOUNDER THAT
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DELIVERS
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lyssa Bertram, founder of Easy Period (styled as “easy.”), has set out to change that. easy. delivers feminine hygiene products made of 100% organic cotton to its customers’ doors. The company sends a portion of the profits from each sale to ZanaAfrica Foundation, an organization that works to provide education and sanitary products to girls in Kenya. With these efforts, Alyssa is working to remove the stigma surrounding menstruation. easy. is doing more than providing a convenient service – it is reimagining what the menstruation industry should look like, how we should be talking about it, and how these changes and conversations will impact women all around the world. At the core of the company is the notion of removing shame from all matters of women’s health. As for the brand’s self-proclaimed purpose, it’s simple: empowering women. We chatted with Alyssa about her journey to creating easy., her plans for the future, and her thoughts on why brands need to be purposeful in order to stay competitive.
M Y GOA L HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO EMPOWER WOMEN.
What motivated you to start easy.? I’d had the idea of a tampon delivery service for years, but I hadn’t taken any steps toward acting on it. It was more of an idea that I’d tell friends about when we were having late-night chats about what we’re really passionate about. It wasn’t until the summer of 2015 that I decided to do something about it. Things got really shaken up in my life because my mom got very sick. It was a scary time, but thankfully she’s healthy today. As soon as I knew she was going to be ok, I had a moment of realization and a renewed sense of energy. I felt fired up and had clarity about what was next for me. I knew that I had to act on my idea. This experience opened my eyes to the need to build something that really mattered to me – any fears that I had around it before no longer mattered. I was working in healthcare research at the time and started doing some homework on how to get this thing off the ground. I started to delve into the history of the tampon as well, and what I learned from some medical journals was pretty disturbing. There are a lot of legal loopholes in the space, such as companies not being legally bound to list the materials used in their products. There are a number of chemicals and carcinogens in a lot of tampons, as well as synthetic fibers that can shed in the vaginal walls. Reading these things inspired me to look for an alternative. I started buying organic cotton tampons at the health food store, and it was then that I decided that I would only sell products that I would use myself. How do you define easy.’s purpose as a brand? I was asked that question really early on, and the answer was easy for me: My goal has always been to empower women. Working at the hospital [in healthcare research], I often felt stifled and bored, and I wanted to create a business that felt empowering, inspiring, and honest. A lot of marketing that was being done toward me and my age group didn’t feel authentic or true to me – and I wanted to create not only a service, but also a brand and a community where we could be authentic and just tell the truth.
PHOTO: EYE FOR EBONY
Would you say that your company’s purpose filters into every element of your business (packaging, online presence, ad copy, etc.)? Or is it more of a general guiding light or mission statement? In terms of packaging and branding, I think I’ve always been drawn to simplicity. As soon as I had the name, I went to get a logo designed by a friend. I said to her, “I don’t want any bullshit. I don’t want anything above and beyond the simplest way of conveying our name.” That’s what she provided, and I’m really happy with it. I think it’s empowering when you speak to somebody and you assume that they’re intelligent, rather than using marketing tactics that speak to them in a way that assumes they’re not intelligent. It’s critical for brands to
speak to their audience as intelligent consumers. I just want to be honest with my audience. Another thing that’s critical to me is the fact that we’re not selling a product that people don’t need, and I don’t think I could do that. Menstruation products are necessary, but I’m also very open about the fact that women have other options aside from tampons. I find this approach empowering, so I definitely think our purpose permeates through all the layers of the business. How do you think easy. differs from other startups in the menstruation and education space? I think that what differentiates us is that we’re really trying to be representative. I’ve been fortunate enough to have women reach out to me with unique stories that aren’t necessarily being told elsewhere. This is how I’ve heard about what it’s like to live with endometriosis as a successful entrepreneur, or to be a former Olympian and a disability activist and how that impacts your menstrual cycle. These sorts of stories get people to think about menstruation in a different way. It’s not just about when you bleed and the products you use – it’s a cycle that takes place throughout a menstruating person’s life all month, and it affects them in different ways at different points. Thinking about this individually is important, but looking at someone else’s experience is key as well. For example, [it’s important to know about the experience of] a Kenyan woman who has to go to a local agency to get her products, or that of a young girl in Kenya who isn’t even being taught about her period at all. The charity that we work with, ZanaAfrica Foundation, has come up with a magazine to help teach women and young girls about this topic as they start menstruating. I want to give people a chance to tell their stories and to look outside their own experience.
