Are you suffering from Purpose Paralysis?
It's the latest condition afflicting America’s purpose, ESG and sustainability marketers/communicators. Find out whether you have it - and what to do about it
“ESG is the four-letter word with 3 letters.”
“It’s a hostage situation - with a small but intense minority holding America’s brands hostage.”
“We’re trying to be Switzerland on these issues but is that even possible any more?”
“We can’t afford any unforced errors this [election] year, so we’re playing it safe.”
Do these statements sound familiar? Are you an ESG or purpose practitioner experiencing something similar in your own work? If so, you may be suffering from Purpose Paralysis, the latest condition afflicting America’s purpose, ESG, sustainability, communications and marketing professionals, almost half of whom say their companies have experienced ESG backlash. Symptoms may include feeling caught between your employees who want to know where you stand on issues and the vocal minority who stand ready to berate you either way, and going into purpose-related hibernation rather than risk the perceived reputational damage from ‘poking the purpose bear’ - especially when it comes to the most culturally combustible issues (think: LGBTQ rights, abortion, the Israel/Palestine conflict, climate).
Over the course of the past 6 months, we at Revolt (where I am fractional chief strategy officer for N. America) have had the opportunity to speak with well over 50 such professionals as part of an exploration of “purpose in the age of polarization”. We paired this insight with data from quantitative research among 2000 mainstream Americans.
We found that Purpose Paralysis is widespread.
And fortunately, we also found the antidote.
Poking the Bear
That’s the insight we share in our recent report, Poking the Bear in which we reveal which environmental and social issues are inherently most polarizing to Americans and, crucially, how the principles of framing (covered in my earlier newsletter and Sun Valley Forum talk, inspired by the work of Professor George Lakoff) and careful language choices can reduce polarization and increase unity around those issues among left- and right-leaning Americans from over 40% points to as little as 8%.
In a document designed to be a playbook for marketing and communicating around purpose, ESG and sustainability in the age of polarization, we share several strategies to dial up effectiveness and dial down polarization, informed by experience and data.
Here are the highlights from the research:
Hibernation isn’t an option: Despite articles proclaiming brand purpose passé, a majority of US consumers (58%) across both sides of the aisle continue to want brands to demonstrate a clear sense of purpose (rather than focus solely on features and benefits)
Understand the bear you’re poking: Some issues are inherently more polarizing than others. Fully understanding where America is at on an issue before engaging around it is critical to inoculate your work against surprises. Sexuality and gender identity rights is the most politically polarizing issue in the US today, with just 27% of right-leaning voters ranking this issue as important versus 64% of left-leaning voters. Climate change is the second most polarizing issue, with 45% of right-leaning respondents saying it is important, compared with 81% of left-leaning respondents. More on pages 10 and 11 of the report.
Taming the grizzlies - Overall, “tamer” frames makes social and environmental issues feel more important to Americans. Our methodology* was to create statement pairs, with 10 issues written two ways - in more “progressive” framing and in “tamer” or more centrist framing - for a total of 20 statements. As an example, on climate we compared the more progressive framing of “Fighting for climate justice for all” to the tamer “Securing a safe climate for your family’s future”. We compared progressive “Educational justice through affirmative action” to tamer “Creating fair and equal access to education for all” (check the full list on page 14 of the report). We asked respondents which of the 20 issues were the most important to them. Of the top 10 statements selected by respondents as most important, 7 were written in the tamer language. Of the bottom 13 (aka the least important), 10 were in the progressive language. Remember these were the same issues, just written two ways. The issues felt more important to Americans when framing principles were applied to create tamer frames.
