Guiding principles: Why marketers need to anchor actions in brand purpose

At All That Matters, Dole’s Rupen Desai and Grab’s Cheryl Goh outline the role of brand purpose as a guiding principle in the larger business imperative.

For Rupen Desai, global chief marketing officer of Dole Packaged Foods, brand purpose is all about action. 

The word ‘purposeful’ is utilitarian and action-oriented said Desai at the recent All That Matters conference, where he spoke in a session moderated by Unilever’s global media vice president David Porter, alongside Grab’s head of marketing Cheryl Goh.

Moreover, purpose has nothing to do with the next brief. As Desai put it candidly, “The worst disservice we can do to the world is by treating purpose as an advertising brief, or as a vertical [on] its own. We’ve actually increased our ad...

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