Today more than ever consumers, investors, and even business owners find themselves asking how their company can make the world a better place. In this Feature Friday episode of the ROI Online Podcast, Steve talks with Chip Walker, brand strategist and author about why it’s so important for brands to have a purpose and use movement thinking to create powerful business operations.
Chip is a brand, business and cultural strategist, keynote speaker, and author of Activating Brand Purpose: How to Harness the Power of Movements to Transform Your Company. He has designed and developed groundbreaking market research and grown significant brand identities for some of the world's most iconic brands like PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, & Heineken.
Movement Thinking is centered around empathy and starts with the human. It also recognizes that the most significant change happens through cultural movements. Leaders like you can learn how this foundation can engage and mobilize the people that matter to your brand inside and out, no matter what your business enterprise may be like—even if you’re an artist working on a creative project!
Among other things, Chip and Steve discussed:
- Chip’s story and his role at StrawberryFrog Agency
- His new book: Activating Brand Purpose
- What exactly “Movement Thinking” means
- Why your brand needs a purpose
- 4 reasons to set your company purpose
- The purpose of leadership
- How to start a social movement
You can learn more about Chip here:
Follow Chip on LinkedIn
Send Chip an Email
Learn more about the Purpose Power Summit happening on June 15!
Purpose Power Summit 2021 — PURPOSE POWER INDEX
Read the books mentioned in this podcast:
The Golden Toilet by Steve Brown
Activating Brand Purpose by Chip Walker
Thinking of starting your own podcast? Buzzsprout’s secure and reliable posting allows you to publish podcasts online. Buzzsprout also includes full iTunes support, HTML5 players, show statistics, and WordPress plugins. Get started using this link to receive a $20 Amazon gift card and to help support our show!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Walker (00:03):
We did a very large scale study of American
consumers and ask them sort ofpoint blank of a list of
companies we had over 200. Whichof these do you see as being
driven by higher purpose BigPharma tended to be very low? We
did the first wave of the studyin 2019. Well, lo and behold,
the pandemic happened, we didthe study again in January of
(00:26):
2021. And guess what happened?
All the pharma companies likePfizer are way at the top of the
list, because all of a sudden,consumers started to see them as
having a lot that are motives ofhaving sort of been heroic in
the way that they went to bat totry to get a vaccine fast. Some
of them losing a lot of money,whatever it took, but their
(00:47):
motives appear to have been muchbetter. And I guess what that
that said to me is that I don'tthink that there are any bad
categories that you can be inwhere you know, purpose and
starting a movement are out ofreach for you. If Big Pharma can
do a 360, I think anyone can do360
Steve Brown (01:07):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the ROI onlinepodcast where we believe you,
the courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is the place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:30):
learn together.
Chip Walker, welcome to the ROIonline podcast.
Chip Walker (01:46):
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be
here.
Steve Brown (01:49):
So chip, you've got this new book we're going to
talk about today activate brandpurpose. And it's about movement
thinking it's about how leaderscan transform their company with
taking by connecting with humansand leading a movement. And so
(02:10):
you guys have done a lot ofstudy. You and Scott Goodson
have done a lot of study. Thisis a very in depth book. I'm
really excited to talk aboutthis. Where in the world, did
you When did you decide chip toplant your flag in this area?
Chip Walker (02:29):
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Scott Goodson, my
business partner, and I, we'vebeen working together for many
years and had been had aphilosophy that we call movement
marketing. And it really aboutusing the principles of societal
movements to help companies andbusinesses figure out how to get
people to change. So we had thatphilosophy for many years. But
(02:53):
what we noticed in the lastcouple of years was that
something was changing. And Idon't know if you've noticed the
same thing, Steve, is thatthere's been all this talk about
purpose, it seems to be thenumber one word on everybody's
mind, particularly businessleaders. And we had our existing
clients coming to us and a lotof new potential clients coming
to us saying, help us withpurpose, help us define purpose,
(03:15):
or probably even more often,we've been working with a
consultant or internal team,we've developed a purpose. Now,
what do we do? Or even evenworse, sometimes we developed a
purpose, once we develop ittwice, we develop it three
times, and nobody can figure outwhat to do with it. So what it
(03:36):
ends up being on the aboutsection of your website, maybe
it's a plaque on the wall, it'sa coffee cup, it's a T shirt,
and then six months later, it'sjust you know, still business as
usual. So we started to see thatthere was a burning need to be
able to activate your purpose.
And it was obvious to us thatthe way you do that is with a
movement, people cannot join apurpose, but they can join a
(04:00):
movement inspired by thepurpose. So what we were able
to, I think, help clients a lotwith is to reframe your purpose
in movement thinking terms, andall of a sudden, it starts to
become a lot more actionable.
You know, higher purpose is, byits nature, very lofty, if it's
(04:21):
going to be inspiring, it kindof needs to be way up in the
stratosphere, to really inspirepeople. But you know that that
just means that oftentimes it'sit's hard to act upon movement
thinking makes it actionable. Sothat, so we knew that that was
true. And we thought, Well, youknow, maybe we should write a
book about it. And that'sexactly what we did.
Steve Brown (04:39):
Well, I'm glad you did. I know you think about
that, why is it that it's comingto the forefront of these
leaders? Like I want to design aculture, I'm going to be more
deliberate and establish aculture but where do I start?
Where do I bring it from my whyis that where this purpose
starts to come from, and then Istart to That's a serious
(05:01):
question that I start to gigglebecause of the movie, the jerk
when, when Steve Martin, thecharacter in there keeps writing
home that his mom told him, heis going to figure out a special
purpose at some point. Andanyway, so it's a great movie.
And it's a funny little part,but he calls it his special
purpose. And he, he figures itout later on. But in real life,
(05:25):
we all are struggling to figureout what our real purpose is,
especially in a business whenwe're wanting to unite people
get them on the same page.
Chip Walker (05:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you mentioned culture anddeveloping culture. And we
really do feel I don't thinkwe're alone in feeling that
purpose is central to that. Itgives employees kind of a reason
to get up and go to work everyday, it's kind of a unifying
thought that gets all yourstakeholders on the same page.
(05:54):
You know, higher purpose usuallyinvolve some sort of an ethos or
belief system, that theleadership of the company feels
in important in the world. Andhopefully one that that
employees share that yourconcerns customers or consumers
share all your stakeholdersshare. So all of a sudden, when
you got a higher purpose,everybody starts singing out of
(06:15):
the same choir book. Yeah. Now,the issue is, though, how do you
activate it through theorganization? How do you get
everybody understanding it? Andnot being cynical about it? You
know, they're always naysayers.
So how you cascade it throughthe organization, that's kind of
(06:36):
a different conversation. But asI said, we think purpose is
central to culture building, andcertainly to culture change.
Well, it's
Steve Brown (06:45):
very clear in every great brand, and it's this, this
intangible thing that is justeverybody, it either connects
you with that brand, or itrepels you from that brand. And
it's very important. I wasreading an article here, I'm
going to read this quote, Ithink it's a beautiful quote.
(07:05):
But this term, you guys saymovement thinking, and I'm so
I'm gonna read it movementthinking is centered around
empathy and starts with thehuman. It also recognizes that
most significant change happensthrough cultural movements,
leaders can learn how thisfoundation can engage, and
(07:27):
mobilize the people that matterto your brand inside and out.
And despite the differencesbetween business enterprise and
art leaders can learn much fromhow cultural movements engage,
and inspire people applyingthose movement principles to
create powerful businessoperations. And it makes perfect
sense, but it's probably prettyhard to do.
Chip Walker (07:51):
Um, you know, maybe not as hard as you think. Let me
see if I can just break downmovement thinking for you,
because I know it can soundabstract like purpose, let me
break it down, but the way wethink about it, and then maybe
give you a concrete example.
Okay, so So as I said, movingthinking is about taking the
principles of successful socialmovements, like the women's
equality movement, or think ofany of them major successful
(08:13):
movements of recent years. So ittakes two principles behind
those and these principles arewell known. And it applies it to
other situations where you'dlike to see change. So what does
that mean? all successful socialmovements start with agreements.
So a grouse something that thestarters of the movement are
(08:35):
dissatisfied about in the world.
