The concept of purpose hasn’t gone unnoticed by marketers but it’s taken a hammering lately in Australia, with drought being followed by bushfires, and floods in some areas, and now the coronavirus crisis.
The Decade of Do, a book written by Richard Brett, CEO of opr, part of the Ogilvy Group, with colleagues editorial director Brian Corrigan and chief creative officer Bridget Jung, was created before the pandemic changed the world.
“The future is notoriously difficult to predict,” the authors write. “So there was no sign of the extraordinary events that would unfold in the first few months of 2020 when we were writing this book during the previous couple of years.”
Brett says this made the writers take stock and decide whether the decade, as the title suggests, would really be ten years of getting things done. An era, as the authors say, when talking is replaced by action.
And what they saw -- the global response to the pandemic -- gave them renewed faith in humanity.
“The Decade Of Do is starting out from a much tougher position than anybody would have believed a few months ago, but there are plenty of reasons to be excited about what we can do together,” the authors say.
The book has now been launched with a series of webinars in Australia.
Richard Brett says the book grew out of future trend reports he started doing in 2015 after the global creative and technology conference season wraps up each year.
“I will admit the first one wasn’t brilliant, but I learnt, and they got better, and certainly over the past three years there has been a lot of interest in them,” he told AdNews
“We have presented the last three to almost 6000 marketing leaders across Australia and New Zealand, and I have spoken at over 20 different events such as CommsCon, PRIA and VidCon about the content, as well as being invited to present to organisations such as SBS and the New Zealand Parliament’s communications team.
“After five years of content I felt the time was right to collate the ‘best of’ into a long form book, updated for the 2020s.”
He wanted one key thought to run through the book -- winning marketing was moving from telling and talking to doing and action.
“Marketing becoming more useful, more entertaining and trying to solve problems,” he says.
“This was the thought that was the most interesting for the book and focused on insights and ideas and cases that let themselves to that.”
And he says the for-purpose-led marketing had evolved, from feeling almost superficial (at worst to get an emotional reaction and to win awards) to being much more authentic.
“II don’t know if it was a need, but really an observation about the way marketing was changing – and quite a significant one,” he says..
“Communications since the advent of advertising in the nineteenth century has been about telling your message.
“Today what is driving engagement and being effective is different.
“With the seemingly insurmountable problems facing the world, the need for action was rising in the young (the Generation Do trend), and businesses was changing – stepping up to help solve problems (as noted by Larry Fink in 2018 and the American Business Roundtable last year) – and these two things were coming together to change marketing to be a problem solver and to be more useful.”
The book was finished early March. Then the virus hit. The book went on pause.
“It didn’t seem right to talk about it as we went into lockdown – in fact we didn’t even know if it would be the Decade of Do at all,” he says.
“But fast forward two months and we have seen so much doing around the world –It’s been fascinating to see how the world has reacted so differently to the Covid-19 crisis compared to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).”
In 2008, governments focused on bailing out the banks with small businesses and consumers bearing the brunt of economic recession.
This time the Australian government and others around the world are paying the wages of impacted workers and supporting small businesses with cash payments.
“We have seen businesses pivot to make ventilators, PPE and hand sanitiser and offering considerable financial support and a range of measures designed to help customers and employees including waived cancellation fees, mortgage holidays, free medical tests, and unlimited sick leave,” he says.
“We have also seen of course incredible community spirit - with for example #clapforourcarers, #onapplaudit, imprompty balcony concerts, fitness classes, community care cards and of course individuals reaching out and helping support each other.”
The book with a new foreword based on observations of doing during COVID-19 is available via Amazon. Proceeds go to the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
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