BY JUST BEING AUTHENTIC AND BEING AWA RE OF THE FACT T H AT T H I N G S TA K E T I M E TO GROW, I THINK I CAN C R E AT E M E S S A G I N G T H AT R E S O N AT E S W I T H THE AUDIENCE I’M T R Y I N G TO AT T R A C T.
How will your purpose continue to shape your future plans as you continue to grow?
What other purpose-driven brands do you take inspiration from?
Right now, things are developing and changing for us. We’re currently using our manufacturer’s packaging, but moving forward we want to be able to differentiate ourselves further through branded packaging. This is another space to innovate and be honest with our consumers. We’re including our subscribers in our iterative innovation process, so we’re doing things like limited runs and then surveying people to see what speaks to them. We’re going to keep it a two-way street, because the individuals who subscribe to this service are why it exists, and their feedback is valuable. It’s all about transparency and empowering people by bringing them into the decision-making process.
Two that come to mind are Reformation, a company that is innovating in the fashion space and helping women think about waste, and Everlane, which is really big on transparency about their materials and cost. Another one is Kotn, an impressive organization that is in close touch with the cotton famers they work with.
These days, consumers have a variety of options in almost every industry. So why should the menstruation industry be different? Menstruation is still looked at as taboo, so I’m excited to be involved during this crucial wave that’s rethinking this space. Can you tell us some more about the corporate social responsibility side of easy. and your relationship with ZanaAfrica? As I mentioned, when I started easy. I was doing a lot of research about the field and the toxicities involved in most tampons, and I was really disturbed by that. But I was also disturbed to learn that 80% of girls and women in East Africa have no access to menstrual hygiene products. It became a no-brainer to me at that point that I would tag onto my convenient service the ability for women to seamlessly give back to other women.
PHOTOS: AMEVI WISDOM, ANNIE SPRATT
I think the individual who’s willing to pay a little bit more for organic products to come to their door is likely to be interested in supporting other women. I looked for organizations that were involved in this kind of work, and I was really impressed with ZanaAfrica. They’re looking to constantly innovate – they work to make pads more environmentally friendly, they run health education workshops, and they created the magazine I mentioned earlier, which is so beautiful and thoughtful. They’re tackling a combination of things. They’re trying to work against the vicious cycle of girls not having access to menstrual products and dropping out of school to deal with it, as well as the general lack of education about menstruation that persists in [East African] culture. Basic teaching can help cut off the taboos that are still being permeated.
Brands like these create end-to-end stories, and they show their customers [where their products are coming from]. I like to learn and to know where my things are coming from – so having that easily accessible makes me feel connected to a brand. Any final thoughts? For me, it’s really about being authentic. Someone once said to me, “What you’re sharing today is speaking to the girl who is where you were this time last year.” That really resonated with me – thinking that there’s somebody who’s on the brink of starting something he or she is passionate about, and they’re looking at my story and thinking, “Oh, maybe it is possible. She seems to have done this.” It really motivates me to keep being authentic. I don’t need to pretend that my brand is bigger than it is or growing faster than it is. By just being authentic and being aware of the fact that things take time to grow, I think I can create messaging that resonates with the audience I’m trying to attract. I look to other brave women to give me permission, and I think the more you’re honest about what you’re going through, the more it gives other people a voice. Mira Blumenthal is lead editor, communications at Idea Couture.
