THE ROAD TO HELL - BY NICK ASBURY
"HOW PURPOSEFUL BUSINESS LEADS TO BAD MARKETING AND A WORSE WORLD" - BOOK REVIEW
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What an odd feeling. When you think you are a lonely voice on a cause and find someone already owns the subject, has done for a while, and then writes the definitive book on it. But that’s what Nick Asbury has done.
The Road to Hell is the book I wanted to write. But I couldn’t have done it as well as Nick has.
I had been monitoring the ‘state of purpose’ for a couple of years before coming out on it in a blog in June 2020: There is a problem with purpose. That is because people are confusing a brand’s purpose with a brand’s social purpose.
This was I thought, a dissenting viewpoint. And it was before peak purpose – that probably happened a year or two later. So meagre seemed any variance from blind obedience to the purpose mantra that not only did my opposition feel bold, and it did provoke a bit of a backlash, but also some covert support along the lines of the “Loved your article – but sorry – can’t be seen to like it in public” private messages.
Can’t Sell won’t Sell
Not long after, I discovered legendary creative director Steve Harrison. I was an early public supporter of his Can’t Sell Won’t Sell’ oeuvre when his common-sense arguments for marketing people – being prepared to you know, actually sell stuff – was also controversial. We became good friends as a result.
Nick started his purpose-related mission in 2017. But it wasn’t until 2024 that I discovered him. 2024 was also the year when I felt that the purpose battle had been won. This is not exactly the way that Nick would come to put it – he’s less likely to see it in terms of a battle than me. In fact he is a relentlessly polite interlocutor on the subject. But I think we did come to roughly the same conclusion. I had therefore decided to no longer write about brand purpose.
End of the bogus brand purpose era
I would like to think this wonderful book The Road to Hell will put an eloquently drawn line under the foolish brand purpose age. But such is the way with these things, I suspect that long after critical thinking marketers have reverted to actual brand marketing, there will be those still travelling down the ultimately blind alley of brand purpose.
When Byron Sharp describes your book as “. . .measured, grown up, and very well written”, you hardly need my endorsement. But here goes anyway. Firstly it is the book I wish I had written, but now I can’t even try. It is the book I would have written – If I could write as well as Nick. And think about these things as thoroughly and penetratingly as Nick has. And was as polite as Nick. . .
There are so many good quotes and conclusions in the Road to Hell that it is hard to pick a winner. But my favourite is probably:
“Purpose. . . is an incoherent way to think about marketing, business and business ethics."
As he proves, that is because brand purpose is essentially a false paradigm, sophistry.
This is a commendably polite book. But that’s because Nick wore a velvet glove in writing it. Nevertheless, he skilfully skewers the whole brand purpose industry. He demonstrates throughout that incoherence he refers to in the brand purpose philosophy. Ultimately he successfully points out that if you think business should be ethical, and demonstrate care in its dealing with the world (who doesn’t?) that brand purpose is a very poor way to go about it. In fact it is largely counter-productive.
Obligatory Reading
The Road to Hell is such a tour de force of the subject that it should be obligatory reading for students of marketing and indeed anyone working in the ad industry in particular. It is hugely well researched, well organised and as you would expect from a master copywriter – brilliantly written and so easy to read. As a great believer that when it comes to human behaviour there is nothing really new under the sun, I relished the way that Nick goes back to the very beginnings of corporate history to show that ‘Brand Purpose’ has just been the recent method du jour for corporations to cloak their actual behaviour (very often not good) in a veil of do-goodery.
Why “start with why”? and other brand purpose myths
There Is no meaningful pro-purpose argument that Nick doesn’t fillet. Nick skilfully dismantles Simon Sinek’s ‘Start with why’ (largely unchallenged for more than a decade). He respectfully demotes Sinek to a rhetorician (but a skilful one).
"We've already seen how 'starting with why' leads to sameness and abstraction, turning all brands into a slightly different version of 'We're here to make the world a better place'"
And ‘Stengel’s 50’ – a widely lauded study that hand-picked 50 top performing businesses that make big purpose claims? - correlation is not causation.
