It’s easy to dismiss the outrage as noise, but what if it’s something more? What if outrage isn’t the enemy but a signal—a mirror reflecting the fractures in trust and purpose we’ve overlooked?

When viewed this way, outrage becomes more than a reaction to missteps. It reveals where alignment has broken, offering a chance to recalibrate and reconnect. For brand leaders, I see this as a moment to champion intention, curiosity, and courage. Those willing to lean into this challenge have an opportunity to transform outrage into a catalyst for meaningful social influence and change. Perhaps most importantly, the choices we each make today will shape the future.

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Understanding The Landscape: A Crisis In Numbers

Across industries, latching onto the latest social trend with virtue signaling and misalignment between communications and behaviors has come at a time when people are frustrated and no longer giving brands the benefit of the doubt—instead they are asking for consistency, accountability and most importantly resonance alongside relevance. Given the relentless feed of news and information and the pressure to engage in real-time, every message a brand puts out today carries the potential to become a crisis…. It’s impossible to predict who will receive a seemingly innocuous message in the wrong way on the wrong day. And the interconnectedness of challenges—social trends, consumer expectations, and ideological divides—adds even greater complexity.

Revealing a profound trust deficit, research statistics offer insight into the landscape, underscoring the disconnect between corporate actions and stakeholder expectations:

• Only 37% of people globally trust business leaders to act in society’s best interest, a decline of 12% in just one year (Edelman Trust Barometer 2024).
• 72% of Americans believe businesses should stay out of politics unless it directly affects their operations and only 41% of US adults believe businesses should take a public stance on current events (Morning Consult 2024/Gallup and Bentley University poll)
• 61% of consumers are skeptical of corporate sustainability claims and 59% of Americans suspect brands of leveraging social issues for profit (PwC 2024 and Axios- Harris Poll).
• 72% of Americans feel healthcare systems prioritize profit over care (Morning Consult 2024)

These numbers narrate a story of disillusionment. Rising costs, unfulfilled promises, and tokenistic gestures deepen public skepticism. In healthcare, the stakes are particularly stark: inaccessible services and soaring expenses amplify feelings of betrayal. —a sentiment epitomized by the shocking assassination of a major healthcare CEO. Outrage stems from this context, a byproduct of disconnection and unmet expectations. Meanwhile, 91% of CEOs acknowledge the need to recalibrate ESG programs, yet recalibration without systemic change risks eroding trust further and fueling discontent.

Ultimately, brand leaders are being called on to decide what their brands stand for at the highest levels, not to latch on to trends. Yet, how do they do this in a way that addresses existing fractures, realigns purpose, and rebuilds trust?

Lessons From History: Cycles Of Outrage And Leadership

History often is cyclical. And outrage is not new. In many ways, what we are seeing today is somewhat reflective of the time after the Great Recession. Movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party arose from deep disillusionment with institutions. These moments weren’t just reactions—they were signals of broader public demand for change, which accelerated the early purpose movement. As people were being told the economy had recovered and yet weren’t experiencing this in their own lives, businesses stepped into a leadership void.

PepsiCo was one of the earliest brands to embrace purpose, even before the Great Recession in 2006, when Indra Nooyi introduced Performance with Purpose. Paul Polman embedded sustainability into Unilever’s in 2010, after publicly criticizing the stock market’s focus on short-term returns. These efforts accelerated the fledgling purpose movement, demonstrating how businesses could lead by example. Actions like BlackRock’s emphasis on sustainable investing in 2013 and Brand Z’s incorporation of purpose-driven metrics in 2014 signaled the growing demand for businesses to align their strategies with societal needs.

Today, the stakes feel even higher than they did then. Indeed, driven in large part by polarized politics, brands now face increasing backlash. And tellingly, the outrage transcends ideological divides: progressive audiences critique greenwashing and performative actions, while conservative groups resist DEI and sustainability efforts. Yet, systemic shifts take time. The trajectory of today’s anger and frustration—and how it will intersect with the priorities of a new administration—remains uncertain. Brands that view this as a moment to pause, stay aligned with their values, and act consistently can position themselves as trusted leaders in this evolving landscape.

