• Ad Age, Monday, November 16, 2009 10:33 AM

Jack Neff reports that the recent Association of National Advertisers meeting in Phoenix "was a veritable parade of companies crediting a renewed focus on corporate or brand missions with turnaround or continuing success."

At Procter & Gamble, they are touching and improving more lives more completely. At Unilever, they are helping consumers look good, feel good and get more out of life; it also has a e-mail and web relationship program called "Making Life Better." Wal-Mart credits much of its brand turnaround to distilling a Sam Walton maxim into the tagline "Save money. Live better." And General Mills says, "We Nourish Lives."

Getting employees to embrace the mission has taken on added importance in the age of social media, Neff points out. And during tough times "it's important for employees to believe they're doing something bigger than what their quarterly results would suggest," says Sanford C. Bernstein consumer products analyst Ali Dibadj.

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