So if you think about, you know,the what we've seen recently,
the Black Lives Matter movement,or the metoo movement, you know,
it's very well known what thedissatisfactions are about those
it's treatment by the police or,you know, sexual harassment the
workplace but but in any othermovement that you know that
(08:58):
successful you always know,there's a there's a grouse, a
disagreement, there's also adesired change that you want to
see in the world, the worldwould be a better place, if
blank, the change we want to getto, that usually sets up an
enemy, what's the enemy standingin the way of that change? And
(09:18):
from there directly, you know,the stand that you have to take
to overcome the enemy. So let megive you an example. And I'll
give you an example in a verymundane category of banking,
just because I find that peopleusually it's easy to get, you
know, it's easy to imagine thisapplying to the me to movement,
but what about banking? So aclient of ours, or it wasn't
(09:40):
quite at the time a prospectiveclient came to us a few years
ago, it was SunTrust bank. Idon't know if you know that
bank. It's a large bank in thesoutheast and Mid Atlantic. And
they came to us sort of with asituation I was describing to
you where they had developed apurpose that they were very
proud of. But again, what do wedo now? The purpose was called
(10:01):
lighting the way to financialwell being. Which sounds
wonderful. But if you're ateller, what what what? What
does that mean? If you're a, youknow, a loan officer, what does
that mean? I think those werethose were the kind of issues if
you'd if you were a consumer,really what is what does that
(10:23):
mean? Yeah. So what we did is wewent out into culture, and you
mentioned culture and indescribing some some language
for our book to sort of seeokay, thinking about the way the
financial well being, what do weknow what's going on in the
world? What is itdissatisfaction that that we
have, that are wrong, that needsto be made? Right. And this was
right after the Great Recession.
So it's good five or six yearsback. And I think what we saw
(10:46):
and what the bank was kind ofupset about was that, you know,
you saw the statistic, probablythat some huge portion of the
United States populationcouldn't put together $400, in
case of emergency, right? Many,many people even I mean, we're
not talking about lower socioeconomic, only, even higher
(11:06):
socio economic folks had notreally recovered from the
recession, like huge proportionhad not recovered from the
recession, it was a very unevenrecovery, and people were
stressed, they were suffering.
And this seemed like somethingthat ought not to be. So we sort
(11:26):
of that the artist satisfactionwas was the fact that this kind
of stress exists out there, ourenemy became financial stress
caused by all of the vagaries ofthe the modern world. And the
the stand that we decided totake was to help instill, we
(11:47):
call it financial confidence. Sothat was the antidote to
financial stress. So we wantedto create a movement to create
greater financial confidence inthe American public. And the way
that we were going to do thatwas by financial education. So
we started a movement, and wecalled it on up which stands for
onward and upward, try to geteverybody to raise up. And it's
(12:09):
been a massive success forSunTrust. We have, at this
point, over 6 million peoplehave participated in it. And it
started internally at the bank,as a program to to educate their
employees, first, financialeducation for employees, you
(12:29):
know, budgeting, everything youwould need to know, to become
more financially confident, itwas a huge success with
employees. All of a sudden, theystarted to know what leading the
way to financial well, beingreally meant. It meant we're
going to help our customersbecome more financially
confident. And now we have thetools to do it. It was so
successful that SunTrustclients, their commercial
(12:53):
banking, clients, like DeltaAirlines began to ask them if
SunTrust would come and give thesame education to their
employees. And so we Yeah, andthen, you know, we've had the
program among customers. So as Isaid, it's been a huge success.
But that's just sort of exampleof the way that you take
movement thinking to sort ofinterpret this lofty purpose
into something that cangalvanize a bunch of people
(13:15):
around a shared cause, likefinancial competence. So yeah,
hopefully that example makessense. Oh, it does.
Steve Brown (13:21):
It's perfect. You explain it really well. When you
think about story and everystory, there has to be this
villain. Otherwise, there's noemotional cost in this story.
And so we're, we're disconnectedin it, it must be present, or at
least called out by the brand.
But oftentimes, I find thatbrands are too close to it. And
(13:44):
it's hard for them to identifythe obvious villain that they
originally started off to slay.
Chip Walker (13:54):
Or more a more often, though, that they decide
that the villain is the biggestcompetitor. Which, and I'm not
trying to say that yourcompetitor, understand your
vectors isn't important. It'sjust a lot of times when you do
that, you start to become lessrelevant to the ongoing, you
(14:16):
know, problems that people havein their everyday life when your
enemy is just, you know, the, asI said, Your biggest competitor,
having an enemy and culture wefind makes people care a lot
more.
Steve Brown (14:28):
Yeah, movement thinking that's an excellent,
you know, I also think aboutthere's a big segment that is
unbanked. And if you askyourself, why did these people
choose not to be not to have abanking account? Is they
perceive that the banks are nottrustworthy?
Chip Walker (14:48):
Yes, oh, well, I think it's a couple of things
there. There. There's perceivingthat they're not trustworthy,
but increasingly among youngpeople, there are just
alternatives, you don'tnecessarily need to have a
traditional bank. A lot of thethings that you used to rely on
a traditional bank for, you canget through some of the FinTech
(15:11):
apps that are out there. You canuse PayPal for payments. So it's
just not necessarily a asessential as it used to be to
have a big banking relationship,which is all the more reason
that a bank like like SunTrust,has got to, you know, have a
movement like on up. It'sinteresting, because SunTrust
(15:34):
just merged with another bankcalled bb&t, and they become a
new bank called truist tr UI St.
They're going to be I think thatmaybe the fifth largest bank in
the country at this point. Butthey've decided that their point
of difference is that they arethe purpose driven bank. And
we're working with them now tohelp them try to say what that
means. That's excellent.
Steve Brown (15:57):
I love that. So this movement thinking, you
know, how to leverage movementthinking to transform your
organization. So we identifythis villain. But then we also
have to empower What are what'sour solution? And how, why it
matters to our customers. Talkto us about that, that exercise
(16:21):
that you take them through.
Chip Walker (16:24):
Um, well, I mean, it just again, to key off of the
example I just gave you, andthen maybe I can give you
another example, just to makesure it's clear. But so you
know, the the villain wasfinancial stress that everyone
was feeling. And it became clearthat the antidote to that was
financial confidence. Andfinding the antidote, it's got
to be something that actuallyovercomes the, the, the dragon
(16:47):
that we want to slay the enemy.
Right, it's also got to besomething in the wheelhouse of
what the brand knows how to do.
Exactly. That's a big pitfallfor some of this movement
thinking, you've probably seenexamples of brands that get
involved in social issues, andit has nothing to do with with
what they do. Underlying.
Another example I can give youthat give people is usually
(17:07):
pretty easy for people to kindof wrap their minds around was
for an early client of ours, itwas called Smart, the smart car.
Are you familiar with that?
there? They looked like almostlike a little roller skate of a
car. They're very, very tiny.
Yeah, they're mainly just forfolks in urban areas. That's
what they were designed for,where there's like, no parking
and, and whatnot. So they cameto us, right, you know, before
(17:31):
the car had been launched, andwanted to do, I think marketing
a very different way. So with asmall, very fuel efficient car
like that, it would have beenvery easy to say, we're going to
be the green eco car that savesyou money, and makes makes
parking easier and things likethat. But I think we we sort of
saw that there was anopportunity for a movement that
(17:56):
would get people moreemotionally engaged with this
little car. So I think what webegan to see is that there's a
lot of dissatisfaction amongurbanites with sort of the kind
of overconsumption and waste incities and particularly around
things like people drivingaround giant SUVs, and giant
cars that are polluting andtaking up all the room and you
(18:17):
can't find a place to park. Andwhat's the point. And we saw
that there was sort of thechange in the world that that
the brand wanted to see was sortof to maybe to try to restore
the urban landscape to maybe amore pristine state the way it
was before we had all these bigSUVs. So the enemy that we came
up with for smart was reallykind of stupidly over consuming,
(18:38):
or were consuming when you don'thave to, why do you need an SUV
that size, which we sort ofshorthand at the enemy as dumb,
that's what we call it stupidlyover consuming. And the standard
we decided to just take was, wecalled Smart, more conscious
automotive consuming, which isexact car like smart, small,
goes anywhere, fuel efficient,you can park it anywhere, etc.
(19:02):
So the movement was calledagainst dumb, if you want to
know about it, that there's alot on it about it on the
internet. It's kind of a prettywell known case study. But
that's an example of where wecrafted the whole story around
things having to do withautomotive and a car, we didn't
go out and say, Oh, we want tomake this brand culturally
(19:24):
relevant. So why don't we attachourselves to I don't know,
women's pay issues or something.
And not that that's a bad issueor something, but it doesn't
really relate to what they do.
So anyway, to get back toanswering your question, it's,
it's important that it beculturally relevant. But it's
also important that it ties to abrand's like core competency.