INSPIRING BRAND LOYA LTY
ALISON FLEMING DIGITAL STRATEGIST & PLANNER, SHOPIFY
OR RS SO OM ME EB BR RA AN ND DS S,, H HAV AV I N G A N I N S P I R I N G P U R P O S E I S A S S I M P L E FFO E AS SB BE EI N G T T H E B E S T AT W H AT A AT YO Y OU UD DO O..
ALISON BRAND
FLEMING
STRATEGY
SHOPIFY.
WITH
LEADS
THE
PRACTICE
OVER
A
AT
DECADE
OF EXPERIENCE, SHE WAS PREVIOUSLY
A
COMMUNICATIONS
NER
AT
TAXI,
360
COMMUNICATIONS
PLAN-
CONSULTING PLANS
ON FOR
CLIENTS SUCH AS KRAFT, PFIZER CONSUMER
HEALTHCARE,
LEON’S,
AND SIRIUS XM. PRIOR TO THAT, SHE WAS AT EDELMAN, WHERE SHE WORKED
FIRST
STRATEGIST
AS
AND
A
DIGITAL
THEN
AS
A
PLANNER FOR CLIENTS INCLUDING PAYPAL,
UNILEVER,
BLACKBERRY.
GTAA,
AND
T
his is the motivation that drives Shopify forward in its goal to reach the greatest number of entrepreneurs possible, and it’s the goal that drives Alison Fleming, Shopify’s brand strategy lead, ever forward in her pursuit to make Shopify a purposeful brand.
With over a decade of experience, Alison has worked as both a digital strategist and planner for several large brands, including PayPal, Unilever, and BlackBerry. She has also consulted for clients such as Kraft, Pfizer, and Sirius XM. Considering her extensive background and current position in brand strategy, we were excited to ask Alison some questions about her thoughts on the role of purpose in branding.
How does Shopify define its purpose as a company? We strive to make commerce better for everyone – a lofty and complex goal, but one that has a deep impact on our culture. At the surface, this drives us to create more seamless, contextual experiences for buyers and sellers alike. This reduces all the bad parts about making a purchase (perusing shelves for hours, entering your credit card information, etc.) and allows us to experience more of the good (an immersive popup or an empathetic web experience). How does this differ from your mission statement, if at all? Our mission is to take the path that leads to more entrepreneurs. It’s a North Star that helps our organization make the best decisions for our merchants. We believe that when there are more entrepreneurs and greater differentiation within the market, our economies are stronger, more vibrant, and more sustainable. We believe that more entrepreneurs will lead to better commerce for everyone. Would you say the various departments within Shopify have different purposes? If so, how do you work to align them? We all work toward the same purpose, but we have very different mandates under that purpose. I think it’s import-
ant to have a separation of church and state between strategy and creative, otherwise the strategy is biased. Strategy is obsessed with our end audience – what compels them, what their hopes and dreams are, what they believe about us and the culture we all inhabit together. When we can crack that, design can stay focused on making beautiful things that spark a meaningful connection with the brand. Looking at the world of business beyond Shopify specifically, how do you think purpose in business has evolved over time, and where do you think it’s going? The phrase “purpose-driven brand” is terribly overused and has, unfortunately, led to a number of brands jumping the shark. It feels like it’s a race to the bottom for how much a brand can make you feel, versus exactly what it can make you feel. It has turned into quantity, not quality; if something makes you cry and call your mother, then it’s deemed a success. Can you share some advice on how to design with purpose? Ensure that “brand purpose” and “brand truth” are synonyms. When you lose the plot on that, you become inauthentic and put yourself at risk of pandering.
ENSURE THAT “BRAND PURPOSE” AND “BRAND TRUTH” ARE SYNONYMS. WHEN YOU LOSE THE PLOT ON THAT, YOU BECOME INAUTHENTIC AND PUT YOURSELF AT RISK OF PANDERING.
