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Purpose at Work:
How Brandless Creates Community by Making Better Stuff Available to All

Communicating your brand’s purpose is vital to creating emotional connections with your customers. But it must be done authentically and in line with your overall brand positioning, story and tone of voice.

By Simon Mainwaring | Published 5 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: Brandless

One brand that excels at both sharing its innately purposeful way of doing business with its uniquely ownable brand voice is online marketplace Brandless. A company founded on the mission of making better stuff accessible and affordable to more people, Brandless’ language reflects this approachable, simple and sometimes cheeky tone; and storytelling that’s distinctly its own. As a result, it has grown its customer community immensely, creating staunch loyalists and a consistent stream of new customers alike.

How Brandless leverages purpose to create community

Co-creates with its community

Rather than creating and launching new products in a vacuum, Brandless not only listens to but actively recruits feedback, suggestions and recommendations for what products its customers would like to see offered next. One of the brand’s core mantras — “we put people first” — is revolutionizing the way traditional brands and CPG companies interact with end-consumers. By supporting direct, two-way communication with its community, Brandless is not only building stronger relationships but investing the time, energy and resources towards developing the products it knows will be bought. This exchange and collaboration happens wherever Brandless’ customers are — online, via telephone, in person or through email.

Stays authentic to its original mission

For each and every product Brandless offers, you can guarantee that it’s put the time and energy to making it the best possible solution at the best possible price. From removing markups to removing toxic ingredients, “better” really is at the heart of its collection. What’s unique to Brandless is its singular product curation commitment: Rather than offering four types of peanut butter or 12 different types of quinoa, they keep it to one — a very good one (that’s likely organic). The ‘Just What Matters’ philosophy is more than an internal mantra; it’s literally imprinted on every product, to give customers an explicit definition of what better means in Brandless terms. This level of transparency, while rare, demonstrates the company’s original mission consistently in action.

Makes meaningful change

Beyond its products and business model, Brandless expands its ‘better for everyone’ commitment and mission through to a philanthropic partnership and initiative. Coined ‘**Tangible Acts of Kindness**,’ Brandless has partnered with Feeding America to donate meals with every single checkout. The company cares — not just for its immediate community, who can afford its products — but everyone. By involving the community in enabling these donations, it has been able to donate over 3,000,000 meals to date.

Authenticity is what sets Brandless apart — across its products, messaging and ways of engaging customers. By allowing its purpose to serve as the foundation of every action, communication and product, its commitment to bringing ‘better’ to people’s lives rings true, and gives its quality products the badge value that will drive growth and customer loyalty over the long term.

This post first appeared on the We First blog.

Simon Mainwaring

Founder & CEO

Simon Mainwaring is the author of Lead With We, the Wall Street Journal bestseller that shows how companies address purpose, sustainability, and climate challenges in ways that build their business. He’s the founder and CEO of the award-winning strategic brand consultancy, We First, that’s a B Corp ‘Best For The World’ Honoree and a Real Leaders Top 50 keynote speaker in the World. He hosts the influential ‘Lead With We’ podcast, is a columnist for the CMO Network in Forbes, and wrote the New York Times bestseller, We First. He’s been a Featured Expert and Jury Member for the Sustainable Development Goals at the Cannes Lions Festival and U.S. One Show for Sustainable Development.

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