Case Study: Secret

Situation

BrightHouse first partnered with P&G's antiperspirant and deodorant brand for women, Secret, to elevate its purpose—helping women be more fearless—by linking it to the brand's ethos. Later, BrightHouse helped the brand bring its purpose to life through an act that blew people away (a "BPA").


Action

BrightHouse partnered with Secret to link its story of origin as the first antiperspirant made specifically for women to its purpose of helping women be more fearless and supported the team in articulating guardrails to define exactly what fearlessness means to the brand.

Through the BrightHouse luminary network, we identified the opportunity for Secret to partner with Diana Nyad, a 60-year-old world class swimmer planning to be the first person to swim 103 miles from the Florida Keys to Cuba without a shark cage. Diana attempted the same swim in the 1970's but to date had not been able to complete it.

BrightHouse recognized that Diana's fear that at 60 her best days were behind her was shared by many other women, and her fearless effort to accomplish a dream that had eluded her was a perfect fit for Secret. BrightHouse arranged and managed Secret's $50K sponsorship of Diana's swim, including partnering with the Secret team and their digital agency, imc², to execute engaging communications that brought Secret's Fearless Platform to life.

This BPA Act not only provided financial support to make Diana's dream possible, but it also enabled Facebook fans to send her well wishes and virtual gifts to help her overcome her fears such as shark repellant, snacks and clear skies. BrightHouse also arranged to share fans' motivational messages with Diana and her team throughout the swim.

Results

By linking Secret's ethos to its purpose, BrightHouse ensured that Secret's purpose was truly authentic, inspiring and ownable. Clearly articulated purpose guardrails have enabled Secret to align its organization and provide structure to future ideations and activations.

Secret's partnership with Diana Nyad elevated the brand's point of difference—helping women feel confident in their antiperspirant—to a point of view—helping women be fearless in their lives. Diana's inspiring story garnered national media attention, and Secret engaged women of all ages through ad buys, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Upon launching a Facebook page that enabled Secret fans to send well wishes to Diana, Secret saw an immediate and dramatic increase in Secret Facebook fans—today, they have nearly 600,000! Women saw themselves in Diana and were thrilled that Secret was making her swim possible.

The partnership was specifically linked to Secret's Clinical Strength Waterproof SKU, which led to a significant bump in purchase intent and sales versus the same time last year, even thought the SKU has been on the market for 2-years.


With weather conditions worsening, Diana was fearless enough to put her dream on hold once again, postponing her swim until 2011. When she's ready to dive in, Secret and women everywhere will be right beside her both financially and emotionally supporting her fearless dream.

Break Free From The Chain Gang

The value chain, a chain saw mentality, chain store thinking and chains of command have the world of business in shackles. Each chain sets off a chain reaction that kills off creativity, passion and discovery.

Value chain was put in place to make sure companies are not spending dollars foolishly. But the value chain has a few weak links that in the end will cost your company even more money. Based primarily on reducing cost of services, value chain executers (an appropriate name) splice and dice, trim and slim and rip and strip budgets squeezing the very lifeblood out of the service that is being offered. The results: less service and quality. What’s more the value chain process has little value in building relationships. Often they hurt them. It is time that value chain departments depart from investigations to investing in what might be the next great idea for their company.

Chain saw mentality has cut into our values as human beings. Cost reductions by way of deducting people is no way to grow a bottom line. Still companies partake in employee genocide wiping out entire floors of people. The Coca-Cola Company lost much of its intellectual pop lately as it has many of its finest were poured out onto the street in the last decade. And most recently, BellSouth made the unfortunate call to let thousands go. Corporate policy must change so that autocratic leadership cannot become automatic canning of the most valuable asset a company has – its people.

Chain store thinking might be great for franchise operations, but within a unique company sameness or routinization will destroy innovation. For many, the dream is to do the same thing over and over but people are over it. Customers no longer buy products; they buy solutions- custom made ways of making their lives way easier. The days of one-size-fits-all have been circumvented by “the power of one.” Even conventional chains are localizing their efforts. Micro-brews are an example of “big is small.” Worst of all chain store thinking incarcerates brains. Thinking inside the box becomes the corporate standard. Standards are not for people who stand for making the world work better. It is time that we reward people creating new orders, not following them orders.

Chain of command is perhaps the most antiquated concept in business today. Militaristic, this medieval caste system allows for the rise of modern day dictators. In these organizations the boss is nothing more than “double S.O.B. spelled backwards.” Steely-eyed, know-it-all dogmatic, top-down leadership is a ship that is sure to sink as its captains abandon this old world school of management for more liberating, organic and democratic systems. Companies today need to get horizontal with their staffing structures if they want their profits to be vertical. Round tables should be used as a metaphor for how decisions will be made. And ideas should be heralded as the currency of leadership. Nurturing environments become the hot beds of creativity, passion and discovery. In allowing ourselves to fail without the ridicule of supervisors we innovate faster, better and more often.

