Elmwood CEO Daniel Binns shares why purpose still matters—and how today’s most successful brands turn intent into measurable impact. Discover practical advice on staying authentic, designing for attention, and driving growth in a polarized world.
Transcript (Download)
Daniel, welcome to the AW360 podcast. I’m so pleased to have you on today. It’s great to be here. Thank you for having me. So you’re global CEO at Elmwood. Tell us about Elmwood to kick things off. So we are a longstanding craft design business. We’ve been going for about 45 years, studios in five different countries, part of the MSQ group. And yeah, we work with a whole bunch of the world’s biggest brands like Mars and Unilever and Heineken and Coca-Cola on strategic brand design and experience design. And I’ve been in this role for about 18 months. So this has been a really exciting adventure for me to date. Excellent. Well, a lot of what we’re going to talk about today sort of centers on purpose. To start with that… There was news that the Gay Times had lost 8 in 10 of its advertisers this year. People are saying that purpose might be dead. A lot of people are saying purpose is dead. Do you agree or do you see that this is more of a shift in how brands should approach purpose? Definitely the latter to me. You know, I think… Purpose and DEI and the politicizing of those things have caused a lot of mainstream brands to become fearful of what the idea of purpose represents. But if you actually step back and think, well, what actually is purpose? What do we really mean by purpose? It’s like having a… clear vision for the role your brand plays in the world, having a galvanizing idea that all your stakeholders can get excited about, having a sort of vision for the future that you’ve got to roadmap towards achieving. So I’d say those things are fundamentally critical. critical to any brand success. And yes, it’s really about how do you make your purpose relevant in the context of the world today? And yeah, it has become a little bit of a lightning rod word and not that sort of reason why I use intent. There’s more to it than that, and I can explain more. But I think the fundamentals of what purpose means have never been more important. And it’s really about, you know, How do you craft it for the world that we live in today? Well, let’s dive down into that. How do you define brand intent? And why do you think it’s perhaps a more useful framework for companies today? I mean, think about the cultural zeitgeist that we’re living in. Gen Z consumers are emerging to be probably the most important segment in many, many marketers’ world still have a fundamental need for authenticity, realism, emotional connection, some sort of social purpose. Look at some of the brands that are still succeeding. When we think about, oh, it’s Purpose Dead. Look at Patagonia. Patagonia is a brand that’s still on fire. And that is about as purposeful as it gets. Ben & Jerry’s. Ben & Jerry is still, with the Unilever portfolio and now the Magnum Ice Cream Company, still doing really, really well. The one I love is Bombas. You think about Bombas, you couldn’t get a more Gen Z purpose-driven brand around giving away socks to people in the world. The idea that it is not relevant anymore is just simply not true. So getting clarity on that and recognizing that there is a great segment of the consumer base that really cares about things like this and cares about authenticity. Now, yes, there is, again, there is the DEI pushback, which is a different topic and it’s a different issue to being clear on your purposes and having a sense of authenticity. We still need authenticity. As brands that are dealing with how they show up across myriad different touch points, the need for cohesion and clarity and always showing up being true to who you are as a brand has never been more critical. And then purpose, for us, intent, intentionality, is a galvanizing force that can hold those things together. Well, when you see these businesses backing away from purpose, at least as we’ve defined it in the past because of, you know, whatever polarization or political pressure they may be perceiving out there or, you know, a lot of it’s real. What is your advice to leaders that are worried about backlash when defining their intent? So I think you’ve got to be clear. We are in a different time. There was a time where big global brands, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, were championing the cause of social good and recognized that they had this immense power in the world to influence the way the world operated. And you still look today at where does trust lie in consumers’ minds? It’s not in the media. It’s not in government. It’s not in religious institutions. Corporations are still up there with a huge amount of trust. They took that on in an environment where it became trendy, as it were, or became popular. to link that to a lot of social causes. And now it’s becoming too polarizing. And if you’re a mainstream brand, it’s very hard to polarize. If you’ve got 50% of your audience are going to love it and 50% are going to hate it, some brands can deal with that. And you could argue that a Patagonia or a Fenty or whatever. I mean, these are brands that thrive on having a point of view that some people won’t like. And those who are hugely successful, every brand is searching for relevance and differentiation. And if you can hook onto a group of people who passionately agree with what you stand for, even if a whole other bunch of people really hate it, that’s a good thing because that fires up a base of people. Now, at a broader level, if you are Ford or you are Walmart or… It’s more difficult because you can’t afford that polarization because your consumer segments come from both sides. So there is a trend, obviously, now to dampen down that. And I can totally understand why. It’s very difficult. You still have to say what you stand for. You still have to show up with a sense of intentionality. But