Well it's a new year and I've been thinking a lot about brands, sustainability and purpose lately. There is actually a strong case to be made that companies and consumers are ahead of agencies in bringing it to the forefront.
One indicator of this: Fleishman-Hillard did a study on corporate social responsibility that highlighted the sleeping giant of relevance that is purpose-driven propositions. It's good to see.
A few other bites:
Wal-Mart's big push on sustainability. The scale of it is pretty amazing.
The compact fluorescent light bulb as a revolutionary icon.
A reality TV show on HGTV featuring environmentally conscious celeb Ed Begley.
And a new magazine called GOOD. That's the cover of their second issue. I really like this one. It's started by Ben Goldhirsh, Albert Gore (Al's son), and a number of other smarty pants rich kids just out of college.
They're going against the tide by starting a new magazine but they've got a lot of ideas and an underserved market of people who want to connect to these issues on a lighter, more creative level.
As an example, in their first issue they commissioned WK12 to visually bring to life the essence of America.
The spread below was part of the result. A brilliantly simple play on royal crests depicting selected bits of genius and gusto that dot America's resume.
The magazine goes on to write about everything from prefab houses and organic chefs to couch surfing and the growing acceptability of plastic surgery.
They demonstrate that a social conscience need not be a burden avoided by the masses; it can be fun, creative and curious.
The interesting thing about all these 'purposeful' things is that they amount to a sentiment larger than green and sustainability. You could say that purpose is the umbrella that houses everything from global warming to breast cancer (in my opinion product (RED) is the best example so far of the sweet spot).
As a planner this is exciting to me... while purpose is not a new value to people, it is ripe to play a more legitimate role in brand-consumer relationships.
A new art/media/tech project has emerged which combines a handful of some very diverse elements. Part street art, part real-world websurfing, part tagging. Yellow Arrow brings online features to the real world. 
