Purpose driven

Brand has always been a complex thing in the book world. Most publishers lack widespread brand recognition beyond the industry, with the obvious exception of Penguin. Many prefer to dilute their brand with numerous sub-brands in the form of imprints, rather than consolidate under one bigger name. And when the word brand is mentioned in marketing meetings and strategy sessions, it tends to refer to authors with hefty status and reputation, rather than the company whose logo appears at the spine of their book.

Together, it means that many of things that concern other consumer goods brands (from trust markers to temperature checks) don’t apply so much in the book world. But that doesn’t mean publishers are immune to one of the more recent metrics that’s on the minds of brand managers: purpose.

For anyone new to the topic, brand purpose can be loosely defined as how a company instils a set of values into what it does, then communicates that to the wider world. Zeno’s 2020 Strength of Purpose study found that strong purpose makes people four times more likely to buy, four and a half times more likely to recommend, and (crucially for the book industry) six times more likely to step in and protect the company in the event of public criticism.

In short, purpose is a significant driver of consumer behaviour, with the social, environmental, political and ethical aspects of brand influencing how people spend and who they spend with.

As far as books go, the past few years have seen the industry notably tested on clear cut issues around representation and diversity, as well as on the gender pay gap. Almost nobody would look at publishing and disagree that racial diversity and inclusion is not an issue that needs to be addressed. Or that it’s important to ensure a path for the women who work in the industry to get to executive levels where men still dominate, while also helping men to see that literature is a viable career choice (publishing must be almost alone in perhaps having too few men among its non-executive staff).

But other tests have been more complex. Trans and non-binary rights saw prominent members of the industry pen open letters in the media, sparking a long and unresolved debate – even though signatories of the letter of ‘love and solidarity’ far outweighed what it was responding to.

And more recently we’ve seen the lens turned on publishing decisions. Staff at Penguin Random House Canada confronted management about the publication of Jordan Peterson’s book. Grand Central cancelled the publication of Woody Allen’s memoir. And Little, Brown did the same with Julie Burchill’s book, after she posted Islamophobic comments on Twitter.

In many cases, publishers have responded to these questions around purpose well. Either by cancelling publications, creating content that raises the profile of otherwise marginalised voices, and promoting change-making initiatives. Although, arguably, real, well-defined and embedded purpose would have led to the avoidance of some of these events completely.

But there’s an added complexity at work in the book industry, in that most of the time it’s not the consumer looking for and demanding purpose - it’s staff.

The reason Peterson’s book hit the headlines was not because readers – consumers – were outraged. It’s because staff objected to his worldview. Consumers didn’t express much consternation at Waterstones’ apparent inability to pay furloughed staff at least the minimum wage. But thousands of authors and publishers did, putting publishers in the strange position of tacitly criticising one of their most important business partners – while their biggest sales outlet by far in Amazon is perhaps the only business on the planet that’s completely immune to purpose-based judgment.

It means publishers are often having to demonstrate purpose for internal stakeholders, rather than customers. And being one of the few sectors where failure to uphold specific values will have a detrimental impact on recruitment and retention, rather than sales.

The question is, what do they do about it?

Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that the growing importance of purpose in the consumer world suggests that what’s bubbling away internally will be replicated externally. And consumers who realise that a particular house is home to an author whose views they dislike may well take their money elsewhere.

It follows then that publishers who communicate strong values in everything from their impact on the environment and shape of their workforce to their published output will thrive among purpose-concerned readers. Although, this presupposes that the standards of publishing insiders are mirrored by those readers, which is by no means certain.

Alternatively, we might see lists, recruitment and output increasingly shaped by social, ethical and political leanings (as is the case with newspapers). Or indeed publishers putting a purpose lens on their brand authors, taking the view that affinity will soon be based on more than just content.

Whatever’s the case, signs across the industry show that purpose is becoming more and more significant. And despite the slightly tricky relationship with brand, the book world will likely soon see purpose affecting their profits as well as their people. In short, everyone would be wise to take it seriously as a measure of whatever brand they want to promote.

Jamie Fewery is an author and the content director of the B2B marketing agency, Octopus Group. His latest book is The Way Back.