Prison chain gangs work together. They are linked by common values. And they all report to one boss. Sounds like your company. Perhaps it’s time you make a break for it.

The Obama Inaugural Speech: A Vision for Marketing

President's First Address to Nation Holds Lessons for Our Industry

Reprinted from Ad Age January 28, 2009.

"The fruits are in the roots." This is a key concept in the M.B.A. course I teach at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. In class, we explore the soulfulness of organizations -- how to discover it, harness it and profit from it.

President Obama's inaugural address is a primer on this subject as well as an important lesson for marketers who believe our industry could do better. The president believes that going back to our fundamental truths -- our soul -- is indeed what propelled our nation to greatness.

"America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbears, and true to our founding documents."

It is no different for a business. The remarkable power found in the roots of our country can also be found in every organization. In these once-fertile grounds, where the seeds of companies and brands first sprouted, lies their ethos: their core sentiment and true purpose.

Too often organizations lose their way from what made them great in the first place. It's easy to do so in a business environment demanding daily operational excellence with little regard, if any, to a concept I call "soulful excellence" -- that which defines and measures an organization's purpose, authenticity and vitality.

Today most CEOs are focused on the next quarter, not the next quarter century. There are few 100-year managers. But there is a costly price associated with leaving your company's past behind and cutting off your company from its roots. Organizations that distance themselves from the past will not have a future. Conversely, there are rich rewards for those that reconnect with their company's origin. According to "Firms of Endearment" authors Rajendra S. Sisoda, David B. Wolfe and Jagdish N. Sheth, purpose-driven, soulfully excellent organizations produced an outstanding return of 1,025% in the past 10 years compared to only 122% for the S&P 500.

Soulfully excellent brands such as Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish, which exist to instill optimism in children, are marketers that improve public life, not just their public perception. Newell Rubbermaid's Graco brand is nurturing those who nurture their children. Its hair-care brand, Goody, is focusing on building confidence in young women. And Calphalon is cooking up new ways for people to share their appetites for life.

Soulful excellence is not about a point of difference, but a point of view. It's not about ads, but actions that add. And in taking those actions, the marketer makes a mark on society.

President Obama said he believes by reaching back to what is old -- our values -- we as a nation will be renewed.

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded, then, is a return to these truths."

Again, the lesson: Strategies and tactics are new, values are old.

Marketers can help businesses prosper and be more relevant by studying a company's ethos and culture before embarking on strategy and communications. Rediscovering an organization's true identity, its Stand vs. Brand, will deliver fresh insight into its essence, its "why," its very soul. In turn, this work will inform the whole organization on how it should act. And that's important because actions, not ads, change human behavior.

With the global search for meaning in the 21st century, marketers as well as our country need to return to their roots. Reconnecting with your business' unique origin can be a groundbreaking exercise that yields unprecedented emotional, intellectual and financial revenue.

The president's vision promises to help leaders, marketers, companies big and small, as well as our nation excavate the treasures that lie right beneath them.

"This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed."

BrightHouse Pictures - Alliance to Make US Healthiest

BrightHouse Pictures creates films that inspire and align both internal and external audiences around an organization's purpose. BrightHouse Pictures created the film below to help Alliance to Make US Healthiest activate its purpose externally to create a healthier nation.

The Fruits are in the Roots

LOOKING TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS? THEN LOOK RIGHT BENEATH YOU.

When Superman was just a baby, his father Jor-El swaddled him in a blanket and placed him in the spaceship that would save him from a doomed planet Krypton. Before takeoff, he also placed a tape recorder in the capsule.

As our young superhero hurtled through the galaxies towards earth, his father’s voice downloaded the instructions for his life. Those seeds of goodness, fairness and service to mankind would take took root in Superman, creating the ideals the young hero would always be guided by.

Today, companies and brands have realized the power of returning to their roots, rediscovering the authentic origins of their inspiration, distinctiveness, and soul so that they too can grow and prosper, guided by their unique purposes.

“Going back to go forward” and “digging down to reach higher” may sound counterintuitive, but organizations that discover what made them grow in the first place are the ones in first place. In a seminal study, Firms Of Endearment, author Jag Sheth compares S&P 500 companies to Good To Great brands and those who live by their true authentic ideals and purposes. No surprise here. Good To Great companies created three times more value than the S&Ps. But what promises to become the eureka of modern marketing is that organizations who stay true to their roots will beat Good To Great’s three-fold increase. In every company’s beginnings are the seeds of genuine greatness.