Decoding Outrage: The Signals And Their Meaning

Deconstructing the meaning of today’s outrage requires nuance. Four key drivers help to clarify the complexities:

1. Rage Reflects Systemic Failures: Rage often stems from the perception that brands prioritize profits over people. This sentiment is particularly acute in industries like healthcare, where rising costs and inaccessible services magnify feelings of betrayal.
2. Resistance Reveals Superficiality: Superficial gestures—vague sustainability claims or tokenistic DEI efforts—amplify skepticism. Resistance arises when audiences feel co-opted rather than respected.
3. Reckoning Exposes Misalignment: A reckoning occurs when brands overstep societal boundaries without ensuring coherence between their values and actions. For example, sustainability claims that clash with exploitative supply chain practices erode trust.
4. Rejection Reflects Fear: Fear, often rooted in uncertainty or perceived loss, manifests as rejection. Brands navigating cultural shifts must tread carefully to address anxieties without compromising their values.

These drivers interact to form cycles of distrust. To break them, brand leaders must act with coherence, courage, and intentionality—embedding trust-building practices across all facets of a brand’s operations.

Seven Principles For Rebuilding Trust And Purpose

Adopting an intentional, systemic approach is the best way to rebuild trust and transform outrage into an opportunity. In my work with clients, I have found seven principles help to navigate today’s complex environment. That said, it’s equally important to recognize that there are no guarantees…. I find consistency, alignment, preparedness and courage to be the best mantras.

1. Marketers are fiduciaries

A marketer’s first role is to be a steward of their brands. Their responsibility is to ensure that every action they take is anchored in purpose and a brand’s core operating principles, not to amplify personal beliefs and values.

Acting as a fiduciary requires balancing societal responsibility with business outcomes, harmonizing the influence a brand has the power to wield over culture public discourse with the integrity of the brand’s promises.

2. Purpose is a living discipline

Purpose is more than a statement: it’s a compass—true to your business operations yet broad enough to encompasses a social mission. By necessity, purpose must unfold alongside people’s evolving needs and societal expectations. A brand like Natura, whose purpose is to nurture beauty and relationships for a better way of living and doing business, exemplifies this by respecting the biodiversity of the Amazon when sourcing ingredients, integrating sustainability into supply chains and addressing local community needs.

Purpose thrives when it’s treated as a discipline requiring intentionality at every level. When a brand leader tells you it’s time to move on from purpose, they’ve misunderstood it entirely—would you ever move on from strategic planning?

3. Purpose architecture mitigates risk

Purpose without structure and clarity risks becoming superficial. Guided by nuanced audience insights and materiality, purpose architecture offers a strategic framework to differentiate corporate and product brand roles—and further distinguishes operational commitments (sustainability and regulatory compliance) from messaging.

Begin developing purpose architecture by systems mapping potentially conflicting perspectives and expectations – spoken and unspoken – of customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders. And, importantly, consider segmenting by ideology to identify both messages that resonate and red flags to navigate and ensure you use scenario planning to be prepared for potential crises.

4. A values-driven POV builds confidence

Stakeholders seek alignment between a company’s values and its actions. So, it’s essential to identify where your brand has earned the right to lead and take confident, values-driven action. The question isn’t if you should speak up—it’s whether your audience grants you permission to add your voice to the conversation.

A clear POV is a lens for navigating this complexity, guiding consistency and clarity necessary to strengthen credibility and avoid virtue signaling. Airbnb’s program that offers housing to refugees is an earnest act of belonging that resonates with people’s deepest values. By turning its ethos into action, Airbnb transforms its mission into tangible hope, rebuilding trust and loyalty at a human level.

5. Diversity is competitive advantage

Diversity is a strategic asset, driving innovation and connection. A Washington Post/IPSOS poll (April 2024) found 61% of Americans support DEI practices, saying they are a “good thing.” And McKinsey data from 2023 shows companies with ethnically diverse leadership are 39% more likely to outperform peers. Signaling their belief in its strategic value, both Costco’s and Apple’s boards recently recommended that investors reject shareholder proposals from the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) that ask the companies to publish a report on the risk of DEI programs or eliminate them completely.

Homogenous brand and marketing teams risk developing campaigns and programs that don’t resonate across different audience demographics and psychographics. Oxford University research indicates that diverse advertising increases short-term sales by 3.5% and long-term sales by 16%, demonstrating how inclusive storytelling is an important aspect of resonating with modern audiences. Importantly, DEI isn’t a prerequisite for hiring diversely; individual brand leaders can always choose to bring people with different backgrounds or who think differently onto their teams, even as official policies are pulled back.

