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Sometimes we miss opportunities to tell the best stories because we keep doing things as they’ve been always done rather than doing things as the brand we are, with the values that we’re committed to and the purpose we want to achieve.
For their Christmas and fundraising campaign, Greyhope Bay created a competition for children asking them to draw the wildlife, fish, dolphins and birds that inhabit our beautiful Aberdeen coastline in Scotland.
I asked both my children to participate and they happily agreed. What I thought was going to be a great afternoon drawing together turned into a fight about who was going to win and who was the best at drawing. In the end my son decided not to participate, as he felt the pressure of being the older child entering the competition and the risk (and embarrassment) of not winning.
I fed this back to Fiona, the founder, in our next meeting. The decision was easy once we got the question clear: Who are we? And what are the values that we’re committed to? As collaboration is one of these, the answer was straightforward.
We made all the children who participated winners, and decided to include all their entries on a calendar.
The calendar post has turned out to be one of the posts that’s generated the most engagement, and many people are already requesting to buy the calendar.
While drawing competitions are popular, it wasn’t for Greyhope Bay. Not this time.
Sometimes we feel that we need to make decisions about profit and purpose as if they’re separate, but most of the time they are not.
People buy from you for the quality of what you do and the values that you stand for. Communicate both of these with your actions and you’ll be telling the most powerful story you can tell.
I’m hosting a Q&A session on the 4th December at 2.00 pm GTM about how to tell better purpose-driven stories. If you care about purpose, you might want to join us.