Fission for a Mission

mission = the mother of all marketing

One of the most depressing places in the world is that abandoned cubicle where most companies keep their mission statement.

It's not the statement itself that means anything. Most of them are pretty formulaic. Rather, what seems to count is having a formal sense of purpose to refer back to. Something serving as the ultimate, idealistic baseline for all of an organization's efforts.

Marketing has to be driven by some form of motivation.

Without a sense of mission, it's fear, whim, habit, greed and internal politics that step in and take up the slack. Honestly, I would trace the driving force behind most of the projects I've worked on back to these client issues.

I've been most successful when I can help clients take a breath, and go from "my CEO listened to a motivational speaker this weekend, and now we're shifting our whole focus" to starting from some kind of a plan, leading to a strategy, that ultimately has a sense of mission at its root. Mission not only sustains overall organizational direction, it improves the quality of individual efforts like advertising.

To realize these benefits, I believe a company's mission has to be somewhat idealistic.

It's good to ask the question, "If my company were suddenly turned into a non-profit, what would be its reason to exist?" 

Your mission is the answer to that question.

I was struck by this quotation from the Tao Te Ching: "The best businessman serves the communal good." This suggests it is most harmonious for companies to act from a desire to provide something of value to the world, an in being most harmonious, will also make you rich.

-Eric