Brands need to build lasting cultures

What makes a brand perpetuate and maintain its relevance over time? In addition to selling good products or services, brands need to effectively contribute to their ecosystems, transforming themselves into businesses with purpose, meaning and social impact with balanced results.

A survey carried out throughout Brazil by the Bloomers consultancy showed that consumers believe that brands play important roles in building a better society, especially with regard to family relationships, the achievement of more rights by women and an impact more conscious in the use of technology. However, many people have difficulty identifying brands that fulfill this role in their lives.

Many businesses still need to connect to the demands of society to meet their real desires and needs. They need to support and care to build relationships with more lasting impacts on the lives of their customers. But how is it possible to do this?

Already established businesses can carry out an important exercise on what their brand has already accomplished, what its effects were on people’s lives and understand what has changed today and needs to be corrected. There are sensitive topics and controversial issues that need to be addressed or that require a new position. New brands need to keep an eye on current and future movements and understand how it is possible to change an environment with so many needs and how to make offers that are more suitable for people today. It is necessary to understand the demands of your audiences and define the desired impact for the organization.

But whether in one case or another, the principle for operating in a business is the company’s culture. It is important to establish a commitment that the organization will move towards a clear vocation in serving its ecosystems. This is essential for establishing the company’s performance goals, values ​​and behaviors. Based on this, it will be possible to attract the best talents, measure results and the performances of the people involved. A company’s culture needs to be communicated and transmitted genuinely through Human Resources and Communication departments. Employees who seek a purpose-driven career need to feel part of and believe in this process. With solid foundations, employees themselves will be able to take this message abroad.

The creation of a genuine culture needs to listen to what is around society and be born from historical demands. The development of more creative products and services becomes easier when brand, product and innovation managers act inspired by the historical demands that the business chose to meet and embrace. Therefore, when launching a new product or service, it is necessary to ask yourself whether this new offer actually serves the people who trust the brand and whether it will stimulate changes in the ecosystem in which the business operates. All products or services must be designed in accordance with the principles that govern the company’s culture, making them more authentic and distinct in relation to the competition. It is also necessary to think about the access that the public will have to this product or service and its pricing policy.

Having these parameters very clear helps in the efficiency of offers, in reducing production time and in making strategic decisions. Based on these standards, the company will be able to offer even more distinct and relevant products and services to its audience. It is not enough to only take into account financial goals and Human Resources performances. Based on the culture system, it is possible to establish action objectives based on the impact that the business wants to cause.

Companies that want to change and leave their mark in history need, in fact, to establish commitments and goals from the first day of planning based on pillars that translate their designed culture into practice. This means establishing dimensions that reflect the transformation and show that the company is focused, beyond the search for revenue, on meeting commitments that contribute to resolving the real demands and needs of society.

*Ivan Scarpelli is a founding partner of Bloomers, a consultancy that works in the development of brands, cultures and businesses