How is Shopify disrupting the retail space, and what are your plans for the future? We want to work with our merchants to help invent a new future of retail that’s more empathetic and enjoyable for customers. How does your purpose and/or mission as an organization help to shape these plans? The word “better” in our purpose is important. It’s important that we’re not endeavoring to make things easier or faster – instead, we want to make them “better.” When commerce is better, you might not need it to be faster or easier, because you enjoy the experience so much. What do you think entices people to use Shopify and stay loyal? Is there something beyond your service offering that shapes your ethos as a company and that draws people to your brand?
PHOTO: SAMUEL ZELLER
We are obsessed with our merchants and their success. How do you inspire your employees and colleagues to share in the Shopify purpose? As our VP of UX says, we “stay close to the front line” and ensure everyone in the organization stays connected to the merchants who use our platform. We’re a compli-
cated product and need to ensure this merchant empathy pervades everything we do so that we’re helping those who rely on our platform to be as successful as possible. Which other brands do you consider “purposeful,” and who do you look to for inspiration? In terms of the amount of trust people need to have in our brand, I equate us with a bank. That, contrasted with our need to inspire entrepreneurs to take the leap into business, means that we need to be as inspiring as Nike. In terms of brands that are “banks who behave like Nike,” we look to our Canadian peers, Wealthsimple and Tangerine. Taylor Dennis is an editor at Idea Couture.
INSURANCE
GETS
D I G I TA L TIM ATTIA CEO OF SLICE
HE E IIN ND DU US ST T R I E S I N G R E AT E S T N E E D O F C H A N G E A R E TTH E O FFTTE EN N HO OS SE M MO OS ST T R E S I S TA N T TO I N N O VAT TTH VATIIO ON N –– A AN ND D TTH HE E IIN NS SU UR RA AN NC CE E ND DU USSTT R Y I S O F T E N A C U L P R I T. IIN
TIM
ATTIA
AND
CEO
IS OF
TECHNOLOGY
THE
COFOUNDER
SLICE
STARTUP
LABS,
A
PROVIDING
ON-DEMAND
INSURANCE
FOR
THE
ON-DEMAND
ECONOMY.
FOR
THE
PAST
20
YEARS,
WITH
MAJOR
CARRIERS
GLOBAL
ON
APPLY
HAS
WORKED
INSURANCE
TECHNOLOGY
DISTRIBUTION. TO
HE
HE
AND
IS
EXCITED
INTELLIGENT
DESIGN,
DATA, AND TECHNOLOGY TO SOLVE THE GAPS AND RISKS FACING THE GROWING
ON-DEMAND
WORKFORCE.
E
nter Slice, an insurance technology startup with its eye on the future. The digital platform, created by cofounders Tim Attia, Stuart Baserman, and Ernest Hursh, provides pay-per-use insurance to those working in the sharing economy. In addition to providing affordable on-demand protection for those in the ridesharing and homesharing business, Slice leverages the best of digital to provide a truly customer-centric, low-pressure experience. We spoke with Tim about what inspired him to start Slice, where the digital insurance model fits in the context of traditional coverage, and how creating innovation in a stale market is the purpose that drives the platform forward.