I think linking yourself too overtly to a social cause or a point of view on the world that is disconnected from your business. And that’s the thing. I mean, you know, we kind of look at the Bud Light issue from a few years ago. It’s like, there was nothing wrong with what they were doing, except it was like, you don’t, so if you’ve not got permission, but you don’t need to say get involved, then don’t. But for those other ones, and it is, you know, say it’s a place to create your own differentiation. How can brands ensure that their intent translates not just into these sort of lofty mission statements, but into clear business goals and measurable outcomes that, you know, they’re businesses, they want to be profitable. How can they do that and still drive profitability? Yeah, well, that’s a really good question. I mean, to us, I mean, every marketer, every brand is, you know, is desperately in search of clarity of impact. You know, it’s all about ROI. It’s all about demonstrating the value of what you’re trying to do. If you’re a CNO today, you know, you are so scrutinized on the investment you’re making in marketing and how it’s going to lead to some clear, you know, business outcomes. So, you know, we talk about that you can only get You only get to your destination, understand what you are trying to achieve if you have clear intentionality. How are you defining really succinctly and clearly what it is you want to try to achieve? And so for us, and for me, it’s like you’ve got to actually see what are the questions that you’re trying to answer? Really dig deep and scrape beneath the surface. Get into the why is that? But why is that? Why is that? If you’ve got clear intent, you have a much better opportunity to deliver business outcomes. And creating that roadmap from intention MRT to impact is what we think is really critical. And the reality is, I think it’s all about long-term vision and long-term strategy. Your intention is what you want to try to achieve in the future. It’s a bit like using Google Maps. I may put into my destination, I want to go to Oise, Idaho. And depending on the time of day and even mid-route, Google Maps may divert me to where I’m going to go. The long-term vision never changes. I want to go to Boise, Idaho. How I get there may change based on context. Clarity of direction, very clear on what your intention is, and then be open to move short-term based on shifts and changes in the environment, but you’re still very clear where you’re trying to get to in the end. Interesting example. Why Boise, Idaho? I have never been to Boise, Idaho. So maybe that’s where I probably figure I should go. Oh, but by comparison, so I’m, you know, based on the West Coast, I’m in Portland, Oregon. So, I mean, not quite a stone’s throw from Boise, Idaho, but, you know, you don’t live in Portland, Oregon and not go to Boise, Idaho a few times. I mean, it’s an interesting place. I’ll give it that. In some ways, a nice place. It was fascinating that you picked that. Yeah. Let’s dive into maybe an example or two here. So take a brand like, for example, Games Workshop, who transformed stores into community spaces. And in my opinion, and I’m not really their target demographic, but I certainly admire what they’ve done and respect the effectiveness of it. That sort of demonstrates that purpose can take many forms. Sure. What does an example like that teach us about how intent connects to growth? Yeah. Well, I think, you know, one of the key things about, you know, purpose-washing, intention-washing, if you’re trying to be something and there’s no action behind it, that’s the worst thing. I think we went through a period where that was the case, where a lot of people would just put out these great lofty statements of their intent or their purpose and then never actually did anything to live up to it. I think Games Workshop is a really great example where they do have, they’re obviously all about you know, the joy of gaming and they have various components to their purpose around, you know, quality and creativity and, you know, long-term forever customers. But it’s all wrapped up. Sustainability is a part of that. But that part of community engagement is, you know, is a key tenet of what they believe in is, you know, what they stand for as a brand, as an inclusive brand. But, you know, it’s rooted in what their customers really care about. That’s why it works. That’s why it’s important. The intention is there because it is linked to something which is a desire of their customers. They want community. I mean, that group of people want to get together. That’s what it’s all about is finding a way to be with other like-minded people. So providing that platform through the stores is a fantastic way to do it. Same as Nike Run Clubs or Athleta having yoga classes. I mean, they know what their customers want and it fits within their intention and therefore drives successful business results. Yeah, it’s just, I’ve always found it to be kind of a fascinating business model because obviously as a retailer of any type, you want people in your stores and the longer someone’s in your stores, perhaps the more likely they are to make a purchase. But then, you know, you’d have to like look across the way at, you know, your local shopping center and see the other store where people just sort of come in and out, which for the longest time was sort of the way these things worked. You know, it was get them in, get them to buy something, get them out the door. This is completely flipping that model. So I find it fascinating. Yeah, I would say it’s probably a reflection also of the way that retail in 2025 operates, which is, is your retail space a place for your customers to come and buy products? Or is your retail space a place for your customers to come and experience your brand? So whether they are using that space in a way that they’ve determined It’s probably the best way to actually get people ultimately to buy because they create brand