Steve Brown (19:50):
Hey, I wanted to pause right here and tell you
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And guess who wrote it? That'sright. I wrote it. And I wrote
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(20:12):
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(20:34):
think. And now back to thisexcellent episode. Yeah, when
the wheelhouse so why is it justthat you think that that the
creative culture part of oursociety gets these these
concepts so fast? And why is itstruggle to make that
(20:55):
application work in the businessworld? For most people? Why does
it take someone like you to helpmerge this creative idea into a
business application?
Chip Walker (21:09):
Um, I just wanna make sure I understand following
you. So when you say is it? Youmean? I don't know. Could you
could you maybe reset?
Steve Brown (21:16):
Well, I just don't Sure. I always see the artsy
fartsy. Guys, they they get thisstuff, how to create a movement
and use art and culture andreally lead the way and then
then us business, folks, youknow, it takes us a while to
catch on before. Oh, there's anactual application from that
domain, that would work in thebusiness domain.
Chip Walker (21:39):
Right, right. Um, well, I guess I, I don't know if
this was your question. I hopeit will. But I guess I see us.
us in our agency. And I don'tknow if you feel the same way.
As a little bit of translators.
Steve Brown (21:53):
Yes. Because
Chip Walker (21:54):
there there are kind of the you need the highly
creative folks who are differentthinkers, you absolutely need
them. And a lot of times they'revery separate from the business.
But sometimes they can seethings that people close to
business do not. Right. So youneed that you also obviously,
you have clients and brands outthere with really practical
(22:16):
issues. And so I think one ofthe values, and one of the
reasons I don't think agencieslike ours, or yours will go away
is as I said, I think you needthat translator, sometimes
somebody to sort of make theconcentric circles of creativity
and practical use kind of cometogether, you know,
Steve Brown (22:34):
yeah, so that's what I love about your book, it
has all this, the studies andexamples that helped translate
it for the business mind on howto take advantage of the
concepts that that culture, andthat are in that great leaders
naturally get and implement intheir messaging, and their their
(22:57):
movements.
Chip Walker (22:58):
One of the things I wanted to point out to about the
book that we tried really hardto do, is that if you were any
of your viewers or listenershave read any books about
purpose or mission or anythinglike that, you'll probably start
to note that you see the sameexamples over and over and over
again, it's like dove is, youknow, you know, this the usual
(23:23):
suspects around purpose. And wewanted to not simply reference
those, we have a couple ofreference to brands like Rei
that are talked a lot about, butwe wanted to use very, very
different examples and alsocompanies of different sizes. So
we talked about some giantcompanies, some you wouldn't
expect like Verizon, which hasbecome quite purpose driven. A
(23:45):
lot of people don't don'trealize. We talk companies you
never heard of probably UnitedStates, like Mahindra is a big
Indian conglomerate. That is agreat case study. Again,
probably not an expected case toread about in a book with a lot
of American readers. We alsotalked to smaller companies
(24:08):
Boleyn branch is an example. Idon't know if you've ever heard
of them. They're a small makerof sort of luxury linens. That
is founder driven and very,very, very purpose driven. So
all sizes, different stripes,different industries, but sort
of not the usual suspects. Wethought that was important.
Steve Brown (24:27):
Excellent. So we're you're listening or you're
watching, we're talking withchip Walker. He's one of the co
authors of activate brandpurpose. He co authored it with
Scott Goodson and now chipalways like to ask I get asked
common questions all the time.
And so, these are importantquestions. They may seem
(24:50):
General, but I would love toknow your answers for these,
okay. And so, how to start asocial move. But it's an
important question.
Chip Walker (25:04):
Yeah, I'd say it's really three things. I'm
understanding what is the wrongout there in the world that
needs to be made right?
concerning you and your eitheryour enterprise or your
organization? Is there a wrongout there in the world that
needs to be made? Right? What isthe change you want to see in
the world as a result, and thenwhat is it your brand is
(25:26):
against, if you know those threethings in culture and society,
not simply in your category, ifyou know those three things that
will tell you what stands youneed to take. And and with that
in hand, you're, you're ready togo. It's as simple as that.
Steve Brown (25:44):
It is. And it's amazing what a competitive
advantage it gives youimmediately, because most, most
brands don't really sit andthink about that, do they?
Chip Walker (25:53):
Well, I don't even think of it as a competitive
advantage. I mean, one of thethings that we talk a lot about
is that you've got to get out ofcategory think all together to
do a movement. One of theadvantages of doing a movement
for a company or a brand, isthat it takes you into a
different world than yourcompetitors. So so you're you're
not just getting out of the box,you're getting out of this side
(26:17):
of the box, you're you'redealing in a competing a
culture, rather than just acategory, which is something
that I don't know, we find isbetter than competitive
differentiation.
Steve Brown (26:30):
I love that. That's excellent. And see, that was a
great example of business thinkcompetitive advantage. And when
you're, you're saying you needto move into the culture think
as well. I love that. Great.
Great. I love that. So how towrite a brand purpose. So we we
need to sit down and we need todefine what our special purpose
(26:50):
is. chipo hell.
Chip Walker (26:56):
Um, so, you know, so luckily, there are reams of
books on this subject. SometimesI feel like they may be
overcomplicate things, I dothink one of the best ones is
for by Simon Sinek. It's calledstart with why you may have
heard of it, it's very famous,very famous TED Talk, he has
(27:17):
some sort of a formula that Ifind often works, which is sort
of the purpose formula sort ofto blank. So that blank
Unknown (27:26):
to
Chip Walker (27:30):
start a an automotive revolution, so we
restore the, the urbanlandscape, smart car. So that
that's one way to do it. Havingsaid that, I really encourage
people not to get too too stuckin formulas, but rather think
about just the higher orderreason that they exist. Verizon
(27:52):
is a great example. We build theworld's networks, I'm sorry, we
build the networks that move theworld forward. So that kind of a
purpose sort of says what it isthat we do in the world that's
important and gives meaning toour work. So I think if you
think about that, why do weexist? You know, what, what
gives meaning to the stuff thatwe do every day? and put it in
(28:16):
whatever format? It makes youhappy? I think that that's
really it. I would worry lessabout format and more about
substance.
Steve Brown (28:23):
Excellent.
Excellent. So here's one's like,what are the four reasons to set
a company purpose?
Chip Walker (28:33):
Yeah, I'd say it is four things. One is that it gets
all of your stakeholders on thesame page. So often, you've got
employees, customers, consumers,could be shareholders. If you
have a shared purpose, all thearrows are moving in the same
(28:54):
direction. So that's one, two,it can make your employees more
engaged, it can give them ameaningful reason to want to get
up and go to work every day, itcan give you three more engaged
consumers, more and moreconsumers are saying they want
to do business and give theirmoney to a company that is
giving back and helping makesociety better not just taking
(29:14):
from society. Last one is notreally well known. But it's that
purpose can actually havesubstantial financial payoffs.
And this has been pretty welldocumented. There's, there's a
Harvard Business Review article,I think it was 2019. Couple of
sort of very well knownprofessors from Harvard Business
(29:35):
School did an in depth analysisof purpose driven companies and
found that there was not not allkinds of purpose driven
companies, but there was acertain kind of them that whose
financial results, theirfinancial pounds for them was
dramatically better. And so Ithink there's more and more
evidence to say that it's notjust good for society, it can
(29:59):
also be very good for Bottomline.
Steve Brown (30:01):
Excellent answer.
So just when we think ofleadership, there's a reason for
leadership, what's the purposeof leadership?
Chip Walker (30:13):
What is the purpose of leadership? I have never?
That's a good question. I don'tthink I've ever been asked that
before. Um, do you mean like ina company and in a nonprofit and
in any organization?
Steve Brown (30:26):
Well, if we're if we're implementing movement
thinking, it takes someone tolead this movement, it takes
someone to get folks to buy in.
But it's always kind of assumeda leadership value there. But I
think it needs to be stated. AndI'm your I know, you have this
excellent answer for this tip.
Chip Walker (30:50):
No pressure, right?
Um, well, I guess I can justtell you, the way I think of
leadership for my self, is thaton a day to day basis, I'm there
to help take care of my peopleso that we take care of our
clients. And on a larger level,I guess I'm here to try to make
a difference in communities. Andif I do my job, right, I'm
(31:14):
hoping for make people's lives alittle bit better. So I guess
that's how kind of how I thinkabout it. I
Steve Brown (31:24):
don't know if that answers your question. It seems
like an obvious answer. But Ithink it's excellent. You stated
excellent. And it's like, youneed to decide why you're here.
And what what change you'reyou're making in the world and
how you apply it in youreveryday activities with your
business or your organization.
