Brands acting as 'neighbours' earn stronger consumer trust, Lennon Group says

As consumer trust becomes one of the world's strongest purchase drivers, a new paper from Philippine creative collective Lennon Group argues that brands hoping to build lasting loyalty need to move beyond purpose-led messaging and rethink their relationship with the communities they serve.

The report, "The grass is greener where you water it: A guide on how brands can create impact and genuinely earn people's trust", comes as the UN Global Compact and Kantar's 2026 CMO Benchmark Study found a significant disconnect between brand intentions and execution. While 69% of senior marketing leaders believe their organisations are successfully integrating purpose into their business, average performance across 28 measured sustainability behaviours stands at just 52%, leaving a nearly 20-point gap.

The paper also notes that trust is now the third most important purchase decision driver globally, behind only product quality and value for money.

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Rather than calling for more purpose campaigns, Lennon Group argues that brands should fundamentally change how they see themselves within society.

"The question the industry keeps asking is what should a brand do for its community," said Angela Thakur, head of strategy and chief operating officer at Lennon Group, who authored the paper. "But the more fundamental question is who the brand understands itself to be in relation to that community. Those are very different starting points - and they lead to very different outcomes."

The report outlines what it describes as a three-stage evolution for brands. The first, "Purpose Saying", focuses on purpose expressed through campaigns and brand platforms without meaningful operational change. The second, "Purpose Doing", sees brands embedding purpose into business practices, but still positioning themselves as the primary agents of change.

The final stage, "Being a Neighbour", calls for brands to see themselves as inseparable from the communities in which they operate, making community wellbeing integral to business success rather than a separate corporate initiative.

According to the paper, brands at this stage tend to be less vocal about purpose and more consistent in their everyday behaviour, resulting in stronger consumer trust over time.

The report draws on international examples including Patagonia, Dove, Ben & Jerry's and Bombas, alongside Philippine organisations such as Meralco, GCash, Globe Telecom, Jollibee Group Foundation, PepsiCo Philippines and Ayala Foundation's PROTEGERI initiative with OFF!.

It argues these organisations share a common trait beyond communications strategy: they have embedded community considerations into business decisions, operations and long-term commitments.

To help marketers adopt the approach, the paper proposes five practical behaviours: starting with community needs before developing campaign briefs, defining measurable outcomes early, co-creating initiatives with communities, maintaining commitments beyond campaign cycles, and being willing to make business decisions that carry tangible costs in support of stated values.

"The brands worth paying attention to have made a different kind of shift. They stopped thinking of themselves as separate from the communities they sell in. They became neighbours," Thakur wrote in the report. "And neighbours do not help their street because it is good for their property value. They help because it is their street."

The report also cites previous research supporting the commercial case for purpose-driven businesses, highlighting findings that purpose-led brands achieved 175% brand value growth over 12 years compared with 70% for other brands, while purpose-driven companies generated five times higher market returns than peers over two decades.

Lennon Group said it is presenting the paper to brands and organisations across the Philippines as it encourages businesses to shift from treating purpose as a communications exercise towards embedding it throughout their operations.

From AI-powered marketing and the friction economy to retention-led growth, DMA Philippines 2026 on 29 September in Manila will bring together marketers to tackle the opportunities and challenges shaping the next phase of digital transformation.

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