In 1928, Margaret Rudkin, a young mother of three, created a recipe for bread using unbleached flour in the hopes of preventing a life-threatening allergy from taking her eldest son’s life. The recipe worked, and in that kitchen a bread company named Pepperidge Farms was born. A billion loaves later, the company’s fledgling brand Goldfish, then #2 in the marketplace, learned of their story of origin, recognizing that they were not a cracker company but a brand that made kids healthy. Today allergies are cured over the counter, but over-scheduled, overstressed and overworked kids are not. Unprecedented degrees of anxiety are taking a toll on our children. Guided by their root belief, “When kids grow, we grow,” Goldfish decided to serve optimism to kids.

First, they took the hydrogenated oil out of their crackers. Then they created www.fishfulthinking.com, a website initiative which teaches cognitive health to kids and their parents. Check out their packaging. The first ingredient is smiles, and customers aren’t the only ones with big grins. Today Goldfish is #1, enjoying the fruits of double digit revenue increases. But most importantly, kids across the country are happier and healthier.

Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher wanted to bring democracy to the skies so that we all had the freedom to fly. While other carriers are now charging for baggage, his company has announced a “bags fly free policy.” From the day they took off, Southwest’s co-ordinates have not wavered, nor has their profit.

Unearthing the roots led to real pay dirt for the world’s largest juvenile products company, Graco. Strolling back 50 years, the brand discovered a story of origin that today has their global brand rocking. Unbeknownst to Graco leadership, the company’s founder created a baby swing not for his colicky baby but to provide some much needed rest for his wife. This one archival insight gave Graco permission to expand their market from only babies to parents. Today, Graco’s Parenting and Baby Essential business has sprouted from just under a half billion to 1.3 billion in revenue.

Want to grow a fruitful company? Go back to your roots. Learn about your beginnings. Talk to the people who nurtured your organization when it was a seedling. Visit your archivist. He protects what is sacred in your organization and holds more potential power than anyone else in the company. Discover your ethos–Greek for “starting place”–and reap the new fruits of profitability.

Running The Country On Purpose

Joey Reiman

America was founded with purpose. Out of a collection of 13 colonies with 13 different leaders, 13 unique currencies, 13 distinct mottos and 13 colorful flags arose a declaration of independence.

Thirteen states became one state of mind as the words "we the people" heralded the beginning of an era that would focus on our lives, our freedoms and the
pursuit of that which makes fulfills us -- our purpose, both individual as well
as collective.

Arianna Huffington’s sentiment in “Glenn Beck, President Obama, and the Hunger for Purpose in Times of Transition” is reminiscent of Ben Franklin when she calls out our nation’s lack of purpose and calls for "Hard truths and big ideas. A narrative arc to our lives. The emerging burden of citizenship.” Franklin too pleaded with divisive groups to act as one with purpose. “We must hang together or we will certainly hang separately.”

President Barack Obama would serve our nation best by returning to what made us great in the first place. This means focusing not only on what can be changed in the future but what never changes -- our past. Our founding principles were created to guide the leading principals of this nation.

Prominent journalist, teacher and advisor to nine Presidents, David Gergen, writes in his book, Eyewitness To Power, "A President's central purpose must be rooted in the nation’s core values...Presidents depart from the nation’s core values at their peril."

The best of leaders are storytellers who don't rewrite history but use it to tell a story of what is possible. We witnessed this when President John F. Kennedy galvanized Americans by returning to our ethos of frontierism. NASA had not the metals necessary to build a rocket capable of landing a man on the moon, but purpose has a way of jettisoning the cargo of doubt, skepticism and cynicism.

Franklin Roosevelt used purpose to introduce Social Security as a way of protecting "life." Both Bushes used purpose by recalling "liberty" from those who would suppress us and Ronald Reagan used purpose to illustrate our "pursuit of happiness." And President Obama subtly tapped into our ethos of “we the people” coming together to affect positive change in his recent remarks about a community working together to rebuild New Orleans.

President Obama and Glenn Beck are thirsty for change but as Ms. Huffington acknowledges what we all feel in our gut is a yearning for purpose or what Aristotle called “the whatness” of the polis. Purpose is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. It is ethos, the Greek word for "starting point" the instructive spark of fire we now call The United States.  War, the economy, the environment and a crisis in meaning have all but put the fire out. Only by going back will we move forward as a nation and a planet.

The fruits are in our roots -- free will, free enterprise, freedom from those who would hurt us and freedom to become those we dream to be. If this all seems idealistic, then we are on the right track as were our predecessors who never hungered for purpose. Indeed, they were sustained by it.