New book reveals brands with purpose, prosper

Having conducted research with 72 executives, drawn from purposeful brands, and 86 from random comparison brands, Smith and Milligan present a framework for success based on being clear about the brand purpose and delivering a distinctive customer experience across multiple touchpoints.

In addition to citing examples from companies such as LEGO, Zappos, IKEA and Nissan, they present engaging stories (not management jargon) from leaders such as Vernon Hill of Metro Bank, John Forrest of Premier Inn and Mike Fairman of giffgaff.

One of the prominent case studies is Premier Inn, awarded the UK's best mid-scale hotel brand at the Business Travel Awards 2015, which continues to grow rapidly, adding a new hotel every ten days. It sustained its success by defining its purpose as 'Making guests feel brilliant through a great night's sleep' and ensuring that every one of its 19,000 employees understood the role they play in delivering that every day. The leadership team share their experiences highlighting the challenges they faced, the problems they overcame and the results they achieved.

Andy Milligan states, "Having a purpose is in danger of becoming a tick box exercise, like having a vision or a strapline. Most companies do not act in accordance with it because it forces them to make hard choices and so it defaults to becoming just another set of words. Great businesses and loved brands act intentionally to deliver their purpose. Their purpose is about doing something special their customers value and will notice. If they deliver that purpose, customers reward them with profits."

On Purpose: Delivering a Branded Customer Experience (Kogan Page) is published on Thursday 26 November 2015 at a RRP of £19.99.