Do you remember the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad? Released on April 4, 2017, the ad showed her joining a protest in which young people held up placards saying ‘Love’ and ‘Join the conversation’. Breaking off from a glamorous photo shoot, Kendall Jenner joins the marchers and hands an ice-cold can of Pepsi to a stern-faced cop, who breaks into a smile as the crowd cheers.

It’s possible you missed the ad as it was pulled the next day, after a global outcry over its adoption of a BLM aesthetic to sell a soft drink.

It’s partly what prompted me to write my first article about purpose. Other examples included McDonald’s telling the story of a boy bonding with his dead father over a shared love of filet o’ fish, Heineken getting culture war opponents together over a product shot, Dove introducing a range of curly-haired emojis and packaging that mimicked different body shapes, and Cannes Lions celebrating the I Sea app that claimed to help rescue refugees lost at sea, but turned out to be a paper-thin ‘proof of concept’.

Back then, it felt like we must have reached a tipping point, where brands would finally abandon the purpose doctrine that had taken hold after the 2008 crash, and was pushing them to strain ever harder to create a connection between their product and a higher social cause. But the response from business and adland was to double down.

‘Purpose only works if you really mean it!’ came the cry — and everyone decided they really, really meant it, because that’s how the psychology works. We all want to feel like we’re the good guys, and the whole doctrine of ‘do well by doing good’ is too seductive to let go. It’s a way to keep enjoying all the material perks — the nice offices, the high pay, the awards shows, the Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and WPP careers — while also feeling morally driven and socially progressive.

Creative awards became purpose awards — peaking in 2022 when 17 of 21 Cannes Lions went to unambiguously purpose-driven projects

In the years that followed, purpose went global, and it remains deeply embedded in every business and marketing institution. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, championed purpose in a series of annual letters to CEOs. Those CEOs knew BlackRock steered up to £10 trillion in investment, so they were always likely to listen — and that ends up shaping every brief that lands in agency in-trays.

Meanwhile, creative awards became purpose awards — peaking in 2022 when 17 of 21 Cannes Lions (in the avowedly creative/craft categories) went to unambiguously purpose-driven projects. Our creative universities now have Chief Social Purpose Officers. Our effectiveness awards schemes have changed their criteria to suit more purposeful entries — clearing the way for tax-avoiding Cadbury to win Best in Show. And many agencies have built their entire positionings around the purpose idea — it’s too entrenched to let go.

As I watched all this with some dismay, I tumbled down a rabbit hole of economics, ethics, philosophy, marketing theory and political history. I filled in the back story — how purpose is in many ways a reframing of an older stakeholder vs shareholder capitalism debate, and an even older debate about the ethics of business, which goes back to the origins of trading itself.

In my book, I explore how the word ‘purpose’ itself takes off post-2008 and was always about rehabilitating the reputation of big business, by positioning it on the side of progressive causes and shifting the conversation away from the more threatening Occupy Wall Street narrative.

The word ‘purpose’ itself takes off post-2008 and was always about rehabilitating the reputation of big business, by positioning it on the side of progressive causes

It was remarkably successful. In the space of a few years, the protestors disappeared from Wall Street and were replaced by Fearless Girl, a statue created by McCann for investment firm State Street. It was heralded with two D&AD Black Pencils and 18 Cannes Lions. But even then, the reality was different.

State Street was already agreeing a $5m out of court settlement with its Black and female employees over systemically under-paying them. To this day, it’s engaged in litigation with the female sculptor, who claims her intellectual property and creative freedom is being unfairly curtailed.

Having dug into the history, I go through the reasons why ‘purpose’ increases the likelihood of bad marketing — because it pushes brands towards generic positionings, turns the focus inwards not outwards, and misunderstands how customers think, especially when it comes to younger customers.

More importantly, I relate how purpose leads to worse social outcomes, by diluting the economic upsides of good marketing, fuelling social division by shrinking the common ground, leading to noble cause corruption and muddled ethical thinking, distracting from real climate action, and undermining the non-profit and public sectors where most truly ‘purposeful’ work takes place.

Finally, I make an extended case for an alternative, based on humility, humour and humanity (the alliteration isn’t a coincidence — there’s a reason those words are related). I also make the case for cognitive empathy — the skill of being able to see other points of view, even if you don’t emotionally agree with them.

Purpose didn’t create most of the great brands and ads. Creativity did

Creative Review readers may be glad to hear that I end with creativity itself — which in so many ways is the opposite of purpose. It comes from an open mindset, rather than being narrowly goal-driven. It often only makes sense in retrospect, which is why so many companies struggle to find their ‘why’ and go through contortions to retrofit something onto a reality that never happened that way. Purpose didn’t create most of the great brands and ads. Creativity did.

For me, the process of writing the book has itself been a creative one. Since 2017, I’ve been trying to figure out why this issue bugs me so much, why it feels like the moral compass of our whole industry has been scrambled, and why I keep feeling the urge to return to the subject (mainly on my Substack), despite the lack of financial incentives — at least until I finally have a book to flog seven years later.

Fundamentally, I hope the book will lead those in the industry to consider the ethical dimensions of what we do every day. For too long, that conversation has been warped by purpose appointing itself as the ‘right’ side of the debate. It wasn’t in 2017. It still isn’t now.

Nick Asbury is a UK writer and one half of Asbury & Asbury. The Road to Hell is out with Choir Press on May 13. nickasbury.com