Products With Purpose

“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”

– Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

 

Let’s talk about connection. Today’s customers prefer brands that have a mission. People don’t just connect to a company’s products or services – they connect to the story behind those products and services. If you want to build a thriving enterprise, you have to identify, embrace, embody, and articulate a brand purpose that inspires your audience to connect with you.

 

An example of this trend is Airbnb’s World Tour merchandise program. An Airbnb team member asked Social Imprints to provide Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky with customized luggage tags and scarves that would be handed out during his tour of London, New York, Cape Town, New Delhi, Beijing, and Shanghai. These high-quality items would need to be printed to match very stringent artwork specifications – and they had to be completed within two weeks.

 

Inspired by Airbnb’s 2017 Super Bowl ad that featured the hashtag campaign #WeAccept, Social Imprints blended the ad’s poignant social messaging into this project.

 

Social Imprints selected the Knotty Tie Company as our vendor of choice for the project, not only for their ability to produce full-color printing on scarves in the allotted time, but because of their powerful mission. Knotty Tie Company creates dignified employment opportunities for resettled skilled refugees.

 

Choosing Knotty Tie demonstrated Airbnb’s commitment to social responsibility. Social Imprints created a custom insert card highlighting Knotty Ties’ social mission as well as Social Imprints’ mission to provide higher-paying professional employment to at-risk adults in need of a second chance. Partnering with socially responsible vendors such as Knotty Ties and Social Imprints powerfully enhanced Airbnb’s corporate image as a socially responsible company.