Chip Walker (31:42):
Yeah, I think that's a big change that we see
with, you know, millennialmanagers coming up, is that
that's very important to them tothink that I'm not just coming
to work. And being a leader tomake better widgets. Yes, I'm
making better widgets, but it'sin service of something,
hopefully, bigger than that.
Steve Brown (32:04):
Yeah. Well said. So you were listening to chip
Walker, or you're watching chipWalker, he's a co author of
activate brand purpose, it's abook you need to read. I think
it's a great book that helps yoube a better leader, lead change
in an organization, change theworld in some way. So tip I
(32:25):
always like to ask is, you know,we have these conversations.
What's one question you'd loveto answer that I didn't ask you?
Or you never get asked?
Unknown (32:36):
Ah,
Chip Walker (32:39):
gosh, somebody asked me this the other day, and
I throw, I threw? Um, maybe?
Unknown (32:50):
Are there
Chip Walker (32:53):
some companies or industries where purpose and
movement really can't make adifference? Right, quite. Nobody
ever asked me that. But it'ssomething I think I've thought
about.
Steve Brown (33:08):
Well, I want to hear that. What is the answer?
Chip?
Unknown (33:12):
Um,
Chip Walker (33:17):
yeah. So the and the reason I think that's an
interesting question is that wedid a very large scale study of
American consumers and ask themsort of point blank of a list of
companies, and we had over 200,which of these do you see as
being driven by higher purpose?
And we started to see that, youknow, there are some companies
(33:38):
at the top, some in the middle,and some at the bottom and some
industries and categories.
Banking, for instance, tends tobe low. Yeah. Big Pharma tended
to be very low. We did the firstwave of the study in 2019. And
there were a lot of people whosaid, and we had, we've been in
(33:59):
talks with pharmaceuticalclients, who said, Look, it's
just inherent in our category,you know, this kind of purpose
stuff does not work for us. Wejust we need to talk to you
about symptoms and indicationsand all that kind of stuff.
Well, lo and behold, thepandemic happened. We did the
study again in January of 2021.
And guess what happened? All thepharma companies like Pfizer are
(34:23):
way at the top of the list,because all of a sudden,
consumers started to see them ashaving a lot better motives of
having sort of been heroic inthe way that they went to bat to
try to get a vaccine fast. Someof them losing a lot of money,
whatever it took, but they theirmotives appear to have been much
(34:44):
better. And I guess what thatthat said to me is that I don't
think that there are any badcategories that you can be in.
Where we're, you know, purposeand starting a movement are out
of reach for you. Big Pharma cando a 360. I think anyone can do
360.
Steve Brown (35:07):
Exactly. Do you find that certain companies have
to be a certain place in theirlife cycle before they really
start to think deeply toconsider this and how they can
improve? Their standing in away? I mean,
Chip Walker (35:27):
well, yeah, yes or no, I mean, I, I say yes, in the
sense that, you know, sometimescompanies are facing existential
issues, their supply chain hascollapsed, or, you know, the
various kind of disasterscenarios that can help. I mean,
(35:49):
in retail right now, I mean,there, there are many major
retailers struggling just tosurvive. In these instances,
higher purpose may not be thenumber one thing on your list
that you're thinking about,you've got to certainly, you
know, survival first, right. Buthaving said that, I think one of
the things that we've seen itand the research, I decided it
(36:10):
was interesting, in 2019, whenwe did this study, a lot of the
brands that rose to the top weresort of smaller, often purpose
born brands, brands, likeseventh generation, or method or
allbirds, everlane. So these arebrands that sort of came out of
the womb with a higher calling,and a lot of them smaller. And
(36:31):
all the questions we got werelike, what about bigger
companies? We never thoughtabout purpose, but we are now do
we not? Did you know are we sortof out. And lo and behold, this
year, we see many, much biggercompanies, including things
companies like Big Pharma, butcompanies like Clorox companies
like zoom, companies likeMicrosoft, that are bigger, and
(36:55):
that were not started as purposedriven companies, but have
really taken purpose to heart.
We've seen that they get creditfor it. So all that was to say
that I don't, I don't think youhave to be purpose born. And as
long as you're not, you know,fighting for existential
survival. I think that purposeand starting a movement can can
be of use wherever you are kindof in your your growth cycle.
Steve Brown (37:19):
You know, this past year and a half for us, chip has
been a difficult year, itrequired that our team come
together as a team, kind ofwatch each other's back and make
it through this downturn withoutlosing one of the team or having
to let them go. And I believethat having a purpose about what
(37:40):
we do was inherent in thesuccess of the bond. If you
think about when when things areburning down around you, you
have a fight or flight reaction.
And I think you stay in fightwhen it's clear what your
purpose for fighting is about.
Chip Walker (38:03):
Right. Now, I agree. It's that whole thing
about when you feel like thereis a meaningful reason that
you're getting up and going towork every day. I mean, sure, we
all want to make a paycheck. Butyou know, at some point, you
know, if work can just bedrudgery, but when you feel a
solidarity with your colleagues,and the leadership of your
(38:25):
company around trying to dosomething more meaningful.
There, there's research fromGallup, that proves that it
increases employee engagement,retention, loyalty, all of those
things.
Steve Brown (38:39):
Excellent. This been a great conversation. Chip.
what's what's the future holdfor you guys?
Chip Walker (38:48):
The I'll tell you what the immediate future holds
is that and I hope you don'tmind, I'll do a little bit of a
commercial. We're, we're holdinga virtual event. We're calling
it the purpose power summit. Youknow, I mentioned this large
scale study we did that was inJanuary, q1 of 2021. We're
announcing the results. I mean,what are the most purpose driven
(39:10):
brands out there? We're going tobe announced that, but I think
more importantly, we've got awide range of speakers and
panelists who are joining us.
We've got the CEO of horizon,Hans westberg, who's going to
speak we've got AriannaHuffington. I don't know if you
know her. She's the HuffingtonPost. She's going to speak.
She's the CEO of Thrive global.
(39:30):
We have the chief marketingofficers of some major companies
like next door and Prudentialwho are speaking. So a really
stellar lineup that we were sopleased to be able to get get
this lineup. I think there are alot of people who are interested
in talking about purpose rightnow, just as we're kind of
coming out of the pandemic. Sostellar lineup of speakers, if
(39:52):
anybody's interested, if theyjust go to WWW dot purpose power
summit.com. You can find outmore about it. If you want to
know more from me, just shoot mea note at chip at strawberry
frog calm,
Steve Brown (40:05):
strawberry for frog. What's the thinking behind
the name? Strawberry frog? Wheredoes that come from?
Unknown (40:12):
Yeah.
Chip Walker (40:15):
I think when the agency was formed, I think the
notion was that the the dominantagencies were these gigantic
holding companies and to a URIstill, that still is like the
norm, which a lot of clientshave a lot of issues with, but
there weren't a lot of otheroptions. So we had this notion
(40:36):
of the dinosaur, which is kindof how we thought of the the
large holding companies. And wethought, Well, what is the
antithesis of that? And wethought, well, frogs, the kind
of frogs that can leap aroundfrom problem to problem is agile
is fast. And it turns out thatthere actually is a frog called
(40:57):
the strawberry frog. It is fromthe Amazon. It is red and green.
And it is actually poisonous,believe it or not, but it's so
it's very powerful. But for thatreason, you know, we have this
whole lore of like, you know,dinosaur versus frog and all the
reasons you'd rather you'drather go with the frog than the
dinosaur. So that's kind of theorigin of the name.
Steve Brown (41:18):
Yeah, I love the origin story. So you've been
listening to a greatconversation with chip Walker,
strawberry frog is their agency.
He co authored a book with ScottGoodson, activate brand,
purpose, Chip, any other place,they should connect you and get
to book on Amazon, Kindle,Audible, anything like that?
Chip Walker (41:40):
Yes, you can buy it on any of the major book
retailer websites right now. Imean, Amazon is probably the one
that most people know. If youwant to go directly to the art
books website. It's justactivate brand purpose calm.
Yeah, we're through it throughour publisher. It's called Kogan
(42:01):
page. You can buy it there too.
But I think Amazon is, you know,really where most people are
probably buying it.
Steve Brown (42:06):
All right, and the name of the conference again,
that they can sign up for.
Chip Walker (42:11):
It's called the purpose power summit, and it's
taking place in June 15.
Registration is free. As I said,if you are interested in more
either just shoot me an email,probably the easiest thing get a
chip at strawberry frog calm.
Steve Brown (42:25):
All right, Chip.
Thanks for being an awesomeguest on the ROI online podcast.
