Does Purpose-Based Marketing take Ethics from the Ethical?

This is part of our new series, Ad Nauseam– a look at advertising through the ethical vegan lens.

Earlier this month, a New York Times article talked about Panera Bread’s new “purpose-based” marketing campaign.

I’ll be honest – even at first glance, I was skeptical. While I feel it’s very important to support a company whose ethics align with my own, anytime a strategist uses the words “authentic emotional connections,” I feel I’m being manipulated into believing the not-entirely-true.

Take, for instance, those “boxtops for schools” campaigns run by cereal companies. Should the claimed benefit to our kids overshadow the crap they put in a box of sugary candy disguised as breakfast food? And then there’s pink-washing; should we really be expected to buy buckets of chicken and containers of cow-milk based yogurt because a portion of our money is going to help fight breast cancer?

People, for better or worse, want to feel they are doing some good in the world. Panera is now marketing itself with the slogan “Live consciously. Eat deliciously.”

Concepts we hold dear have now been turned into spin words. “Conscious eating.” “Green living.” “Healthy.” (Yes, even that last one.) We know that just because a company says they stand behind living consciously does not mean we can trust them at their word. Living consciously, to them, means something different than it does to vegans. Chickens, riddled with antibiotics or not, are still chickens. So, do we want to patronize a purpose-based establishment – that also helps feed the hungry – for a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread, or do we want to stop buying from a company who twists words that mean something to us to sell chickens to its customers?

This is not a new question. Whole Foods has been a purveyor of purpose-based marketing for a long time now, and admittedly, I shop there – especially for items I can’t find at the local supermarket. But they skew the meaning of “ethical” and “conscious living” with the way they market the animals they sell for meat. John Mackey, CEO is even vegan himself – but that doesn’t stop him from profiting from the sales of animal products.

My personal policies on where I take my business are evolving… it’s part of the vegan journey. The rise of purposed-based marketing reminds me that I must continue to question everything and consider more than just the images or phrases that are thrown in my face by an ad campaign. Fortunately, my experience in food-label reading gives me a good, solid foundation for this.

What do you think about purpose-based marketing? How do ads affect your consumer habits?

Photo Credit: Majiscup via Flickr