Progressive purpose polarizes, tamer framing unites - Through the tamer language, we managed to tame even the most ‘grizzly’ of issues. Looking at one of the top two most polarizing issues - climate change with a polarization gap of nearly 40% - using ‘centrist’ language made the issue much less polarizing and much more important to respondents. For example, support for “The individual right to clean air and clean water” – a climate-adjacent issue – was the most unifying statement tested, with 85% of left-leaners and 78% of right-leaning voters in support – a polarization gap of just 7%. Similarly, when phrased in the centrist language “Securing a safe climate for your family’s future”, climate change becomes the 5th most important issue among all respondents, while the more progressive frame of “Fighting for climate justice for all” saw climate fall to 17th place.
Finding the goldilocks zone - We suspected the tamer frames might perform better among right-leaning Americans, and they did. Five issues in particular increased in importance among right-leaners with more centrist framing: Education, LGBTQ+ equality, air and water pollution, climate change and workers’ rights. But what we weren’t prepared for was the finding that the tamer frames also outperformed the progressive frames among left-leaning Americans. This offers tantalizing clues as to the existence of a “Goldilocks zone” where we can use framing to increase unity, decrease polarization and raise the importance of these issues to more Americans. The findings also call into question whether progressive language is really serving any audience; indeed they suggest that progressive language may be driving an unhelpful wedge between Americans, inhibiting the very progress it seeks to inspire. Stated differently, the words are getting in the way. As my colleague at Revolt Rich Arscott says, “Finding the right words can mean the difference between uniting a movement for change or provoking a backlash”.
The report contains additional insights and strategies on poking the bear effectively - the 5 Principles for Poking the Bear. Corporate leaders we’ve shared them with have welcomed the findings, saying they offer a practical and pragmatic path forward from purpose paralysis, a way to continue the work they are committed to while bringing their audiences together and reducing risk of backlash. Several are reviewing their purpose and ESG language in response and collaborating with us to work out what it can mean for them - especially in this bitterly partisan election year.
Sustainability by stealth
But the findings also inspired passionate debate among more progressively-inclined folks who question whether we are asking them to ‘dumb it down’, ‘be small’, ‘capitulate’ and ‘compromise’. I get it - I sometimes feel that way too. But my response is: absolutely not. These findings relate to words, not actions. We are not suggesting for a minute that anyone chill their action; on the contrary, it’s an invitation to consider whether moderate language can provide air cover and inspire the broad support for these issues that exists when we can get the oft-weaponized words out of the way and show Americans how these agendas align with their fundamental values. Think of it as sustainability by stealth.
What happens next
We will be sharing additional findings in the months ahead on more specific issue subsets - for example, we have insight into how these principles help elevate topics like EV adoption and regenerative agriculture out of the wonky weeds or the culture wars to align with American values. Future studies will look at Pride month, election-specific issues and more. To note - this initial fieldwork didn’t pick up significant differences across age, gender, identity and racial cohorts but we can go deeper on those splits in subsequent studies if that’s something you need.
If you’re interested to go deeper into these findings let us know, we’d be happy to walk you through them or share them with your audiences in a webinar or at an upcoming event. I’d love to get my hands on any issues you may be struggling with and offer a perspective. If you have cases that corroborate or contradict them, we’d love to hear from you.
Words and winning the war of ideas
I’ll end on my quote from the report press release: “For brands with a purpose, winning the war of ideas is critical. From Revolt’s research, we can see that moderate language can inspire majority support. While progressive language may seem like a stronger articulation of the cause, it isn’t supporting purposeful action. Brands have the opportunity to use these insights to unite rather than divide Americans.”
We are setting out to win a war of ideas, and in a war of ideas, words are our chief weapons. We must learn to choose and wield them wisely.
Poking the bear isn’t easy, but it can be done.
Thanks to Jack Farrelly, Clarice Metzger, Kate McGarrahan, Gosia Plewako, Mithun Sundaresan, Rich Arscott and the entire team at Revolt for the opportunity to collaborate on this piece of work. And huge gratitude to the purpose, sustainability and ESG professionals who agreed to be interviewed off the record for this report.
*Footnote for the data nerds out there - we used relative importance as a proxy for polarization but are exploring additional ways to get at this measure in future surveys