Chip Walker (42:31):
Thank you so much, Steve, for having me. It's
Steve Brown (42:33):
been a lot of fun.
All right, and that's a wrap.
Thanks for listening to anotherfun episode of the ROI online
podcast. For more, be sure tocheck out the show notes of this
episode. And feel free toconnect with me on LinkedIn
where we can chat, and I canhelp direct you to the resources
you're searching for. To learnmore about how you can grow your
(42:55):
business better. Be sure to pickup your copy of my book, The
Golden toilet add, surprise,that golden toilet.com I'm Steve
Brown, and we'll see you nextweek on another fun episode of
the ROI online podcast.
We did a very large scale study of American
consumers and ask them sort ofpoint blank of a list of
companies we had over 200. Whichof these do you see as being
driven by higher purpose BigPharma tended to be very low? We
did the first wave of the studyin 2019. Well, lo and behold,
the pandemic happened, we didthe study again in January of
(00:26):
2021. And guess what happened?
All the pharma companies likePfizer are way at the top of the
list, because all of a sudden,consumers started to see them as
having a lot that are motives ofhaving sort of been heroic in
the way that they went to bat totry to get a vaccine fast. Some
of them losing a lot of money,whatever it took, but their
(00:47):
motives appear to have been muchbetter. And I guess what that
that said to me is that I don'tthink that there are any bad
categories that you can be inwhere you know, purpose and
starting a movement are out ofreach for you. If Big Pharma can
do a 360, I think anyone can do360
Steve Brown (01:07):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the ROI onlinepodcast where we believe you,
the courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is the place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:30):
learn together.
Chip Walker, welcome to the ROIonline podcast.
Chip Walker (01:46):
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be
here.
Steve Brown (01:49):
So chip, you've got this new book we're going to
talk about today activate brandpurpose. And it's about movement
thinking it's about how leaderscan transform their company with
taking by connecting with humansand leading a movement. And so
(02:10):
you guys have done a lot ofstudy. You and Scott Goodson
have done a lot of study. Thisis a very in depth book. I'm
really excited to talk aboutthis. Where in the world, did
you When did you decide chip toplant your flag in this area?
Chip Walker (02:29):
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Scott Goodson, my
business partner, and I, we'vebeen working together for many
years and had been had aphilosophy that we call movement
marketing. And it really aboutusing the principles of societal
movements to help companies andbusinesses figure out how to get
people to change. So we had thatphilosophy for many years. But
(02:53):
what we noticed in the lastcouple of years was that
something was changing. And Idon't know if you've noticed the
same thing, Steve, is thatthere's been all this talk about
purpose, it seems to be thenumber one word on everybody's
mind, particularly businessleaders. And we had our existing
clients coming to us and a lotof new potential clients coming
to us saying, help us withpurpose, help us define purpose,
(03:15):
or probably even more often,we've been working with a
consultant or internal team,we've developed a purpose. Now,
what do we do? Or even evenworse, sometimes we developed a
purpose, once we develop ittwice, we develop it three
times, and nobody can figure outwhat to do with it. So what it
(03:36):
ends up being on the aboutsection of your website, maybe
it's a plaque on the wall, it'sa coffee cup, it's a T shirt,
and then six months later, it'sjust you know, still business as
usual. So we started to see thatthere was a burning need to be
able to activate your purpose.
And it was obvious to us thatthe way you do that is with a
movement, people cannot join apurpose, but they can join a
(04:00):
movement inspired by thepurpose. So what we were able
to, I think, help clients a lotwith is to reframe your purpose
in movement thinking terms, andall of a sudden, it starts to
become a lot more actionable.
You know, higher purpose is, byits nature, very lofty, if it's
(04:21):
going to be inspiring, it kindof needs to be way up in the
stratosphere, to really inspirepeople. But you know that that
just means that oftentimes it'sit's hard to act upon movement
thinking makes it actionable. Sothat, so we knew that that was
true. And we thought, Well, youknow, maybe we should write a
book about it. And that'sexactly what we did.
Steve Brown (04:39):
Well, I'm glad you did. I know you think about
that, why is it that it's comingto the forefront of these
leaders? Like I want to design aculture, I'm going to be more
deliberate and establish aculture but where do I start?
Where do I bring it from my whyis that where this purpose
starts to come from, and then Istart to That's a serious
(05:01):
question that I start to gigglebecause of the movie, the jerk
when, when Steve Martin, thecharacter in there keeps writing
home that his mom told him, heis going to figure out a special
purpose at some point. Andanyway, so it's a great movie.
And it's a funny little part,but he calls it his special
purpose. And he, he figures itout later on. But in real life,
(05:25):
we all are struggling to figureout what our real purpose is,
especially in a business whenwe're wanting to unite people
get them on the same page.
Chip Walker (05:34):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you mentioned culture anddeveloping culture. And we
really do feel I don't thinkwe're alone in feeling that
purpose is central to that. Itgives employees kind of a reason
to get up and go to work everyday, it's kind of a unifying
thought that gets all yourstakeholders on the same page.
(05:54):
You know, higher purpose usuallyinvolve some sort of an ethos or
belief system, that theleadership of the company feels
in important in the world. Andhopefully one that that
employees share that yourconcerns customers or consumers
share all your stakeholdersshare. So all of a sudden, when
you got a higher purpose,everybody starts singing out of
(06:15):
the same choir book. Yeah. Now,the issue is, though, how do you
activate it through theorganization? How do you get
everybody understanding it? Andnot being cynical about it? You
know, they're always naysayers.
So how you cascade it throughthe organization, that's kind of
(06:36):
a different conversation. But asI said, we think purpose is
central to culture building, andcertainly to culture change.
Well, it's
Steve Brown (06:45):
very clear in every great brand, and it's this, this
intangible thing that is justeverybody, it either connects
you with that brand, or itrepels you from that brand. And
it's very important. I wasreading an article here, I'm
going to read this quote, Ithink it's a beautiful quote.
(07:05):
But this term, you guys saymovement thinking, and I'm so
I'm gonna read it movementthinking is centered around
empathy and starts with thehuman. It also recognizes that
most significant change happensthrough cultural movements,
leaders can learn how thisfoundation can engage, and
(07:27):
mobilize the people that matterto your brand inside and out.
And despite the differencesbetween business enterprise and
art leaders can learn much fromhow cultural movements engage,
and inspire people applyingthose movement principles to
create powerful businessoperations. And it makes perfect
sense, but it's probably prettyhard to do.
Chip Walker (07:51):
Um, you know, maybe not as hard as you think. Let me
see if I can just break downmovement thinking for you,
because I know it can soundabstract like purpose, let me
break it down, but the way wethink about it, and then maybe
give you a concrete example.
Okay, so So as I said, movingthinking is about taking the
principles of successful socialmovements, like the women's
equality movement, or think ofany of them major successful
(08:13):
movements of recent years. So ittakes two principles behind
those and these principles arewell known. And it applies it to
other situations where you'dlike to see change. So what does
that mean? all successful socialmovements start with agreements.
So a grouse something that thestarters of the movement are
(08:35):
dissatisfied about in the world.
So if you think about, you know,the what we've seen recently,
the Black Lives Matter movement,or the metoo movement, you know,
it's very well known what thedissatisfactions are about those
it's treatment by the police or,you know, sexual harassment the
workplace but but in any othermovement that you know that
(08:58):
successful you always know,there's a there's a grouse, a
disagreement, there's also adesired change that you want to
see in the world, the worldwould be a better place, if
blank, the change we want to getto, that usually sets up an
enemy, what's the enemy standingin the way of that change? And
(09:18):
from there directly, you know,the stand that you have to take
to overcome the enemy. So let megive you an example. And I'll
give you an example in a verymundane category of banking,
just because I find that peopleusually it's easy to get, you
know, it's easy to imagine thisapplying to the me to movement,
but what about banking? So aclient of ours, or it wasn't
(09:40):
quite at the time a prospectiveclient came to us a few years
ago, it was SunTrust bank. Idon't know if you know that
bank. It's a large bank in thesoutheast and Mid Atlantic. And
they came to us sort of with asituation I was describing to
you where they had developed apurpose that they were very
proud of. But again, what do wedo now? The purpose was called
(10:01):
lighting the way to financialwell being. Which sounds
wonderful. But if you're ateller, what what what? What
does that mean? If you're a, youknow, a loan officer, what does
that mean? I think those werethose were the kind of issues if
you'd if you were a consumer,really what is what does that
(10:23):
mean? Yeah. So what we did is wewent out into culture, and you
mentioned culture and indescribing some some language
for our book to sort of seeokay, thinking about the way the
financial well being, what do weknow what's going on in the
world? What is itdissatisfaction that that we
have, that are wrong, that needsto be made? Right. And this was
right after the Great Recession.
