ブランド目的と成長の探求
This is Rainomoto's Podcast, The Creative Mindset.
Welcome to The Intersection, an audio version of my written essays exploring what the future
holds at the intersection of creativity and technology. I'm Rainomoto, the founding partner
of I&CO, a global innovation firm based in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.
Based on the conversations that I have with the top creative practitioners from various industries,
I write a weekly essay to dig deeper and analyze where we may be headed as creative
and business professionals. We'll be bringing this segment as a bonus episode to you.
So, let's get started. Purpose vs. Growth
Simon Sinek's Start With Why TEDxTalk in 2009 sparked a decade-long obsession with brand purpose.
Starting around 2010, many touted, quote, purpose-driven branding, unquote.
The advertising and marketing community celebrated purpose-driven brands and associated work with
awards and accolades. The brilliance of Sinek's talk was its easy-to-understand and repeatable
why, how, what framework. He called it the world's simplest idea, the golden circle.
Naming and visualizing an idea is an effective technique in presenting and selling.
This framework was, and still is, useful in organizational and leadership contexts,
providing clarity and motivation to members and employees. The curse of this framework, however,
was that it was presented and adopted as an inspirational marketing idea that could
help attract customers. Sinek, given his advertising background, knew how to sell an idea.
リーダーシップとマーケティングの違い
With the Start With Why talk, which has over combined 100 million views on TED.com and YouTube,
he ascended to stardom. He became a professional, quote, thought leader who gained fame as a single
idea merchant, unquote, says political science professor Daniel Dresner in his 2017 book,
The Ideas Industry. To illustrate his point, Sinek used Apple as the example because,
quote, it's easy to understand and everyone gets it, unquote, and the most overused reference in
marketing and branding. He titled his talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, but conflated it
with selling stuff. It should have stayed a leadership talk, not a marketing one. Millions
believed it was the way to market and sell stuff. Thousands of corporate executives bought into it
the name Apple is hard to resist and adopted it as a marketing and branding idea,
until they didn't. By 2020, some called the approach, quote, the biggest lie the ad industry
ever told, unquote. To borrow the words of journalist Anand Giridharadas, it was, quote,
the brand charade of changing the world, unquote. Now we see more brands and CEOs de-emphasizing
their brand purposes as they receive pressure from investors, capitalists, and the public.
For many, doing good became a publicity tactic when it was never their business approach.
The problem now is that the pendulum may be swinging too much towards capitalism and
individualism. Major companies, including Walmart, the biggest employer on the planet,
are dialing back their DEI and purpose-driven initiatives. We have also seen one of the world's
成長と人材育成の課題
richest billionaires defend his decision to interfere with journalism 10 days before the
2024 presidential election. He stopped the media he owns from endorsing a candidate to protect
himself and his wealth. That's individualism at its worst. Big tech was never about humanity,
or quote, making the world a better place, unquote. As Kara Swisher puts it in her book,
Burn Book, it was capitalism after all. Quote, no, our vision isn't to be the best in the world,
unquote. These words came from Mr. Akio Toyoda, the chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation.
I heard them in a meeting recently. It was peculiar to hear from the man who led Toyota
to be the world's number one car manufacturer during his 14-year tenure as the president of
the company. Quote, it's to be the best in town, not in the world, unquote. When Mr. Akio,
the grandson of the Toyota founder, took over the company in 2009, he had to apologize before the
US Congress and issue recalls of over 8.5 million vehicles worldwide. This was the largest setback
in Toyota's recent history. Quote, Toyota had pursued business growth in North America at a
speed greater than the speed at which it was able to develop its people and organization, unquote,
said Mr. Akio at the hearing, deeply bowing and holding back tears. Since then, he has pledged
to prioritize safety and quality over volume. He has also put forward three mantras to his
employees around the world. Number one, let's make better cars. Number two, let's do work for
ウルヴンシティの発表
someone other than ourselves. And number three, let's aim to be the best in town, not number one
in the world. In January of 2025, Mr. Akio unveiled Wolven City's first phase at CES.
It's a city being built in Japan as a test course for mobility. It was designed by B.I.G,
Byaku Inga's group, with my brother Yui Nomoto as one of the leads. By the way, a disclosure. In
recent years, I and Co. worked with Mr. Daisuke Toyoda, the son of Mr. Akio and his team at
Wolven by Toyota. When it's clear that it was capitalism, not purpose, driving many business
titans of our era, it's a reminder that there are still big companies and leaders on earth
who care for others. Mr. Akio means it when he says, quote, for others, unquote. In 2023,
his total compensation package was 10.2 million U.S. dollars. In contrast, Elon Musk's pay package
at Tesla was valued at 56 billion dollars in 2018. And here lies opportunity for brands to save their
souls. Unless the leader, the CEO, is willing to demonstrate through their actions, the purpose
will be meaningless. Mr. Akio and his company are proof that business growth can happen while caring
for others, not just for ourselves. One doesn't need to sacrifice purpose for growth. I started
writing this newsletter in 2023 as a way to organize my thoughts that come from various
conversations with many creative practitioners. Over the course of several months, I see and
notice new patterns and new insights gained from multiple people, and I take the time to organize
and write them down so that they can be useful and hopefully helpful to you as listeners and readers.
If you're listening to this on Spotify, there's a Q&A field, so please do send us your questions
and comments. And if you like our podcast, please leave us a five-star rating. We'll be so grateful.
I'm Ray Nomoto, and this is The Creative Mindset. See you next time.
