Causes & Effectiveness
What marketers need to know about aligning with values
By Samira Brophy, Rachel Emms, Jon Harper • 12 mins read
Causes & Effectiveness
What marketers need to know about aligning with values
By Samira Brophy, Rachel Emms, Jon Harper • 12 mins read
Should marketers stick their necks out in the current climate to deliver against people’s broader personal and societal concerns?
Key takeaways:
1
Great Britain’s cause landscape presents plenty of opportunities for nuanced brand building and a chance to tackle some real issues affecting people. 78% in GB are highly committed (10/10) to at least one cause and, broadly, most of us are committed to an average of 6 causes. But value exchange from brands is not as clear cut as 37% of Britons do not care if brands are "ethical or socially responsible".
2
A sense of ‘doing good’ accounts for roughly 10% of the closeness that people feel for brands. Cause associations are not the biggest driver of brand desire however they can help brands differentiate and demonstrate that they deliver beyond just functional needs and salience. This is particularly helpful for challenger brands and pays off with strong commitment from larger brands.
3
Fewer commercial brands entered Effie UK’s Positive Change category this year, leaving not-for-profits to dominate. Yet, those commercial brands that did achieved impressive results. In fact, 40% of this year’s Gold award winners featured cause-related campaigns.
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Brands need to stand for something in the minds of consumers.
It is a marketing fundamental that for a brand to thrive, it needs to deliver on desired functional and emotional benefits better than the rest of the category. We wanted to explore if going broader than this can give brands a leg-up in the constant search for distinctiveness and differentiation.
Do brands that tap into, and tangibly help, the causes that people care about gain a critical edge in highly competitive categories? Can a brand combat seemingly limitless category choice and ever diminishing attention to stand out by standing for more?
Ipsos asked 4200 people in Great Britain on their relationship with 60 different causes, across 109 brands in 7 categories (Sportswear, Chocolate, Supermarkets, Toilet Paper, Personal Care, Quick Service Restaurants, Banks & Building Societies). We overlaid our Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) segmentation onto this dataset, allowing us to understand cause and brand relationships alongside people’s attitudes and behaviours towards sustainability.
Then, we looked for real-world evidence of these dynamics in this year’s award-winning Effie UK cases.
What we learned is that everybody cares about something sometimes, and you cannot market your way out of bad corporate governance. If you want to start a movement, then you had better ask some hard questions first: do you really care, have you done the work/paid the toll and can you stay the course?
If the answer to any of those questions is no, then no one will buy it.
Literally.
What’s going on?
In the 2025 Ipsos Global Trends report, the Power of Trust is one of the key trends in this uneasy decade. A changing world creates growing opportunity for success or failure, and the values that drive and define this trend are rooted in changing relationships between consumers and brands.
One of the biggest changes since 2013, when Ipsos began Global Trends, is a significant increase in people’s willingness to align their spending with their values. In the UK, agreement with the statement ‘I am generally willing to spend extra on a brand that aligns with my values' rose from 33% in 2013 to 54% in 2025 (Fig 1). Given the narrative currently pervading across much of today’s media, all of this might surprise some. However, the macro context of trust and brand experience behind it makes causes worth revisiting.
Everybody cares about something sometimes.
of Brits are more likely to trust a new product if it’s made by a brand they already know.
Brand choices are inherently personal, with most (83% in GB) saying they are “more likely to trust a new product if it’s made by a brand I already know”.
Building and reinforcing trust is important, but the tricky bit is the “aligning with values” part, which requires an understanding of people on a deeper level, and has many internal tensions. As a result, it is hard to demonstrate a brand’s values and how it aligns with people’s broader personal and societal concerns (causes for short) without risk.
Mapping the cause landscape, and the levers that cause it to shift with a specific category and brand lens, highlights a number of important considerations for marketers.
Who cares and how much?
The data tells us that for brands, having a positive impact on society is more important than getting involved in political issues.
People do care about causes.
We found that 78% of Britons care incredibly deeply, giving at least one cause top marks on how much they care (10/10). People are less enthusiastic when it comes to private companies taking action to sort out the lives of people and society (13%). The majority feel it should be the government acting, rather than private companies. Although, when it comes to the environment, and fighting climate change, almost 3 in 10 think that private companies should be taking action. They are more willing to lean into a private company acting on fighting climate change (27%). (Fig 2).
