Although there is a plethora of evidence to suggest that businesses competitive advantage of winning top talent is to embrace social purpose, Claremont's research report 'Purpose in Practice’ published in 2016, also highlights the risks of ‘purpose-washing'
What is Purpose Washing?
Where businesses inauthentically claim and promote a sense of purpose as a reputational tool to gain market share.
The Inauthenticity of Benetton or Not?
I initially saw the brand being well ahead of its time, starting before the term 'Corporate Social Responsibility' and 'Purpose Driven Business' was even understood and social media wasn't even born. Such controversy generated a number of emotional responses including courage, outrage and anger. The man behind this innovative approach was the photographer (some may say activist), Oliviero Toscani. What fascinated me was how the Benetton management team gave him total freedom to create and implement campaign direction. How often do you hear of such freedom in large corporate environments today? If you were part of the management team would you have seen this as too much of a risk or an opportunity to thrive?
To me, this suggests that the management at the time shared values with Toscani and felt that his voice resonated with the brand ethos. I was lucky enough to recently meet Toscani and I took the opportunity to ask him how he felt about Benetton today, his reaction was unexpected! He shared his disappointment about how a change of management has heavily invested in marketers who are spinning social awareness campaigns, exploiting the legacy that Toscani had originally seeded, it is certainly not what it used to be. He no longer felt the authenticity of Benetton really caring about social engagement. He suggests that this is strongly reflected in their declining profits. No matter how much I wanted to believe that Benetton were the die-hard activists of the corporate world, it seems that this has become just another brand made up of smoke and mirrors.
"There is no Benetton anymore"
Today it very much feels like the marketers are trying to recapture the essence of what the brand became famous for without the purpose being understood as both a mindset and a process across all levels of the business. You only have to look #UnitedByHalf and the WE programme launched earlier this year, yes women's empowerment is a very important issue to address, however when scratching beyond the surface there were fundamental things that just did not add up to me.
- All the spokespeople communicating this campaign were men, I did not see any key women represent the voice of other women.
- The focus and timing of the campaign were very much around the launch of Benetton's new menswear range.
Where is the Empowered Woman?
When looking at this is it did not really make sense to me why the conversation around women issues was aimed at men. I reached out to the Benetton management team to ask why, however, I received no response. So could it be that this is another case of purpose washing?
During my conversation with Oliviero Toscani, he really helped me to understand his purpose. It is a fundamental belief he holds that it is his responsibility to do what he can. He highlights that value goes way beyond economics, in fact, he suggests that marketing is taking the true value of humanity away from society that is holding us back from becoming a more civilised world.
"The world is ruled by marketing and is just producing things so we can buy and consume, so we are just seen as consumers. I don't think we as humans are just consumers we have got other kind of interests too."
Why does Toscani care about humanity?
Oliviero grew up in a generation heavily influenced by the individuals like Bob Dylan and Muhammed Ali and an age where people were fighting for civil rights and freedom of speech. Toscani strongly believes that humanity is a long way from being civilised and society has not yet solved the problem of freedom.
" A Rolex watch has the right to go around the world but the human being doesn't have it yet, that is how it is. We are not civilised, we are still on a long road to civilisation."
Oliviero's work spans way beyond the days of Benetton, his focus and message of the human condition is still a common theme throughout all his work, including his latest book 'Magnificent Faliures'
So what is the next step towards a civilised society? I asked, his philosophy was very much in line with the Dalai Lama, everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves the world would be a much more civilised place to live.
The one thing I take away from my conversation was that Oliviero Toscani has always carried a morality of care and focus throughout his whole career as an artist and this authenticity put Benetton on the map (for a while anyway), the question I now ask is if morality of care is possible to integrate within a business even when management change hands? Becoming a truly purpose-driven organisation has to be infused at all levels, having social engagement buy-in at the heart of why they do what they do.