Even Unilever’s widely vaunted Dove campaign is largely taken off its pedestal by Nick, who also successfully pulls off the ultimate purpose blasphemy in demonstrating how Patagonia’s soaring purpose stance manages to both blanch a bit under real scrutiny, and undermine all ‘fake’ corporate purpose at the same time.
All those surveys showing Gen Z will only buy purpose-led brands? Dismissed by Nick as unsound research by “Gen Z whisperers”. (That phrase made me laugh out loud). These surveys also contradict research Pull did in 2022 – Is your brand too woke? which showed distinct unease across the generations for brands supporting unrelated progressive causes.
Nick brilliantly turns all the pro-purpose arguments on their head, empties, them, points out the fallacies and leaves nothing but dust.
“But the major problem with Purpose is it centres itself on you not your reader or customer. It’s all about 'we' the brand and its lofty mission.”
Ultimately, as well as being all about ‘we the brand’, purpose leads to sameness in marketing. Ultimately this breaks Byron Sharp’s ‘First rule of How Brands Grow’ – have distinct brand assets. How can you stand out if all brands are operating on the same message platform? Pull has seen this in our own research in health and beauty. Almost all brands make similar claims. Consumers do look for reassurances around sustainability in particular, but if you elevate it to be your core message – you are going to have a lot of competition. This in my view was part of the downfall of Body Shop. Ultimately other brands – like LUSH – stole their clothes.
But one thing is missing.
So as Nick has so comprehensively (and politely) de-bunked the brand purpose movement, he has left almost nothing for me to add. But there is one dimension I would have liked him to explore. Pull examined consumers attitudes to this in our ‘Is you brand too woke?’ research. Nick treats all brand purpose as largely philanthropic or the ‘common good’. There is nothing in the book to suggest that all causes supported by brand purpose are not equal. This to me is a little too kind. Obviously some brand purpose is old fashioned charity or philanthropy – but not much.
I note that Nick has a certain aversion for the ‘W’ word (He doesn’t use it until page 106 of his book) which I sympathise with – the use of the word implies an initial bias in approaching the purpose subject. Although we provocatively used it to publicise our research, the ‘W’ word was never used in the questions to consumers. However, for me an unavoidable aspect of brand purpose was the dominance of certain causes supported by brands promoting purpose. In 2022 the dominant ones were: Climate change, BLM, LGBQT+ equality, diversity & inclusion, and female body positivity. These are probably best described as ‘Progressive’ (or dare I say it? woke) causes. They are also causes beloved and promoted by the left and often therefore dear to the heart of marketers.
Our research showed at least some of these progressive causes are actually typically seen by the mainstream as divisive and highly political. They are inextricably linked with brand purpose. Despite it’s huge scope, this feels like an area unexplored by The Road to Hell. Brand Purpose’ brings politics into the workplace and advertising where it doesn’t belong. I’m not sure that this is enough left for me to write a book about though. The subject is covered very well by both Steve Harrison’s Can’t Sell Won’t Sell which digs into the political motivations behind why modern marketers are so reluctant to sell stuff, and also in Andrew Tenzer and Ian Murray’s outstanding insights on how marketers have a different worldview to the mainstream majority they are marketing to.
Brand Purpose 0, Human Creativity 1
Although brand purpose comes out of the Road to Hell very badly, there is an upbeat conclusion. In the final analysis Nick sees brand purpose as a mask for corporate greed, excess and malfeasance. That is obviously very damning. But perhaps the world of advertising and marketing is on a road back to redemption. If brand purpose was generally a form of po-faced puritanism that failed the sincerity test, then perhaps the cakes and ale are returning. Humour and entertainment seem to be creeping back into advertising. The industry should be characterised by creativity not hectoring morality tales.
“The first step is to remake the case for creativity: centre it, cultivate it, celebrate it. But it’s also about more than that. Creativity can’t be reduced solely to purpose, but it can’t also be reduced solely to commerce.”
Amen.