6. Sustainability as Resilience

When deeply embedded in a brand’s operations, sustainability amplifies trust and fuels innovation. Kantar reports that sustainability adds $193 billion to the value of the top 100 global brands. And 93% of consumers say they want to live more sustainably.

By aligning sustainability with long-term business strategy, brands address immediate environmental concerns while demonstrating accountability and forward-thinking approaches. Effective sustainability strategies foster trust and relevance in an increasingly environmentally conscious marketplace. Ikea’s unwavering commitment to sustainability reflects its ability to unlock value creation from society’s evolving priorities. Whether addressing consumer pushback, adopting renewable energy, or embracing circularity, Ikea shows resilience is rooted in the willingness to adapt, evolve, and lead from purpose.

7. Unify Cross-Functionally

Siloed efforts lead to inconsistency; champion a collaborative approach across marketing, PR, HR, operations, and, yes, even finance and bring the C-suite and potentially the Board alongside to ensure a harmonized front and standing stronger together. Integrated efforts help organizations adapt effectively to external pressures while fostering coherence across teams and initiatives.

Establishing multi-functional Brand/Purpose Councils effectively aligns teams and initiatives, fosters coherence and resilience, and increases operational effectiveness and financial efficiencies.

The Path Forward: An Invitation To Marketers

Outrage isn’t simply rejecting purpose, sustainability, DEI or even taking a stand. It’s an invitation to reimagine brand leadership. We can see fractured trust as a call to step back or as a chance to move forward more intentionally with purpose, cautiously and bravely, not recklessly.

The choices we each make today shape tomorrow. Will you let public frustration and anger drown out possibility, or will you seize this moment to lead with courage, clarity and purpose? The future isn’t waiting; brand leaders are shaping it right now. And in choosing courage and clarity, we can turn outrage into trust—and trust into enduring success.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Anne Bahr Thompson, Author Do Good, Embracing Brand Citizenship to Fuel Both Purpose and Profit.

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define or redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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• Having a feeling about a brand is only beneficial if it will alter behavior
• Brand innovation is academic unless it leads to behavior change
• Loyalty programs only work if they drive consumers to action
• Employee engagement is successful only when they must do something different

With the complete disruption of mass media and related one-size-fits-all brand messaging, we’re rifle focused now on aggregating various special interest constituencies and the media platforms that engage those unique stakeholders. Once we’re clear on behavior change, we can deliver a precise message to a hyper-engaged audience with a clear call to action.

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Hyper Engaged Audiences

Unique to the digital era is the emergence of highly curated communities of people with common interests and the narrow media channels that serve them. These groups aggregate individuals with shared beliefs and values and represent a super-engaged audience which brands can serve with relevant and resonant content (guidance and coaching).

What Do Brands And Businesses Really Need?

Deeper relationships with core users. For their part, consumers want to know where you can take them. They especially want to be part of something greater than themselves, thus why if you seek to have a deeper relationship with them, it all hangs on your ability to embed greater meaning in your brand. This forms the compelling foundation and motivation for behavior change.

Insight: consumers are ready to join your brand as believers and evangelists, but only if you offer them something to believe in. This is important because consumers are no longer buying what you do or how you do it, instead they resonate to why you do what you do. This is best understood as an expression of your mission, purpose, meaning and values that stands apart and beyond commerce (selling stuff). Ironically, it’s this insight that leads to selling more stuff.

• What human-relevant purpose do you serve beyond financial rewards to investors?
• What would the world truly miss if your business were to disappear tomorrow?

Your agenda is to escape the endless circle of chasing awareness, features and product benefit selling that comes with a side order of unintended consequence. How? In this legacy-type marketing endeavor your embedded goal is always to be better than competing choices. However, strong strategy is laser focused on creating “only” — which is always better than being best.

• The market doesn’t really resonate to better, but it does take notice of different. When trying to be better, you’re creating a recipe for similarity (feature comparison) that inevitably works to commoditize your brand and won’t deliver on behavior change.

Instead, your brand “why” is uniquely yours. When you work to optimize higher purpose and deeper meaning, you are investing in a path to uniqueness and transcendence – a state of consumer admiration for your brand that causes people to happily join your community as evangelists and advocates.

Competitively this is a much stronger position to defend than trying to depend on specsmanship improvements and ‘better-ness’ matched against rivals in a category. We devote our story to this topic periodically because the tendency to hunt better is so reflexively common and systemic in CPG and retail brand marketing.