So it's good five or six yearsback. And I think what we saw
(10:46):
and what the bank was kind ofupset about was that, you know,
you saw the statistic, probablythat some huge portion of the
United States populationcouldn't put together $400, in
case of emergency, right? Many,many people even I mean, we're
not talking about lower socioeconomic, only, even higher
(11:06):
socio economic folks had notreally recovered from the
recession, like huge proportionhad not recovered from the
recession, it was a very unevenrecovery, and people were
stressed, they were suffering.
And this seemed like somethingthat ought not to be. So we sort
(11:26):
of that the artist satisfactionwas was the fact that this kind
of stress exists out there, ourenemy became financial stress
caused by all of the vagaries ofthe the modern world. And the
the stand that we decided totake was to help instill, we
(11:47):
call it financial confidence. Sothat was the antidote to
financial stress. So we wantedto create a movement to create
greater financial confidence inthe American public. And the way
that we were going to do thatwas by financial education. So
we started a movement, and wecalled it on up which stands for
onward and upward, try to geteverybody to raise up. And it's
(12:09):
been a massive success forSunTrust. We have, at this
point, over 6 million peoplehave participated in it. And it
started internally at the bank,as a program to to educate their
employees, first, financialeducation for employees, you
(12:29):
know, budgeting, everything youwould need to know, to become
more financially confident, itwas a huge success with
employees. All of a sudden, theystarted to know what leading the
way to financial well, beingreally meant. It meant we're
going to help our customersbecome more financially
confident. And now we have thetools to do it. It was so
successful that SunTrustclients, their commercial
(12:53):
banking, clients, like DeltaAirlines began to ask them if
SunTrust would come and give thesame education to their
employees. And so we Yeah, andthen, you know, we've had the
program among customers. So as Isaid, it's been a huge success.
But that's just sort of exampleof the way that you take
movement thinking to sort ofinterpret this lofty purpose
into something that cangalvanize a bunch of people
(13:15):
around a shared cause, likefinancial competence. So yeah,
hopefully that example makessense. Oh, it does.
Steve Brown (13:21):
It's perfect. You explain it really well. When you
think about story and everystory, there has to be this
villain. Otherwise, there's noemotional cost in this story.
And so we're, we're disconnectedin it, it must be present, or at
least called out by the brand.
But oftentimes, I find thatbrands are too close to it. And
(13:44):
it's hard for them to identifythe obvious villain that they
originally started off to slay.
Chip Walker (13:54):
Or more a more often, though, that they decide
that the villain is the biggestcompetitor. Which, and I'm not
trying to say that yourcompetitor, understand your
vectors isn't important. It'sjust a lot of times when you do
that, you start to become lessrelevant to the ongoing, you
(14:16):
know, problems that people havein their everyday life when your
enemy is just, you know, the, asI said, Your biggest competitor,
having an enemy and culture wefind makes people care a lot
more.
Steve Brown (14:28):
Yeah, movement thinking that's an excellent,
you know, I also think aboutthere's a big segment that is
unbanked. And if you askyourself, why did these people
choose not to be not to have abanking account? Is they
perceive that the banks are nottrustworthy?
Chip Walker (14:48):
Yes, oh, well, I think it's a couple of things
there. There. There's perceivingthat they're not trustworthy,
but increasingly among youngpeople, there are just
alternatives, you don'tnecessarily need to have a
traditional bank. A lot of thethings that you used to rely on
a traditional bank for, you canget through some of the FinTech
(15:11):
apps that are out there. You canuse PayPal for payments. So it's
just not necessarily a asessential as it used to be to
have a big banking relationship,which is all the more reason
that a bank like like SunTrust,has got to, you know, have a
movement like on up. It'sinteresting, because SunTrust
(15:34):
just merged with another bankcalled bb&t, and they become a
new bank called truist tr UI St.
They're going to be I think thatmaybe the fifth largest bank in
the country at this point. Butthey've decided that their point
of difference is that they arethe purpose driven bank. And
we're working with them now tohelp them try to say what that
means. That's excellent.
Steve Brown (15:57):
I love that. So this movement thinking, you
know, how to leverage movementthinking to transform your
organization. So we identifythis villain. But then we also
have to empower What are what'sour solution? And how, why it
matters to our customers. Talkto us about that, that exercise
(16:21):
that you take them through.
Chip Walker (16:24):
Um, well, I mean, it just again, to key off of the
example I just gave you, andthen maybe I can give you
another example, just to makesure it's clear. But so you
know, the the villain wasfinancial stress that everyone
was feeling. And it became clearthat the antidote to that was
financial confidence. Andfinding the antidote, it's got
to be something that actuallyovercomes the, the, the dragon
(16:47):
that we want to slay the enemy.
Right, it's also got to besomething in the wheelhouse of
what the brand knows how to do.
Exactly. That's a big pitfallfor some of this movement
thinking, you've probably seenexamples of brands that get
involved in social issues, andit has nothing to do with with
what they do. Underlying.
Another example I can give youthat give people is usually
(17:07):
pretty easy for people to kindof wrap their minds around was
for an early client of ours, itwas called Smart, the smart car.
Are you familiar with that?
there? They looked like almostlike a little roller skate of a
car. They're very, very tiny.
Yeah, they're mainly just forfolks in urban areas. That's
what they were designed for,where there's like, no parking
and, and whatnot. So they cameto us, right, you know, before
(17:31):
the car had been launched, andwanted to do, I think marketing
a very different way. So with asmall, very fuel efficient car
like that, it would have beenvery easy to say, we're going to
be the green eco car that savesyou money, and makes makes
parking easier and things likethat. But I think we we sort of
saw that there was anopportunity for a movement that
(17:56):
would get people moreemotionally engaged with this
little car. So I think what webegan to see is that there's a
lot of dissatisfaction amongurbanites with sort of the kind
of overconsumption and waste incities and particularly around
things like people drivingaround giant SUVs, and giant
cars that are polluting andtaking up all the room and you
(18:17):
can't find a place to park. Andwhat's the point. And we saw
that there was sort of thechange in the world that that
the brand wanted to see was sortof to maybe to try to restore
the urban landscape to maybe amore pristine state the way it
was before we had all these bigSUVs. So the enemy that we came
up with for smart was reallykind of stupidly over consuming,
(18:38):
or were consuming when you don'thave to, why do you need an SUV
that size, which we sort ofshorthand at the enemy as dumb,
that's what we call it stupidlyover consuming. And the standard
we decided to just take was, wecalled Smart, more conscious
automotive consuming, which isexact car like smart, small,
goes anywhere, fuel efficient,you can park it anywhere, etc.
(19:02):
So the movement was calledagainst dumb, if you want to
know about it, that there's alot on it about it on the
internet. It's kind of a prettywell known case study. But
that's an example of where wecrafted the whole story around
things having to do withautomotive and a car, we didn't
go out and say, Oh, we want tomake this brand culturally
(19:24):
relevant. So why don't we attachourselves to I don't know,
women's pay issues or something.
And not that that's a bad issueor something, but it doesn't
really relate to what they do.
So anyway, to get back toanswering your question, it's,
it's important that it beculturally relevant. But it's
also important that it ties to abrand's like core competency.
Steve Brown (19:50):
Hey, I wanted to pause right here and tell you
about a book that you need toget today. It's the funniest
book on marketing. It's calledthe Golden toy. Let's start
flushing your marketing budgetinto your website and build a
system that grows your business.
And guess who wrote it? That'sright. I wrote it. And I wrote
it just for you. Because I wantto help you get past the last
(20:12):
hurdles of setting up yourbusiness and getting it squared
away. I wrote it so that you canavoid time wasting time wasting
money, wasting frustration, getthe book on Audible, you can get
it on Kindle. You can get it onAmazon, but get the book take
advantage of the insights inthere. And let me know what you
(20:34):
think. And now back to thisexcellent episode. Yeah, when
the wheelhouse so why is it justthat you think that that the
creative culture part of oursociety gets these these
concepts so fast? And why is itstruggle to make that
(20:55):
application work in the businessworld? For most people? Why does
it take someone like you to helpmerge this creative idea into a
business application?
Chip Walker (21:09):
Um, I just wanna make sure I understand following
you. So when you say is it? Youmean? I don't know. Could you
could you maybe reset?