How did you first become involved in insurance? We [Tim and Slice co-founder Stuart Baserman] first spent about 12 years building policy claims, and then we found out that the insurance industry was not interested in products. They had lines of business in home, or automobile, or life. If you said “product” then that implied “customer,” and they really didn’t want to have to worry about customers. So we got a really negative reaction. People literally wanted to throw us out of buildings because they didn’t want to hear about products [because they didn’t align with their] “lines of business.” There was an era during which insurance industries were trying to automate policy image and transactions, and they were doing all this manual work around policy, billings, claims, and expenses. They spent 20 years automating, spending billions and billions of dollars, and then the whole world changed on them. All of a sudden, it started being about customer engagement and had nothing to do with internal transactions. For five and a half years prior to Slice, we operated as arguably the first direct-to-consumer small commercial firm in the US. We created an online distributor, we had licensed agents in 50 states, and we offered an experience where a small business could purchase a policy directly online. What we learned from that was that it’s really expensive to distribute insurance, especially in the US, so we built a distribution platform. We thought we’d tackle it on the front end and leave the back end as it is. But that didn’t really work out, because we had to deal with every carrier’s outdated systems and processes, which added to our costs. Nothing was digitized; no one was online. What are some important lessons you took out of that initial experience? One thing we learned was that there were some massive gaps in the market. Four or five years ago, we started seeing startups in the sharing economy space coming to us for insurance. They were creating new kinds of risks and breaking regulations. For example, one of the indirect rules all small insurance companies in the US had was “two years in business” – they wouldn’t write a policy for any company with less than two years. Every one of these startups had less than two years in business. We realized that this was a significant opportunity area, and we knew we had to start from scratch, build from the bottom up, and try our best to not use any existing systems or processes. You wanted to build the model for Slice from the ground up. What were the other major drivers for your design of the business? [We had a few] core hypotheses or “what ifs.” First, we wondered, “What if insurance could be turned on and off
like a light switch?” Then, it was: “What if insurance was bought and not sold?” It’s a $5T industry, and the industry spends $1T of that $5T selling it. The last question we tried to solve was: “What if you were just covered?” The whole idea of attaching insurance to assets – which, in the future, people might not even own anymore – doesn’t really make sense. [Instead, your coverage would be] attached to you, attached to your phone. There’s a different way to look at underwriting. We were fairly sure that we could innovate and that we could do so quickly. We knew we could likely build a whole insurance company faster than an existing insurance company could integrate a system, but we didn’t know if we could scale. It’s difficult to do that when the big players can spend millions on marketing. You’ve expressed that a digital approach to insurance sales doesn’t work within existing traditional models. What makes digital different?
BEING DIGITAL IS ABOUT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE TECHNOLOGY THAT IS AVAILABLE TODAY AS WELL AS BEING AWARE OF WHAT TECHNOLOGY IS GOING TO BE AROUND
A lot of people talk about [using digital] for customer engagement. In the T H R E E Y E A R S F R O M insurance value chain, distribution is expensive. But what if you took the NOW, AND CONTINUOUSLY insurance company out of the value chain? We thought, if we eliminated INNOVATING. the insurance company, you can take between 35 and 45 cents off every premium dollar. Being digital in insurance, in our view, really puts a chink in the value chain. You do need an insurance carrier license, but there are no employees in that carrier – it completely reimagines the model. What are the benefits of digital as they relate to Slice more specifically? Being digital is about taking advantage of the technology that is available today as well as being aware of what technology is going to be around three years from now, and continuously innovating. We created a digital insurer, so we kind of eliminated the carrier. We have underwriting authority; we collect premiums into our bank account; and we take claims out of our bank account – we have claims authority. We don’t take any risks on the balance sheet. So while the reinsurer does enter the equation, rather than taking everything over a million, they’re taking everything down to dollar zero. Rather than having a billing system with a department filled with a bunch of people, we’re integrated into Stripe and Apple Pay. Our platform mirrors that of Uber or Airbnb. There are some societal issues with that; it’s totally new to people. And we’re constantly navigating that as we design our digital experiences.
Does being digital create any barriers for consumers in terms of the user experience? In the insurance industry, there are annual policies. When an insurance company sells a policy, they know that 85% [of customers] will renew. They don’t really want to talk to you because they don’t want you to find out that you’ve had no losses and you’re paying premiums, because you might cancel. It’s the only industry that really doesn’t want to interact with you. You’re only a customer if you have a policy. If you have a one-year auto and home policy, there will be another company trying to figure out when your policy renews, because they know they can market to you after a certain date. So everybody’s after these renewal dates – other than aggressive companies, like GEICO and Progressive, who are just trying to acquire customers as much as possible. We went [with a register and buy model], which is more standard in the online space. When somebody registers for Slice, we underwrite them. They haven’t bought a policy, but they are now a customer. They might buy a policy two weeks later for three nights, or when they go out [to drive for] Uber, but they’re a customer – regardless of when their home or auto insurance renews. We’re playing with convenience and with time. WeWork allows you to book an office online with your credit card and no five-year lease or commercial real estate broker; Amazon lets you lease infrastructure with a click and at “no cost” so you can get going; Netflix lets you watch shows on demand with much less of a commitment than cable companies – and I think we’re doing the same for insurance. We have no long application, no long contract, and you’re protected when you want to be. Building this new model has allowed us to learn a lot about the insurance space and how it needs to change. There’s an inherent advantage in the digital world that traditional insurance providers are going to have a problem with: It is a lot cheaper to acquire a customer online. And it’s going to be hard for them to overcome that without completely changing their model.
