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INTRODUCTION
The rising tide of social consciousness is
causing many global brands to weave
purpose into the fabric of their businesses
- through mission statements, narratives
and campaigns. Some businesses were
built from the beginning with the belief
in mind – take The Body Shop’s pursuit
of social and environmental change.
Others have interlaced purpose into
their campaigning, for example Dove’s
Real Beauty campaign that has run
successfully for over ffteen years. More
recently, brands have reacted to heated
socio-cultural debates with corporate
activism, resulting in the clash of brands
and politicians, such as in the case of
Nike.
This trend of incorporating purpose will
only get more pressing with time. 61%
of centennials and 58% of millennials
globally ‘like brands that have a point
of view and stand for something’,
compared to 50% Gen X and 48% of
baby boomers2.Brands now have an
expectation ‘to do the right thing’ or risk
consumer backlash.
But having a purpose is not just
important for altruistic reasons. More and
more, purpose ‘done right’ is resulting in
proft. Crusading brands with a mission
have seen strong brand growth, with
Unilever’s ‘Sustainable Living’ brands
growing more than 50% faster than the
rest of the business and accounting for
60% of growth in 2016.
For purpose to work, it needs to be
authentic and meaningful. It needs to
resonate with the audience but also be
relevant to the brand itself. However, in
a diverse and multicultural world, a one-
size-fts-all approach does not work.
Social movements that emerge in the
West are not necessarily relevant to a
consumer on the other side of the world.
The need to understand the nuanced
social issues driving people has never
been more important to local and global
brands alike – especially when it comes to
Asia3.
This report seeks to understand the
social issues that matter to people in
the region and the role that they believe
brands should play within this complex
environment. It investigates:
1. What issues matter: the issues Asian
consumers see, and the ones they care
about
2. How issues circulate: where
consumers get their information and
how they share it
3. The role of brands: connecting with
consumers through relevant purpose
In a world of more conscious consumption,
the role of brands has changed from:
A positive impact in people’s lives
A positive impact in people’s lives
and the world they live in
1Without a sense of purpose,
no company, either public or
private, can achieve its full
potential. It will ultimately
lose the license to operate
from key stakeholders.
Larry Fink
CEO BlackRockMETHODOLOGY
Defning and measuring the issues
that matter to people across a diverse
landscape such as Asia presents
challenges. To ensure alignment, the
research used the consistent framework
of the UN Sustainable Development
Goals (SGDs).
The survey, hosted by Lightspeed,
covered over 3,000 respondents in nine
markets across the region. The group
were questioned about the issues that
they felt were most important to them,
what they felt the heard the most about,
how they interacted with these across
diferent media and their thoughts on
brand engagement of social issues.
To ensure a true and meaningful data
set in this personal topic, the survey
leveraged Lightspeed’s Modern Survey
Design principles both ensuring a device
agnostic survey and being designed
specifcally with the consumer’s time and
experience in mind, utilising proprietary
Award-Winning QuestionArts tools to
best engage the respondents.
Social media analysis using Netbase
was then undertaken to understand
the diferent nuances within the
conversations around the issues that were
selected as most important within each
market; data covered a year’s worth of
comments and cleaning and processing
utilised Kantar’s research grade data
principles.