When you’ve built as many websites as we have, you start noticing trends.
Some trends are designer fads that come and go [think parallax, gradients, flat design], while others evolve more organically. Let’s take the “Community” page of your website as an example of the latter. You know the one – it’s buried in the “About” section, has pictures of the company softball team and the canned food drive from a few years ago. It was probably someone from the Marketing Department who requested it to demonstrate a connection to the neighborhood, and showcase the giving back side of the organization. It was well-intentioned, but not really purposeful – but at the time, it checked a box.
Now things are very different. Corporate Responsibility is becoming the box to check. Businesses today are shifting towards “purpose first”, and the market is responding.
Your customers are looking to buy from purpose-driven brands. Employees want to work for, and stay at purpose-driven companies. Even investors and the Government are funneling their dollars into purpose-driven organizations.
Welcome to the purpose-driven economy.
“Um, ok – thanks Peaktwo, but what does this have to do with you?”
Great question! Over the past few years, we’ve helped a handful of our clients differentiate themselves not with products and services, but with their missions. Corporate responsibility and brand story started becoming central themes to their messaging. Community pages became entire sections, and impact messaging moved to the homepage.
And it was working.
Jump ahead to 2020 and a project meeting with an inspiring team of individuals we met in Boone, NC. These folks were all-in on the purpose-driven economy – they were early adaptors and thought leaders in the movement. It kicked off a very long conversation that has helped us to better understand this shift in business philosophy – one measured not only by dollars, but by the impact we can have on our our companies, communities, and society.
It encouraged us to consider our purpose, and what we were doing to make our impact. Could a small creative team make a impact? Or even a big impact?
We believe we can.