A Note on Social Purpose from Founder Joe Wade

For a wee fella, Bono has proven very adept at sticking his head above the parapet - only to have it shot off multiple times.The sniping isn’t even due to the fact that he’s a man called Paul who styles himself “Bono Vox”, and that he still rocks 90s wraparounds. Ironically, the most stick he receives is for doing good! Jokes such as ‘What's the difference between Jesus Christ and Bono? Jesus doesn't walk around thinking he's Bono’ are one of the best known legacies of his really effective advocacy and campaigning. A couple of examples include the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, which required cajoling George ‘Doesn’t Seem As Bad Now’ Bush into caring about a continent he couldn’t point out on an atlas, and is credited with saving up to 17 million lives in Africa during its duration. Secondly, he was instrumental in founding corporate fundraising behemoth Red with some of the biggest consumer brands in the world. Asof December 2020, Red has generated $650 million to support HIV/AIDS grants.[145]Of course, the actual reasons Bono took more of a whipping than a Grand National winner is because of U2’s use of the “double Irish with a Dutch sandwich” tax avoidance scheme. The fact that Bono is out there doing some good at the same time doesn’t work to even out his balance sheet; in fact, it just makes people hate his supposed hypocrisy. By way of comparison, The Rolling Stones are up to their turkey necks in tax avoidance, but no one cares as they don’t campaign for causes or do anything political.Now a conundrum for brands that want to make a positive social impact is how to implement change if they can’t be impeccable immediately. How does a business start a journey towards being more purposeful if its practices are going to take a long time to match its ambition; won’t people ‘Bono' them on grounds of hypocrisy? Yes, you’ve drastically lowered your emissions, but you’re still using loads of plastic in your packaging, so are you best off staying quiet about your mission until your company’s rockstar familiar is Billy Bragg?

HOW CAN MY BRAND COMMUNICATE THIS?

So how should you take steps in the right direction, whilst appreciating it’s the start of a journey and communicating this without being Bono-ed?

• Transparency. “We are not perfect, but here’s how we are planning to improve.” This is disarming, leaves critics with little ammunition and provides you with a roadmap for internal and external orientation.
• Writing cheques. This should cost; there will be an ROI, but in the short term, it should cause a sharp intake of breath and a headshake from the beancounters, like a plumber looking at the leaking faucet you fitted yourself. If it’s not really costing you anything, then perhaps the transformation isn’t going far enough.
• Alignment. Start by improving the part of your business that is having the most detrimental impact. So, if your business is destroying the planet, then that’s where you need to aim to improve. Otherwise, it’s yet more PR bullshit, or “woke-washing”, of the sort a big tech company does to distract from the issues with their core business; it’s all very well that they’re big into LGBTQ+ campaigning, but that won’t excuse the fact they’re facilitating murderous cults.
• Team. Involve as many people as you can in the process because part of the benefit of becoming more purposeful is that it’s extremely motivating for team members.
• Sustained. This is a one-way ticket and so, a bit like Boris’ “roadmap” out of lockdown, you need to to be sure you won’t need to turn back. Small, gradual steps are better than a big announcement and then a sly return to business as usual.

If Bono had adopted our simple system he may have dodged a lot of derision. Although it must have gifted him enviably thick skin because he and The Edge (NB: everyone knows you’re bald) have just collaborated on the official UEFA Euro 2021 song, and it’s a shocker but he doesn’t give a shit anymore. So every cloud.