While 83% of Britons believe it is possible to support good causes and make money, 37% said they don’t care if a brand is ethically or socially responsible. They just want them to make good products. Meanwhile, 29% say they have boycotted brands that have behaved badly, highlighting the fragility of trust and the risks of inauthenticity.
Overall, our findings show that it is more important to people that brands do the right thing than get political. But, there is a fine line to tread and knowing your core target is key.
Younger and more left-leaning voters search out brands which have a positive impact on society. They believe that brands shouldn’t back down when getting attacked for political involvement, and are also most likely to punish brands for behaving badly by boycotting them. Therefore, it is important that brands who serve this audience and their causes follow through and do not back pedal on support.
Meanwhile, Baby Boomers and right-leaning voters are most likely to want brands to stay clear of political causes (Fig 3).
It is more important to people that brand do the right thing than get political.
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The Cause Landscape
We bucketed the 60 causes into nine broad themes using factor analysis, and looked at commitment for these. We then used multidimensional scaling to map the themes and found that the cause landscape of GB can broadly be defined by two separate axes. A planet to people dimension and one that encompasses a desire for inclusive equality to a more protective and British focus (Fig 4).
Scroll across to see a breakdown of the causes landscape...
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The UK cause landscape is complex and nuanced but offers a multitude of ways for brands to connect (Fig 5). Generations are polarised across the inclusion to protection axis. Meanwhile, political choices at the last election deliver a polarised set of positions and, based on current voting intention, Reform intenders stay ‘fixed’ and all other parties move further from them.
Are some brands already helping with causes people care about?
Across a diverse range of categories, we can see many brands that the British people clearly think are doing good things for the planet and their communities. They are also rated low on doing harm, 3% across all the brands on average.
People recognise that brands add value to their lives and the world around them and, on average across all the brands, 32% agree they have a positive impact on society and the world we live in, and many brands are particularly prominent on this measure. (Fig 6.)
of Brits agree that brands have a positive impact on society and the world we live in
How do brands connect?
How these brands have forged these connections can be categorised with 4 typologies:
1
Action Brands
People know what they are fighting for.
Some of them are challengers, born with purpose and a category issue to solve (Who Gives a Crap, Tony’s Chocolonely). All have ‘good’ associations at the heart of what differentiates them, and their challenger position imbues them with dynamism.
2
Heartland Brands
Supporting the fabric of society.
Some are established brands which are contributing across a range of fronts, often related to helping Britain. They are doing some good at home, as well as dealing directly with category problems and issues (Tesco, McDonalds, Nationwide).
3
Marketing-led Brands
They communicate change they want to see.
Some (Nike, Dove) have developed a clear position around a social cause and proved they credibly and relevantly help and deliver against it. Barclay’s have used long term consistent cause related campaigns to find some hard found differentiation in the category, as has HSBC.
4
The Unifiers
They cross the culture war divide.
A couple of brands (Cadbury’s and Greggs) have Heartland brand characteristics and have also leveraged their British heritage and cultural relevance to be seen to actively help with many the issues that are splitting the country. They help right across the cause landscape, they bring us together through their generosity of spirit, good humour, and are seen to make British communities a better place, for everyone.
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Why aligning with a cause may not be enough
Building ESG associations is not always a strong driver of brand desire.
Based on a driver’s analysis of category level brand associations, these associations tend to have lower influence on brand desire (highly correlated to market share gain). This can vary by category as seen below (Fig.7). For instance, ESG associations are more important for a retailer with strong local connections than they are for a chocolate brand.
That said, for a challenger brand ESG can present a whitespace. One in which to win some hard-fought differentiation and distinctiveness.
Take the example of toilet paper brand ‘Who Gives A Crap’ which has stolen share from major category brands by being mission-led. When other brands focus on softness and ply, it speaks about having cracked the code on luxurious paper with a smaller carbon footprint, with strong aesthetics that helps it stand out.
Who Gives a Crap targets a more activist segment which, based on our ESG segmentation, is a chunky 28% of GB adults. This segment skews younger, urban, left-leaning, affluent, and highly educated – a group among which its share of desire is much higher.
Ipsos creative testing database proved how Misfits Campaigns that break category conventions are more effective (Fig. 8).
