Reinvigorating Brand Loyalty Through Trust, Purpose & Values

Key Topics

Pausing previously scheduled content and programming, brands are instead redirecting time and budgets toward collaborative community-building projects. As consumers take note of the companies providing measurable social impact, purpose-led brands will be top of mind post-pandemic.

Brands are building stronger communities by establishing digital and physical platforms and activations that help foster the relationship among customers and encourage participation, empowering consumers to co-create the rules and even inviting them into the R&D process. It includes hosting programmed events to build confidence in a purchase or product use in an engaging manner. It also includes peer-to-peer platforms where consumers can interact and exchange with each other.

In order to build a stronger emotional connection with consumers, brands are providing customers with tools and platforms to shape their values and incorporate them into daily life.

Demonstrating shared values with their customers by investing in the social impact and environmental initiatives and offering customers a way to directly influence which initiatives the brand supports.

Featured Examples

At Walmart’s first virtual Open Call event in 2020, more than 800 small businesses were able to pitch their products over a 30-minute, one-on-one meeting. Of those who participated in Walmart’s Open Call, 175 businesses’ products are heading to the retailer's shelves and website, while 450 more are being given further review. Addressing the virtual crowd prior to the first pitches, Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillion detailed the retailer’s continued commitment to helping small businesses during the pandemic, from rent relief programs to providing small businesses with more space within its store’s shelves. In 2021, the still virtual Open Call event will be one of the ways Walmart plans to support its latest commitment to spend an additional $350 billion on U.S,-made products, and support an 750,000 new jobs.

Partnering with educational think tank DQ Institute, Lego has created an online quiz for children to empower them to be good digital citizens, and develop their own online empathy skills. Within the quiz, kids follow Lego character Captain Safety through a series of scenarios meant to help them understand how online bullying and misinformation spread works. Players are rewarded for standing up to “meanies'' with the game or for comforting a Lego character that has been harassed online. Players are also asked to think about a time they may have been a bully, and are provided with prompts on how to apologize when that occurs. At the end of the quiz, each player is revealed to be one of four Lego heros they’re most like, Sir Hug A Lot, AeroVision, Butterclops, or Admiral High Five.

Mars Wrigley-owned brand Starburst designed an at-home self-care kit to coincide with National Self-Care day on July 24th. The box’s theme was designed around the brand’s best-selling flavor, Pink, and included a gratitude journal, a succulent, a yoga towel, a jade roller, sleep mask, all in shades of pink, as well as Pink Starbursts.