Brand Ikigai: Where Your Purpose Meets Profit
Brand Materials is a guided series exploring the foundations of brand strategy, from purpose and positioning to voice, personality, and emotional connection. Each piece is written to guide you through the thinking behind branding, step by step.
This first entry focuses on brand purpose, the reason why your business exists. We’ll explore how you can find and communicate a purpose that is meaningful and financially sustainable, using Brand Ikigai as a framework.
What is brand purpose?
Many people mistake purpose as something inspirational or motivational. While it can help motivate you, purpose is more practical, acting as a guiding point of direction for your business. It means understanding exactly what your business is, what it offers, and who it offers it for. This influences everything from the kind of customers and clients you attract, to the offers you create, and the way your brand is visually communicated.
Why is purpose important?
Purpose is important because it answers the big question: WHY does your business exist? Why this business, and why now?
Purpose provides justification for your business’s existence. It answers the fundamental question: why this work should exist at all. Without purpose, a brand can feel interchangeable and directionless. Why should they choose you over any other brand? It’s difficult for people to connect with something that has no clear reason for being.
In the famous TEDTalk, Simon Sinek breaks down the importance of starting with why (we highly recommend watching this video before continuing with the exercise in this post).
If you have a little more time, you can also watch Simon Sinek’s masterclass on The Key Steps to Finding Your Purpose, which breaks his process down piece by piece. However, this masterclass is best for reflective thinking, and we recommend continuing on with this post and completing your Brand Ikigai as a practical step to help you find your own purpose.
Why is purpose hard to define?
Many founders struggle with defining and sharing their purpose. It needs to encapsulate a lot of different messages. On one side, it should cover what feels meaningful to you: what you care about, enjoy, or feel drawn to. On the other, there’s what needs to work in the real world: what people will pay for, what the market understands, and what can actually sustain your business.
If you lean too into your passions alone, your business might feel emotionally aligned but financially unsustainable. If you lean too far towards working for profit, your business can start to feel hollow and disconnected. So it can feel difficult to find a purpose that fits, and can be communicated clearly.
The truth is that a strong purpose should sit somewhere between your passions, what the world needs, and what can sustain you financially. It’s about finding a place where meaning and practicality can support each other, which leads us into the Ikigai framework.
Introducing the Brand Ikigai framework
Ikigai (ee-kee-guy) is a Japanese concept often translated as “reason for being.” It’s a framework that helps you find the place where meaning, contribution, and sustainability overlap.
The Brand Ikigai framework looks at four areas:
What you love doing
What you are good at
What people need or value
What you can realistically be paid for
They’re plotted on a Venn diagram to show where these four areas overlap. In the centre, you’ll find your Ikigai or purpose: something that feels worthwhile to you and viable as a business.
How to Use Ikigai as a tool for reflection
Let’s work through each part of your Ikigai step-by-step. Take a pen and paper, or open a document and jot down your answers to each prompt. Remember to answer realistically, not aspirationally, as the goal is to find a sense of purpose that’s achievable.
What you love
Which parts of your work do you enjoy most?
What tasks or moments tend to energize you rather than drain you?
What you are good at
What do people regularly come to you for?
What skills feel developed or natural to you?
What people need
What problems do you help solve?
What kind of change or support are people seeking when they find you?
What you can be paid for
Where is there real demand for your work?
What are people already investing time or money in?
Once you’ve answered the prompts, plot them on your Venn diagram (a piece of paper and a pencil are enough, use them to draw four circles with an overlapping centre).
Next, take notice of where your answers overlap. The center of your Ikigai, where all four elements of love, skill, need, and viability overlap, is where your purpose is found.
You may need to revisit it several times before a clear purpose emerges, and may also notice gaps or tensions, like a passion that’s incompatible with financial viability, and that’s completely normal. Those areas often point to where your business might need adjusting or refining.
Writing a Brand Purpose Statement
Once you’ve completed your Ikigai, you should have a clearer sense of the purpose that sits at the centre of everything you do. But having a purpose is only the first step. It’s important to be able to communicate it clearly, so others can understand and join your purpose.
You can start by using this formula to put your words to paper:
Made for (your audience), we provide (your product or service) to help (the change or outcome you care about).
Here are some examples:
Made for creative entrepreneurs, we create design tools that help them build sustainable, thoughtful brands.
Made for busy households, we make ethical cleaning products that work effectively without excess.
Your purpose is completely free to change and grow with you. You can always revisit it overtime.
Concluding thoughts
Brand purpose is the deeper meaning behind your work. Markets can shift, platforms can change, but purpose gives you a reason for why your work exists and who it’s here to support. When a brand is built from purpose, it can attract people who connect with your sense of purpose and want to be part of what you’re building.
Up next: Ideal clients
After defining your purpose, you may be wondering how it should actually guide your next steps. In the next entry, we’ll explore who you’re doing the work for: your audience, and how to define your ideal client in a way that feels human and grounded in the real relationships your building with your customers.
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