Performance with purpose: the story behind our new tagline

Recently, the eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed a change. No, we haven’t got a new haircut; we’ve changed our tagline. 

After using ‘Thrive online’ for many years, we’re jumping into 2023 with the tagline ‘Performance with purpose’.

This week, we sat down with Kier Humphreys, our straight-talking Sales Director, as he shares how our new tagline represents us as the brand we are today and why this is so important when it comes to working with new customers.

Kier, why are taglines so important to agencies or any brand?

Taglines eh? There’s a long and short version of this. In the short version, a creative prodigy (hi!) spends an hour writing 20 alternative lines that ‘look about on brand’, presents them with gusto and their agency peers marvel at the genius on show.

In the long version that all still happens, but it’s built on extensive strategic thought and soul-searching. See, in our case, a tagline is like an association with Jacob Rees-Mogg – once it’s out there, you have to live with the consequences.

It enables you to sum up who you are as a brand, really succinctly in a couple of words – if you do it right. If you do it badly, it’s just some b******* jargon about how to ‘live forever’ – I don’t know what that means, it’s pointless. I think with ours, you get an idea of what we’re about in terms of what we deliver and why we do it. 

It works on a couple of levels: we’re a performance agency who are going to deliver performance and results – which is why people ask for our services – but actually, we’re a B Corp company as well, so we don’t just deliver results for just anyone. We work with those who do good or want to do good, too.

Hallam’s former tagline was ‘Thrive online’. As we enter 2023, why was it important to change this?

It restricted us a little by implying we only work digitally, and although we do a lot digitally, it’s not all digital. The meaning of performance is very clear from the start: we’re going to deliver you performance and results. That’s what people want from an agency. ‘Thrive online’ is applicable for so many different types of brands – I don’t think it really said who we are and that needed to change.

I think the purpose element of the tagline embodies the fact that profit isn’t our only goal. Of course we’re here to sell – every business is – but we don’t sell to brands who don’t align with our ‘purpose’, which is ‘doing good’. Performance is also something we’re always talking about because we take a performance branding approach for our customers, too.

What’s the rationale behind ‘performance with purpose’?

Hallam focuses on performance – but we also like to sleep at night. And we do that by knowing our brand partners aren’t cartels or death cults. Sure, every agency is riding the train to Purpose Town, but purpose for us is more than a word. It’s ingrained in our agency business model. So we have to deliver ‘performance’ with ‘purpose’. 

Do you know why I like the line, though? Because it’s a check and balance. We can’t escape it. Much like Jacob Rees Mogg’s friends can’t say they exist in anything but a Dickensian reenactment, we can’t deny that purpose is everything to us. 

As we move further into the recession, why is your business’ purpose more vital than ever before?

Purpose is a buzzword at the moment for all brands. It’s being overused. Does Hellman’s mayonnaise have a purpose other than just being to make your sandwiches taste better? 

If you’re clear on your purpose, you tend to be clear on what you’re doing as a business and who your audience is and I think that not just in a recession, but at any point in time, if you’re clear on who you’re actually in business to work with and why you’re in business, you’re going to be making better decisions and you will have a clearer marketing strategy and a clearer sales strategy to make sure you talk to those people. 

This becomes quintessential in a recession because money is tight, isn’t it? So you need to make sure you’re crystal clear that every pound you’re spending is going after the right people, so there’s nothing to cut when spend gets restricted.

How does the way that Hallam is looking to grow relate to the vision of performance with purpose? 

We’re looking to put performance front and centre of everything we’re doing, but also making it very clear that we’re only going to be working with brands that do good. We want to deliver performance for the right brands and make sure that everybody in the agency is working with brands they feel comfortable with. We’re really proud that we work to deliver the best for the right brands rather than having the mindset of “let’s sell some more to whoever we can”.

We don’t want that to be our legacy. We want our legacy to be helping brands that deserve to grow to actually grow. 

Again, that relates to us being a B Corp. We take our role as a B Corp very seriously. It’s not something we did for a badge on the website; we did it because we believe in it and we want to make sure we’re working with brands that even if they’re not there yet, they’re on that journey and they want to be doing good as well. Of course selling things is key, but we’re here to sell the right things for the right people, and that’s what our new tagline conveys.

Looking to create your own tagline, or want to learn more about Performance Branding and how it can enhance your marketing? Get in touch.