Sustainable business growth needs both purpose and creativity

According to a study done by tech corporation International Business Machines with more than 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries, the world of business needs creativity the most. Yes, creativity. 

The answer I was given in the study took me by surprise. In the hard-nosed, left-brain-dominated business world, the answer sounded a bit crazy.

But having reviewed the reasoning behind this answer, there was sound logic to back this up. The two most popular justifications included the following:

• Creativity helps businesses capitalise on complexity because it calls for companies to lead with innovation and connect with customers in imaginative ways.
• Creativity is a critical leadership quality because creative leaders invite disruptive innovation, encourage others to drop outdated approaches, and encourage experimentation. 

Based on the above, I felt slightly less taken aback and more hopeful that maybe the world of business was entering a new phase — better equipped to deal with the onslaught of challenges the world is presenting to business leaders.

But while doing this research, a number of other articles surfaced at the top of my Google search bar that were at odds with what those 1,500 CEOs had to say.

These articles were emphatically clear that what the business world needs most right now is a well-defined business purpose. And that without it these businesses would never achieve long-term sustainable growth or success. And to back this up, a number of irrefutable statistics were presented in several different studies. 

Here are some of the more compelling ones: 

• 66% of consumers would switch from a product they typically buy to a new product from a purpose-driven company. 
• 78% of consumers would tell others to buy from a purpose-driven company, and 73% are willing to stand up for a purpose-driven brand if it is poorly spoken of.

There are multiple key success factors in business, but in the context of our business, and knowing Joe Public United’s journey in the past decade, it’s clear what the world needs most are both highly creative and purpose-led businesses. 

Purpose is the “why” that gives a company a reason to exist and to perform beyond just profit. But creativity is undoubtedly the single greatest driving force behind how you deliver on your why. Once you know why you are doing what you are doing, it's creativity that gets you where you want to be. 

I believe you can’t have one without the other if you want to achieve long-term sustainable success: they are inextricably linked, feed off each other, and create a powerful and virtuous circle of growth.

Tesla, Apple and Google are companies that have explicitly stated their business purpose is their primary driver and that profit is a by-product of delivering on this purpose.

They are all category disrupters who have succeeded by bringing breakthrough creative thinking to the world that has radically challenged the status quo. They also make up three out of the world's top 10 most valuable companies.

If this is true in the business world, it can be deduced this is true in the right-brain-dominated creative world of branding and advertising.

With this in mind, the Nike Dream Crazy campaign was an undeniable reference point for me. The campaign has run for several years but it was first made famous by the Colin Kaepernick campaign that aired in September 2018.

What made the Kaepernick campaign most relevant for me was that it was both powerfully purposeful and wildly creative. At the time of the campaign, the US had begun to experience increasing cultural and racial tension. Nike decided to use this opportunity to unpack its purpose to demonstrate how athletes have the power to change not only their lives, but also the world around them. 

The campaign tapped into a topical vein of activism that reflected the brand’s values of rebellion and empowerment, launching with a tweet by Kaepernick, followed by a fully integrated multimedia rollout. 

The campaign generated high and often polarising levels of conversation, that even led to people burning their Nikes and posting it on social media, and delivered astonishing results. With increase in brand affinity and record-breaking engagement levels, the campaign delivered a $297m year-on-year revenue increase and a 61% increase in sold-out products. It also drove Nike’s stock price to an all-time high and created $6bn in brand value.

So, to take some inspiration from this Nike campaign,maybe what the world needs now is for us to be crazy enough to put purpose before profit and to be creative enough to un-tick all the boxes. I believe that if everyone could do this, we would all be playing our part in giving the world what it needs right now.

This article was paid for by Joe Public. 

This article was first published on WARC