Steve Brown (21:16):
Well, I just don't Sure. I always see the artsy
fartsy. Guys, they they get thisstuff, how to create a movement
and use art and culture andreally lead the way and then
then us business, folks, youknow, it takes us a while to
catch on before. Oh, there's anactual application from that
domain, that would work in thebusiness domain.
Chip Walker (21:39):
Right, right. Um, well, I guess I, I don't know if
this was your question. I hopeit will. But I guess I see us.
us in our agency. And I don'tknow if you feel the same way.
As a little bit of translators.
Steve Brown (21:53):
Yes. Because
Chip Walker (21:54):
there there are kind of the you need the highly
creative folks who are differentthinkers, you absolutely need
them. And a lot of times they'revery separate from the business.
But sometimes they can seethings that people close to
business do not. Right. So youneed that you also obviously,
you have clients and brands outthere with really practical
(22:16):
issues. And so I think one ofthe values, and one of the
reasons I don't think agencieslike ours, or yours will go away
is as I said, I think you needthat translator, sometimes
somebody to sort of make theconcentric circles of creativity
and practical use kind of cometogether, you know,
Steve Brown (22:34):
yeah, so that's what I love about your book, it
has all this, the studies andexamples that helped translate
it for the business mind on howto take advantage of the
concepts that that culture, andthat are in that great leaders
naturally get and implement intheir messaging, and their their
(22:57):
movements.
Chip Walker (22:58):
One of the things I wanted to point out to about the
book that we tried really hardto do, is that if you were any
of your viewers or listenershave read any books about
purpose or mission or anythinglike that, you'll probably start
to note that you see the sameexamples over and over and over
again, it's like dove is, youknow, you know, this the usual
(23:23):
suspects around purpose. And wewanted to not simply reference
those, we have a couple ofreference to brands like Rei
that are talked a lot about, butwe wanted to use very, very
different examples and alsocompanies of different sizes. So
we talked about some giantcompanies, some you wouldn't
expect like Verizon, which hasbecome quite purpose driven. A
(23:45):
lot of people don't don'trealize. We talk companies you
never heard of probably UnitedStates, like Mahindra is a big
Indian conglomerate. That is agreat case study. Again,
probably not an expected case toread about in a book with a lot
of American readers. We alsotalked to smaller companies
(24:08):
Boleyn branch is an example. Idon't know if you've ever heard
of them. They're a small makerof sort of luxury linens. That
is founder driven and very,very, very purpose driven. So
all sizes, different stripes,different industries, but sort
of not the usual suspects. Wethought that was important.
Steve Brown (24:27):
Excellent. So we're you're listening or you're
watching, we're talking withchip Walker. He's one of the co
authors of activate brandpurpose. He co authored it with
Scott Goodson and now chipalways like to ask I get asked
common questions all the time.
And so, these are importantquestions. They may seem
(24:50):
General, but I would love toknow your answers for these,
okay. And so, how to start asocial move. But it's an
important question.
Chip Walker (25:04):
Yeah, I'd say it's really three things. I'm
understanding what is the wrongout there in the world that
needs to be made right?
concerning you and your eitheryour enterprise or your
organization? Is there a wrongout there in the world that
needs to be made? Right? What isthe change you want to see in
the world as a result, and thenwhat is it your brand is
(25:26):
against, if you know those threethings in culture and society,
not simply in your category, ifyou know those three things that
will tell you what stands youneed to take. And and with that
in hand, you're, you're ready togo. It's as simple as that.
Steve Brown (25:44):
It is. And it's amazing what a competitive
advantage it gives youimmediately, because most, most
brands don't really sit andthink about that, do they?
Chip Walker (25:53):
Well, I don't even think of it as a competitive
advantage. I mean, one of thethings that we talk a lot about
is that you've got to get out ofcategory think all together to
do a movement. One of theadvantages of doing a movement
for a company or a brand, isthat it takes you into a
different world than yourcompetitors. So so you're you're
not just getting out of the box,you're getting out of this side
(26:17):
of the box, you're you'redealing in a competing a
culture, rather than just acategory, which is something
that I don't know, we find isbetter than competitive
differentiation.
Steve Brown (26:30):
I love that. That's excellent. And see, that was a
great example of business thinkcompetitive advantage. And when
you're, you're saying you needto move into the culture think
as well. I love that. Great.
Great. I love that. So how towrite a brand purpose. So we we
need to sit down and we need todefine what our special purpose
(26:50):
is. chipo hell.
Chip Walker (26:56):
Um, so, you know, so luckily, there are reams of
books on this subject. SometimesI feel like they may be
overcomplicate things, I dothink one of the best ones is
for by Simon Sinek. It's calledstart with why you may have
heard of it, it's very famous,very famous TED Talk, he has
(27:17):
some sort of a formula that Ifind often works, which is sort
of the purpose formula sort ofto blank. So that blank
Unknown (27:26):
to
Chip Walker (27:30):
start a an automotive revolution, so we
restore the, the urbanlandscape, smart car. So that
that's one way to do it. Havingsaid that, I really encourage
people not to get too too stuckin formulas, but rather think
about just the higher orderreason that they exist. Verizon
(27:52):
is a great example. We build theworld's networks, I'm sorry, we
build the networks that move theworld forward. So that kind of a
purpose sort of says what it isthat we do in the world that's
important and gives meaning toour work. So I think if you
think about that, why do weexist? You know, what, what
gives meaning to the stuff thatwe do every day? and put it in
(28:16):
whatever format? It makes youhappy? I think that that's
really it. I would worry lessabout format and more about
substance.
Steve Brown (28:23):
Excellent.
Excellent. So here's one's like,what are the four reasons to set
a company purpose?
Chip Walker (28:33):
Yeah, I'd say it is four things. One is that it gets
all of your stakeholders on thesame page. So often, you've got
employees, customers, consumers,could be shareholders. If you
have a shared purpose, all thearrows are moving in the same
(28:54):
direction. So that's one, two,it can make your employees more
engaged, it can give them ameaningful reason to want to get
up and go to work every day, itcan give you three more engaged
consumers, more and moreconsumers are saying they want
to do business and give theirmoney to a company that is
giving back and helping makesociety better not just taking
(29:14):
from society. Last one is notreally well known. But it's that
purpose can actually havesubstantial financial payoffs.
And this has been pretty welldocumented. There's, there's a
Harvard Business Review article,I think it was 2019. Couple of
sort of very well knownprofessors from Harvard Business
(29:35):
School did an in depth analysisof purpose driven companies and
found that there was not not allkinds of purpose driven
companies, but there was acertain kind of them that whose
financial results, theirfinancial pounds for them was
dramatically better. And so Ithink there's more and more
evidence to say that it's notjust good for society, it can
(29:59):
also be very good for Bottomline.
Steve Brown (30:01):
Excellent answer.
So just when we think ofleadership, there's a reason for
leadership, what's the purposeof leadership?
Chip Walker (30:13):
What is the purpose of leadership? I have never?
That's a good question. I don'tthink I've ever been asked that
before. Um, do you mean like ina company and in a nonprofit and
in any organization?
Steve Brown (30:26):
Well, if we're if we're implementing movement
thinking, it takes someone tolead this movement, it takes
someone to get folks to buy in.
But it's always kind of assumeda leadership value there. But I
think it needs to be stated. AndI'm your I know, you have this
excellent answer for this tip.
Chip Walker (30:50):
No pressure, right?
Um, well, I guess I can justtell you, the way I think of
leadership for my self, is thaton a day to day basis, I'm there
to help take care of my peopleso that we take care of our
clients. And on a larger level,I guess I'm here to try to make
a difference in communities. Andif I do my job, right, I'm
(31:14):
hoping for make people's lives alittle bit better. So I guess
that's how kind of how I thinkabout it. I
Steve Brown (31:24):
don't know if that answers your question. It seems
like an obvious answer. But Ithink it's excellent. You stated
excellent. And it's like, youneed to decide why you're here.
And what what change you'reyou're making in the world and
how you apply it in youreveryday activities with your
business or your organization.
Chip Walker (31:42):
Yeah, I think that's a big change that we see
with, you know, millennialmanagers coming up, is that
that's very important to them tothink that I'm not just coming
to work. And being a leader tomake better widgets. Yes, I'm
making better widgets, but it'sin service of something,
hopefully, bigger than that.
Steve Brown (32:04):
Yeah. Well said. So you were listening to chip
Walker, or you're watching chipWalker, he's a co author of
activate brand purpose, it's abook you need to read. I think
it's a great book that helps yoube a better leader, lead change
in an organization, change theworld in some way. So tip I
(32:25):
always like to ask is, you know,we have these conversations.