• Different connected to refined purpose is the strongest strategic play you can make and paves the road to behavior change.
• Different should also show up in your product concept, design and delivery

Six Questions For Competing Differently With Purpose

1. What can you offer consumers that they can only get from you?
2. What do you believe in beyond balance sheet considerations?
3. What do you want consumers to do?
4. What behavior do you hope will manifest?
5. How will this change the behavior of your own organization?
6. What will you do differently?

The power of a real, human-relevant, and unselfish purpose and devotion to it will indeed fuel your financial performance. This is the best characterization to explain the predominant culture shift that now influences marketing best practices. Because relating to a brand is now fundamentally the same thing as relating to another person we care about.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Robert Wheatley, CEO of Chicago-based Emergent, The Healthy Living Agency.

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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Importantly, the societal challenge is larger than marketing, creators and the entertainment we consume on TikTok or Instagram…. It’s about how our human capacity to pursue deeper, lasting rewards is gradually eroding.

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Not surprisingly, dopamine plays a pivotal role in this dynamic. Research neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, a professor at Stanford University, has conducted demonstrates dopamine is about more than short-term pleasure: it’s also the fuel that underpins our ambition, drive and long-term focus. When we anticipate being on the right path to achieving our goals, dopamine increases our energy and sharpens our focus, propelling us forward. And sustained release of dopamine can keep us engaged and motivated for hours…. Sometimes even days.

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Yet, there’s a delicate balance to be struck. Huberman’s research has also demonstrated that dopamine peaks—the exhilarating highs we experience when we succeed—are often followed by a drop below our baseline. The more intense the high, the greater the fall. So we’re left seeking our next hit, potentially endlessly caught in a loop of feeling empty and unfulfilled followed by chasing our next big reward. Importantly, the intense focus that dopamine drives sometimes narrows our thinking, stifling our creativity and reducing our ability to see new possibilities and solve challenges.

So, are we effectively using dopamine’s potential to pursue deeper, more meaningful goals, or are we trapping ourselves by chasing quick, short-term rewards that leave us wanting more?

Brands, too, face this dilemma. Are brand leaders pursuing easy metrics—likes, views, fast sales—or are they genuinely seeking to build trust, enrich lives, and forge enduring emotional connections?

Purpose-led marketing goes beyond tapping into short-lived desires. It invites brands to become more meaningful in people’s lives, aligning with their higher goals and values. Brands that succeed at this are those that understand the long arc of connection…. Just as in life, true fulfillment comes from growth, trust and meaningful relationships sustained over time.

I strongly believe we have an opportunity to use dopamine’s powerful potential to inspire curiosity, drive creativity and encourage sustained engagement, rather than simply settle for quick fixes. In a world of geopolitical chaos and entertaining distractions, perhaps it’s the uncertainty and stress of modern life that is making us seek these fleeting hits, not dopamine itself.

So, the question remains: Are we willing to take the more challenging path—the one that builds something meaningful, sustainable, and deeply human?

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Anne Bahr Thompson, Author Do Good, Embracing Brand Citizenship to Fuel Both Purpose and Profit.

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define or redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change, including defining a vision that propels their businesses and brands forward. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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Business leaders need to be clear about what they want their brand to stand for because the commercial advantages of doing so are significant.

The brand purpose should be based on what the company does or could be best at, and on what the leaders and employees want it to be. A brand whose purpose stems from what the company already does but inspires employees to do it better, is more likely to succeed.

The ‘value disciplines’ framework, developed by business strategists Treacy and Wiersema in the 1990s, helps companies identify the area in which they have potential to rise above the competition and could use to define their brand purpose. The framework acknowledges that an organization operating in a competitive market with finite resources cannot be the best at everything.

The framework highlights three potential disciplines in which to specialize, so that a customer who prizes one discipline in particular will value the brand above others. Successful companies deliver adequately in all disciplines but stand out from competitors in one. To do this, they focus their energy and resources on their chosen discipline rather than trying, and failing, to address every customer need.