love through community engagement. So, again, it’s knowing what you’re trying to do. It’s knowing the intention. And that will ultimately, if you get it right, will lead to the right impact. If you were a CMO or a brand leader listening right now, what’s the first step you would recommend to move beyond the whole purpose is dead debate and start building brand intent into your strategy right now? Yeah, I think it’s getting super clear on what it is you’re trying to achieve. I think it is the fundamentals of good brand building. Who is your target? What do they really care about? What are the things that drive their decision making? And how can our brand connect to that? And what do we want to achieve within it? Let’s be really precise and clear about what our role in that category is. So the more you can get clear on that, the greater opportunity you have of delivering the right results. And I think we all can in a fast-paced environment. Nobody has time for it. People feel they haven’t got time for strategy. I actually need to get stuff out the door. I just want to use the data that’s in front of me. It’s all about performance. And it’s like, I haven’t got, you haven’t got time to spend weeks thinking about, you know, what could be argued to be naval casing. But I would say, you know, it’s like never enough time to do it properly, always enough time to do it twice. Like you’ve got to spend the time to fundamentally determine what is it you’re trying to achieve. and then shape the strategy and the tactics to deliver on that. So it is, you know, in the world of, you know, six months of, you know, endless debate and consumer research and, you know, it’s gone quite shorter. You can’t do that. That luxury is gone. But you do need to spend the time to get really clear on the problem that you’re solving, what’s the question you’re really answering, and that level of intentionality, I think, is the starting point for it. And last question, looking ahead, what does acting intentionally look like in your opinion over say the five to 10 year horizon? And how do you keep that ambition consistent in such a rapidly changing world? Yeah, I think it’s about defining brand fundamentals. I think that’s the piece. It’s like recognizing there’s some foundational elements to your brand, but no matter what happens in the world, are not going to change. And getting very clear on what those things are is critical. Yes, trends come and go, and you should better reflect it. But like any good individual, we’re all our own person. We all have our own personality. We all have our own traits and ways of working. But the way I show up as a principled person with values in a work environment, with my friends, in a tough situation, whatever the situation is, I still have something that holds me together, those fundamental core values that never change. And I think getting clear on what they are, what are those fundamentals of your brand, the toolkit of things that you’re going to use to express yourself in different environments, it doesn’t matter what changes around you. And I think that’s the bit that will keep you successful. And you think about the brands that have always evolved, like a brand like Apple. Of course, it’s evolved dramatically, but fundamentally, What it stands for, empowering creativity, has not changed and will not change. Just being clear on that and expressing that in a way that is relevant to the context of the world that we live in is what’s going to keep brands successful into the next five years. Apple, an interesting example, because honestly, as I think about it, that was the first store I ever went into where, you know, there was people gathering. There was sort of a community thing. I remember the first time I ever went into an Apple store, they were training people on how to use Final Cut in the back or iMovie or one of those things, you know. And I was just fascinated by that. You know, here’s 30 people who are going to be in the store now for 90 minutes to learn how to use something they may not even own yet. but you know if it’s cool enough maybe they’ll buy one on the way out you know yeah and it’s interesting i think it’s a that’s interesting sort of segue you know because to me that’s why it’s so fascinating to be in the design space like i think we live in a world today where because of massive media fragmentation and diminishing attention spans you know you have got split second to communicate what your brand stands for. And what does that better than anything is design. And you take a brand like Apple, we just talked about, you go back 40 years and they built their brand with 1984, big TV commercial, top of the funnel, storytelling, big emotional stuff. In Adrena today, that’s a brand that is built on design aesthetic. I mean, everything it does is about tonality, a look, a feel, whether it’s the store, the product, the advertising, like it is beautifully crafted and it’s through design. And so I would say that the most successful brands are those ones that embrace design as a means by which they can create cohesion in their brand system and telegraphically communicate what they stand for. So that’s why I’m sort of excited to be at Elmwood. Well, if one wanted to find out more about yourself or Elmwood, where would you send them? Go to elmwood.com. Look at our website. We’ve just relaunched our brand and we’ve relaunched our website. Tells a great story. I think you’ll learn an awful lot more about from getting brands from intent to impact and see some beautiful work. That’s what we really care about. It’s amazing craft design work and that’s what gets us excited and delivers results for our company and for our clients. And that’s where we’ll find out news about the forthcoming Boise studio then, I assume. Absolutely. I’ll be heading to Boise just before you do it. Excellent. Well, Daniel, thanks so much for taking part in the show. This has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for the time.