PHOTO: AHMED SAFFU
Where do you ultimately see Slice fitting within the context of the insurance industry? We went into a gap and created a product that can be embeddable, so obviously we’re talking with platforms about embedding our product in either a rideshare or homeshare platform. Now that we’re almost in all states, we’re going down that path. If you think about the large insurance providers in the US, they don’t sell what we have, because we’re filling a gap. Of course, they want to acquire customers cheaper and quicker, so they’re looking at our model and saying, “How can we have that?” However, we can’t scale; they can. They’re spending $1.2B, $1.6B, and we can’t do that. So we’re planning to launch a partnership with a large direct brand in the US.
What that will allow us to do is scale quickly and inexpensively within the US; rather than spending 300% of premium on acquisition, we’re going to spend 7%. We’re going to give up brand recognition, but then we’re going to have a platform that can scale. How would your company’s purpose complement or interfere with that of a more traditional organization? Our hypothesis is that many of the large carriers are going to want a digital insurer out of the box, and they’re going to want to license the whole experiment that is Slice. That’s how we can go global. That’s how we see us hyper-scaling our invention. Insurers are all saying, “We need to go digital,” and I think they recognize that they can’t do it within their current model – they really have to build something off to the side. There needs to be a recognition that we can innovate, but we can’t scale, and they have to agree that they can’t innovate but they can scale. If we can get to that arrangement, we could have an interesting model. I’m borrowing this idea from biotech, where 70% of new drugs are coming out of startups. I think the insurance industry needs something like that in order to stay relevant and resilient. Taylor Dennis is an editor at Idea Couture.
PURPOSE
N O M AT T E R H O W L A R G E O R S M A L LL,, A C O M PA N Y I S O N L Y A S G O O D A S T H E P E O P L E B E H I N D I T.
T
he next generation of purpose-driven organizations will be those who recognize the importance of unifying their employees and consumers around a central purpose – one that balances the values and targets of the company while also serving the interests and improving the lives of those who work for and buy from them. Though success will never be easy to define, the days of linking a business’s progress and growth purely to financial gain are dwindling. Of course, increasing profits will always be a goal – but it should not and will not be the goal. Already, businesses are casting their eye to the future in ways that go far beyond the economic. This could mean capitalizing on employees’ skills and passions, as Mauro Porcini describes, to grow a major corporation like PepsiCo. It could come to fruition in a company’s hiring policies, which could emphasize recruiting employees with values that mesh with those of the corporation, a practice encouraged by Think Research CEO Sachin Aggarwal. Alternatively, a company could dedicate its operations to filling a gap to fulfill a currently unmet need, like Alyssa Bertram’s easy. or Tim Attia’s Slice. Of course, if it can’t communicate its purpose clearly and meaningfully to consumers, a company might as well not have a purpose at all. This is why branding will continue to be paramount to an organization’s success, regardless of the goals it has or the industry it operates within – an important point demonstrated by Shopify’s Alison Fleming. No matter the scope or ambition behind their goals, organizations cannot hope to achieve any of their ambitions without careful consideration and leveraging of their most valuable resources: their people. By learning to represent the interests of their stakeholders in more meaningful ways, these organizations – and plenty of future companies still to be conceived – will embody what it truly means to live and act with purpose. ////
PHOTO: IGOR SON
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