The very best marketers either choose to work for a company with a clear brand purpose or inspire their company to discover (or rediscover) one. With a purpose in place that the company can rally behind, the next task is to develop the brand strategy. This is a business plan defining how the company will make money from products(s) using the brand name, which includes:

• A long-term financial objective (e.g., $400k annual profit within five years)
• A description of who will buy the brand based on the brand purpose (e.g., people with an annual income of >$75K who love driving but want to protect the planet)
• A definition of the product(s) that will be sold and when they will be launched and upgraded (e.g., expanded network of charging points in year two, a lighter model with double the battery capacity in year three)
• The numbers that will be sold each year and the average selling price (aligned with the financial objective)
• The associations that will be built around the brand to accelerate growth

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Dan White, author of The Soft Skills Book, The Smart Marketing Book and The Smart Branding Book

The Blake Project can help you define and develop your brand purpose.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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Yet, not even two years later, Minnesota Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips struck those words from the website for his primary campaign against President Biden shortly after receiving the endorsement of billionaire Bill Ackman, who has weighed in against DEI in a clash with Harvard.

Over a mere handful of months, DEI swung from global bandwagon to unwanted stepchild. It’s too soon to say if the tide is turning, but purpose is under pressure. Pressure means neither brands nor purpose are well-served. Recent tempests, like the Bud Light blow-up, have made brands cautious.

Because conflict is bad for brands. And for purpose. Anything not central to making money is always vulnerable. This is the Achilles’ heel of purpose layered onto brands. Fiduciary responsibilities make brands an inherently fickle friend, as we see right now. Under pressure, brands are breaking faith.

This is most evident in corporate communications, which stake out the playing field for a company’s brands. Tracking of earnings calls shows that the George Floyd incident in May 2020 sparked a three-fold rise in mentions of DEI or ESG (environmental, social, governance), the dominant categories of purpose. But since peaking in Q1 2022, mentions have dropped steadily, down 40 percent by Q2 2023. Add to this anecdotal reports of veiling DEI with pseudonyms.

The shift of corporate sentiment is also evident in hiring. DEI jobs listed on ZipRecruiter dropped 63 percent in 2023. The Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action for university admissions has put companies on edge even more. It has long been impermissible to use race in hiring, advancement and salary. But legal risks for DEI initiatives related to recruiting, mentorship, fellowships, scholarships, accessibility and the like are less clearcut, even with reassurances from the EEOC.

Companies are becoming more circumspect about ESG, too. During Q2 2023 earnings calls, only 61 S&P 500 companies mentioned ESG, well down from 2021 when over 150 firms mentioned ESG in three of the four quarters that year. This is paralleled by a sharp drop in 2023 of net new deposits in sustainable investment funds.

Legal risks are growing with ESG. Some investor groups are bankrolling litigation over unfulfilled environmental pledges (with the upside of weeding out greenwashing). Not to mention complaints from nearly two dozen state attorneys general that ESG funds put social priorities above financial returns.

Notwithstanding these public pullbacks from purpose, surveys of executives find continuing interest in DEI and ESG. For every Bill Ackman or Elon Musk there is a Mark Cuban or a Larry Fink. Corporate leaders understand that purpose is critical for recruiting top talent and excelling at innovation and creativity.

Companies remain committed to purpose as an integral internal operating principle. Just less so when layered on for external marketing. As in Unilever’s message to investors late last year from its new CEO that it will stop “force-fitting” purpose to its brands.

While U.S. MONITOR finds seven in ten consumers want brands to reflect their values, consumers have become fatigued with purpose as a platform for brand advocacy. The direction of the marketplace reported in the 2024 U.S. MONITOR Outlook is a “selfward” turn, with more interest in self-care and less focus on the world at-large.

True even among younger consumers. A recent survey by Stanford researchers found “a significant drop in enthusiasm for ESG” among younger investors, with higher priority on returns.

A July 2023 CNBC survey found only 32 percent feel it’s appropriate for brands to take social stands. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, it was higher at 43 percent, yet this is way down from 62 percent in 2018 and 70 percent in 2019 for this age group.

Mind you, this is not to foreswear purpose altogether. Rather, it’s to remind us of management guru Peter Drucker’s observation that the most effective businesses are not focused on doing things right but on doing the right things. This encompasses values, too. When purpose is integral and built in from the get-go, it doesn’t have to be layered on in ways sure to backfire on both brands and purpose.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By: Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

At The Blake Project, we help clients from around the world, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. We help accelerate growth through strategy workshops and extended engagements. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Learn How To Build A Marketing System Designed Around How Shoppers Buy Today, Featuring Jon Davids.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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