Forging a more distinctive path relative to the category can help brands gain attention.
Our research also shows that there is a relationship between an overall sense of doing good and brand closeness - a core component of brand desire (Fig.10). While it has less influence on willingness to pay, where doing good has a strong relationship with outcomes is brand advocacy. So, it may not directly influence a purchase if not at price parity, however it is a strong emotional primer and makes people feel good about their purchase if that barrier is overcome.
Category-leading brands which are strongly marketing-led, which commit sincerely and are consistent over time, can gain an important distinctiveness advantage with a reinforcement strategy. Dove is a great example of this.
Brands are
more likely to gain attention by breaking convention.
Cause & Effectiveness
So, how best to deliver against people’s broader personal and societal concerns in the today’s marketing landscape against a geopolitical and social backdrop dominated by divisiveness, anti-wokery and polarisation?
The answer for any brand wanting to do so is to learn lessons from those still doing it and doing it well.
And, by delivering positive business results in the real world, the efforts of recent and latest Effie UK award-winners offer powerful examples of ways to do it best.
Fewer commercial brands entered Effie UK’s Positive Change category this year, leaving not-for-profits to dominate. Yet those commercial brands that did achieved impressive results. In fact, 40% of this year’s Gold winners featured cause-related campaigns.
Here are powerful lessons from four entries:
In summary
Keeping your head below the parapet in today’s divisive times may seem the safest course of action, but are the many brands currently doing so right – or, are they making a mistake?
As our findings show, by playing it too cautious, brands risk missing a significant opportunity to build future equity and grow with high value activist consumers. This is as true for a challenger brand seeking to punch above its weight in the category as it is for a big brand eager to consolidate its brand positioning and build relevance to grow.
Marketers that stick their necks out in the current climate to deliver against people’s broader personal and societal concerns have much to gain.
But, to reap the full benefit of doing so, a brand must commit for the long haul and make itself easily knowable (explored in detail in 'Bridging the Empathy Gap'). It must ensure that what it does and how it does it is true to itself by being firmly rooted in what that brand is, does, and stands for. In particular, its role in the lives of its consumers, the value it delivers to them and its expertise.
Sources
1. Ipsos causes research 2025: Fieldwork conducted online 13th August – 5th September 2025, n=4,200 18-75 years old, Nat rep, Great Britain sample. Quotas were applied on Age, Gender, Region and Social Grade. 60 causes were included overall and each respondent answered on 20 causes. Each cause was assigned randomly. To develop the list of causes we used the UN’s SDGs as a start point and then fine-tuned the list ensuring we had a topical and relevant list for GB today. 7 categories were included in the research(Sportswear, Chocolate, Supermarkets, Toilet Paper, Personal Care, Quick Service Restaurants, Banks & Building Societies). Each respondent answered about brands in one of the categories.
2. Effie Case Database: https://effie.org/cases/
3. Ipsos Global Trends: https://www.ipsos.com/en/topic/global-trends
4. Ipsos Misfits and how to get to effective advertising: https://www.ipsos.com/en/misfits/creative-news-views
Get in touch
Samira Brophy
Senior Director, Ipsos samira.brophy@ipsos.com
Samira is an Ipsos expert on brand and communication work, with 20 years of experience spanning creative and research roles. She leads Ipsos’ earlystage campaign development offer, is a thought leader on ad effectiveness, and works with clients to adopt a misfit mindset and make bolder, highly creative campaigns that audiences value.
Rachel Emms
Managing Director, Effie UK rachel@effie.org
Rachel has over 30 years experience in the advertising and marketing industries, having worked both agency-side and client-side, with a few years working in market research in-between. Having explored the dynamics between creativity, businesses, brands and audiences through multiple lenses over the years, Effie has been where it all comes together: inspiring and championing the progressive practice of marketing effectiveness.
Jon Harper
Head of Offer and Design, Ipsos jon.harper@ipsos.com
Jon has 30+ years' experience in research, with over 20 years in the brand and communications sphere where he has a notable focus on Brand Equity. He is a leader in brand tracking, utilising data to demonstrate the impact of brands on businesses, and assists companies in ensuring that their brand resonates with their target audiences. His areas of expertise lies in brand measurement, brand building, brand purpose and the role of sustainability in consumer brand choice.
