‘No longer a differentiator’: What does brand purpose look like in 2025?
Should brand purpose be reimagined as impact? Does a ‘post-purpose’ era lead to more ethical business? And the bigger question, are we really ‘post-purpose’ at all?
In a feature published at the end of 2023, Marketing Week wrote that “it seems inevitable purpose will evolve over the next few years into something quite different from what it has been.”
Well, last year certainly marked significant strides in that direction. ‘Post-purpose’ became the phrase du jour, with more than a few commentators firm in their belief that we have passed the peak of purpose-driven thinking.
Unilever’s announcement that it would stop ‘force-fitting’ purpose into its brands was arguably the straw that broke the camel’s back. Since then, numerous other brands have scaled back their own purpose-driven initiatives.
So, if 2023 was the year Unilever stepped off the bandwagon and 2024 saw others begin to follow suit, where does that leave us in 2025? Are we truly heading into a post-purpose world, or has the narrative been overstated? Does purpose still have a role in marketing today?