What's one question you'd loveto answer that I didn't ask you?
Or you never get asked?
Unknown (32:36):
Ah,
Chip Walker (32:39):
gosh, somebody asked me this the other day, and
I throw, I threw? Um, maybe?
Unknown (32:50):
Are there
Chip Walker (32:53):
some companies or industries where purpose and
movement really can't make adifference? Right, quite. Nobody
ever asked me that. But it'ssomething I think I've thought
about.
Steve Brown (33:08):
Well, I want to hear that. What is the answer?
Chip?
Unknown (33:12):
Um,
Chip Walker (33:17):
yeah. So the and the reason I think that's an
interesting question is that wedid a very large scale study of
American consumers and ask themsort of point blank of a list of
companies, and we had over 200,which of these do you see as
being driven by higher purpose?
And we started to see that, youknow, there are some companies
(33:38):
at the top, some in the middle,and some at the bottom and some
industries and categories.
Banking, for instance, tends tobe low. Yeah. Big Pharma tended
to be very low. We did the firstwave of the study in 2019. And
there were a lot of people whosaid, and we had, we've been in
(33:59):
talks with pharmaceuticalclients, who said, Look, it's
just inherent in our category,you know, this kind of purpose
stuff does not work for us. Wejust we need to talk to you
about symptoms and indicationsand all that kind of stuff.
Well, lo and behold, thepandemic happened. We did the
study again in January of 2021.
And guess what happened? All thepharma companies like Pfizer are
(34:23):
way at the top of the list,because all of a sudden,
consumers started to see them ashaving a lot better motives of
having sort of been heroic inthe way that they went to bat to
try to get a vaccine fast. Someof them losing a lot of money,
whatever it took, but they theirmotives appear to have been much
(34:44):
better. And I guess what thatthat said to me is that I don't
think that there are any badcategories that you can be in.
Where we're, you know, purposeand starting a movement are out
of reach for you. Big Pharma cando a 360. I think anyone can do
360.
Steve Brown (35:07):
Exactly. Do you find that certain companies have
to be a certain place in theirlife cycle before they really
start to think deeply toconsider this and how they can
improve? Their standing in away? I mean,
Chip Walker (35:27):
well, yeah, yes or no, I mean, I, I say yes, in the
sense that, you know, sometimescompanies are facing existential
issues, their supply chain hascollapsed, or, you know, the
various kind of disasterscenarios that can help. I mean,
(35:49):
in retail right now, I mean,there, there are many major
retailers struggling just tosurvive. In these instances,
higher purpose may not be thenumber one thing on your list
that you're thinking about,you've got to certainly, you
know, survival first, right. Buthaving said that, I think one of
the things that we've seen itand the research, I decided it
(36:10):
was interesting, in 2019, whenwe did this study, a lot of the
brands that rose to the top weresort of smaller, often purpose
born brands, brands, likeseventh generation, or method or
allbirds, everlane. So these arebrands that sort of came out of
the womb with a higher calling,and a lot of them smaller. And
(36:31):
all the questions we got werelike, what about bigger
companies? We never thoughtabout purpose, but we are now do
we not? Did you know are we sortof out. And lo and behold, this
year, we see many, much biggercompanies, including things
companies like Big Pharma, butcompanies like Clorox companies
like zoom, companies likeMicrosoft, that are bigger, and
(36:55):
that were not started as purposedriven companies, but have
really taken purpose to heart.
We've seen that they get creditfor it. So all that was to say
that I don't, I don't think youhave to be purpose born. And as
long as you're not, you know,fighting for existential
survival. I think that purposeand starting a movement can can
be of use wherever you are kindof in your your growth cycle.
Steve Brown (37:19):
You know, this past year and a half for us, chip has
been a difficult year, itrequired that our team come
together as a team, kind ofwatch each other's back and make
it through this downturn withoutlosing one of the team or having
to let them go. And I believethat having a purpose about what
(37:40):
we do was inherent in thesuccess of the bond. If you
think about when when things areburning down around you, you
have a fight or flight reaction.
And I think you stay in fightwhen it's clear what your
purpose for fighting is about.
Chip Walker (38:03):
Right. Now, I agree. It's that whole thing
about when you feel like thereis a meaningful reason that
you're getting up and going towork every day. I mean, sure, we
all want to make a paycheck. Butyou know, at some point, you
know, if work can just bedrudgery, but when you feel a
solidarity with your colleagues,and the leadership of your
(38:25):
company around trying to dosomething more meaningful.
There, there's research fromGallup, that proves that it
increases employee engagement,retention, loyalty, all of those
things.
Steve Brown (38:39):
Excellent. This been a great conversation. Chip.
what's what's the future holdfor you guys?
Chip Walker (38:48):
The I'll tell you what the immediate future holds
is that and I hope you don'tmind, I'll do a little bit of a
commercial. We're, we're holdinga virtual event. We're calling
it the purpose power summit. Youknow, I mentioned this large
scale study we did that was inJanuary, q1 of 2021. We're
announcing the results. I mean,what are the most purpose driven
(39:10):
brands out there? We're going tobe announced that, but I think
more importantly, we've got awide range of speakers and
panelists who are joining us.
We've got the CEO of horizon,Hans westberg, who's going to
speak we've got AriannaHuffington. I don't know if you
know her. She's the HuffingtonPost. She's going to speak.
She's the CEO of Thrive global.
(39:30):
We have the chief marketingofficers of some major companies
like next door and Prudentialwho are speaking. So a really
stellar lineup that we were sopleased to be able to get get
this lineup. I think there are alot of people who are interested
in talking about purpose rightnow, just as we're kind of
coming out of the pandemic. Sostellar lineup of speakers, if
(39:52):
anybody's interested, if theyjust go to WWW dot purpose power
summit.com. You can find outmore about it. If you want to
know more from me, just shoot mea note at chip at strawberry
frog calm,
Steve Brown (40:05):
strawberry for frog. What's the thinking behind
the name? Strawberry frog? Wheredoes that come from?
Unknown (40:12):
Yeah.
Chip Walker (40:15):
I think when the agency was formed, I think the
notion was that the the dominantagencies were these gigantic
holding companies and to a URIstill, that still is like the
norm, which a lot of clientshave a lot of issues with, but
there weren't a lot of otheroptions. So we had this notion
(40:36):
of the dinosaur, which is kindof how we thought of the the
large holding companies. And wethought, Well, what is the
antithesis of that? And wethought, well, frogs, the kind
of frogs that can leap aroundfrom problem to problem is agile
is fast. And it turns out thatthere actually is a frog called
(40:57):
the strawberry frog. It is fromthe Amazon. It is red and green.
And it is actually poisonous,believe it or not, but it's so
it's very powerful. But for thatreason, you know, we have this
whole lore of like, you know,dinosaur versus frog and all the
reasons you'd rather you'drather go with the frog than the
dinosaur. So that's kind of theorigin of the name.
Steve Brown (41:18):
Yeah, I love the origin story. So you've been
listening to a greatconversation with chip Walker,
strawberry frog is their agency.
He co authored a book with ScottGoodson, activate brand,
purpose, Chip, any other place,they should connect you and get
to book on Amazon, Kindle,Audible, anything like that?
Chip Walker (41:40):
Yes, you can buy it on any of the major book
retailer websites right now. Imean, Amazon is probably the one
that most people know. If youwant to go directly to the art
books website. It's justactivate brand purpose calm.
Yeah, we're through it throughour publisher. It's called Kogan
(42:01):
page. You can buy it there too.
But I think Amazon is, you know,really where most people are
probably buying it.
Steve Brown (42:06):
All right, and the name of the conference again,
that they can sign up for.
Chip Walker (42:11):
It's called the purpose power summit, and it's
taking place in June 15.
Registration is free. As I said,if you are interested in more
either just shoot me an email,probably the easiest thing get a
chip at strawberry frog calm.
Steve Brown (42:25):
All right, Chip.
Thanks for being an awesomeguest on the ROI online podcast.
Chip Walker (42:31):
Thank you so much, Steve, for having me. It's
Steve Brown (42:33):
been a lot of fun.
All right, and that's a wrap.
Thanks for listening to anotherfun episode of the ROI online
podcast. For more, be sure tocheck out the show notes of this
episode. And feel free toconnect with me on LinkedIn
where we can chat, and I canhelp direct you to the resources
you're searching for. To learnmore about how you can grow your
(42:55):
business better. Be sure to pickup your copy of my book, The
Golden toilet add, surprise,that golden toilet.com I'm Steve
Brown, and we'll see you nextweek on another fun episode of
the ROI online podcast.
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