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Then they look for a superior product – and, with it, someone on the team that has some form of R&D expertise, that will give the brand the ability to sustain that product superiority over time.
And finally, they feel, the brand team having an overall mission is increasingly key:
“Besides the business or the concept and the product, having this overall mission is becoming more and more important. Anyone can copy
the advertising campaign of Oatly on the UK Underground, but what’s much harder to copy is that mission that’s all about going after milk, that
is embedded into the culture of the company, that drives everything they do, and that is a powerful incentive to take risk. And that’s also a powerful puller for talent. I’ll be always probing the funders about their objective. And if the objective is to sell the business, a quick flip after two years, I normally ignore them because I know it’s just not enough. We’re looking for business acumen, and the grand mission that will eventually change the world one product at a time.”
The concept of ‘Grand Mission’ or Purpose seems to divide the business world – for all those who argue that every business needs a Purpose, others counter that in reality the majority of Purposes are at best ineffective, at worst BS. Looking back on these investors and some of the cases in the book, then, we might draw a distinction between Integral Purpose, where the Purpose is genuinely championed by the leadership team and drives
218 'This time is genuinely different'