🧪 Tony’s Chocolonely’s Authentic Purpose

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It’s only the first of July, but also it’s already the first of July.

The year is halfway done and it’s been a big one, launching this newsletter being a standout!

It’s reflection points like this at the end of a quarter when I’m reminded that I’m not very good at celebrating the little wins as they happen. I’m always looking at and thinking about what’s next.

A friend of mine has a Notion doc where they add screenshots of nice comments or positive feedback so they have all the little wins in one place. That means they can look back over it when things are tough or frustrating and remember just how far they’ve come. I’ve since started my own doc and included some of the lovely comments and replies from you all!

Last week I ran a workshop and one participant mentioned they read this newsletter, even bringing up ideas I’d written about and how they could apply to their own business.

That went straight into my wins doc.

— Isaac

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Quick Hits

• How AI is changing advertising’s hottest currency: attention metrics [Chief Marketer]

• Unhinged marketing has gone mainstream, but consumers crave honesty [Sprout Social]

• How Adidas shifted to brand building and turned a $100m loss into profit growth [Linkedin]

• Vibe marketing is not as easy as it sounds [Inc.com]

• What I learned after handing marketing to a Gen Zer [Fast Company]

Tony’s Chocolonely’s Authentic Purpose

My partner has incredible self-control around chocolate. She can eat one single square of a block before putting it away for another day. I'm much more of a row-at-a-time kind of guy…

Yet this "design flaw" has helped Tony's grab 19% market share in the Netherlands against giants like Mars and Nestlé. Those irregular pieces have become their most recognisable feature and most powerful marketing asset.

A lot of brands today treat purpose like a marketing add-on. Tony's shows what happens when you make it your foundation.

The Purpose-Washing Problem

Walk through any supermarket and you'll see purpose everywhere. Packaging claiming "sustainable sourcing" and "ethical practices". CSR initiatives tucked away on company websites. Purpose statements that could be copy-pasted between brands.

But scratch the surface and you'll find the same old products with a thin veneer of values. Marketing teams bolt on purpose rather than build it in, treating it as a campaign rather than core business strategy.

This approach fails because customers can smell the difference between genuine mission and marketing manipulation. When your brand says one thing while your product experience says another, you create confusion instead of connection.

You end up with purpose initiatives that generate press releases but not lasting loyalty. Campaigns that might occasionally win awards, but don't win hearts.

When Journalism Becomes Movement

Tony's story didn't start in a boardroom. It started with Dutch TV journalist Teun van de Keuken spending years investigating the dark side of chocolate for his programme "Keuringsdienst van Waarde" (Food Inspection Service).

His reports exposed widespread child labour across West African cocoa farms, but after three years of hard-hitting journalism with no real industry change, Teun made a radical choice. He filmed himself eating chocolate from 10 different brands, then turned himself into police as a "chocolate criminal" who had knowingly consumed products made with child labour.

When the courts threw out his case (they couldn't prosecute every chocolate eater in the Netherlands), Teun decided to set an example instead. He'd create his own chocolate bar using only traceable, exploitation-free cocoa.

Why Authentic Purpose Actually Works

Here's the fascinating thing about those unequal chocolate pieces: they work on your brain in ways traditional marketing can't.

Every time you unwrap a bar, you're confronted with visible inequality. It's impossible to ignore and impossible to forget. Your brain doesn't just understand their message about inequality in the cocoa supply chain, you physically feel it through the product itself.

Compare this to brands that talk about their values in advertising but deliver generic product experiences. The disconnect creates confusion. Your brain struggles to reconcile the mismatch between promise and reality.

When everything aligns like this, marketing becomes effortless. Their "Pay farmers, not lawyers" campaign launched after Mondelez (owners of Cadbury & Milka) sued them for using purple packaging. Legal trouble only reinforced their David vs. Goliath narrative.

Their advent calendar deliberately spreads chocolate unequally across December days. Some windows have no chocolate, others have two pieces. Parents complained, kids learned about inequality. Product innovation and brand message became inseparable.

The Business Case for Authenticity

Traditional thinking says purpose comes at the expense of profit. Tony's proves the opposite.

A Tony’s bar costs 3x more than Hershey's. That's not just premium pricing, it's proof that authentic purpose creates what economists call "preference intensity". When people genuinely believe in your mission, they don't just prefer your brand, they're willing to pay significantly more for it.

They've captured significant market share despite having no paid media budget for their first 15 years.

The industry average for child labour in cocoa farming is just under 50% (a horrifying fact I only learned while doing research for this newsletter). In Tony's supply chain it’s below 4%. This isn't just good ethics, it's a competitive moat that others can't easily replicate without fundamental supply chain changes.

But here's the really clever bit, they've turned competition into collaboration. Their "Open Chain" program invites other chocolate companies to use Tony's exploitation-free supply network. Ben & Jerry's joined, sourcing all their cocoa through Tony's network. Rather than hoarding their advantage, they're scaling it.

This created massive partnership opportunities, global media coverage, and validation that their approach works. They earn credit for driving industry-wide change while benefiting from the PR when others follow their lead.

What This Means for Your Brand

Three principles emerge from Tony's approach that any brand can adapt:

These aren't tactics you can copy-paste. They're principles that emerge when you start with authentic mission rather than manufactured messaging.

The Courage Question

Tony's approach demands genuine courage because you're accepting that your mission won't appeal to everyone. Some customers buy their chocolate purely because of taste and never engage with the mission. Tony's is completely fine with that.

"They're still making a difference by buying our chocolate" explains CMO Joe Lane. "If they don't understand our mission, that's okay. They're still supporting fair trade cocoa".

This is the long-term view that authentic purpose-driven brands have to embrace. You're building deeper connections with fewer people rather than surface-level awareness with everyone.

Most brands are reluctant to make this level of commitment to long-term outcomes because it limits future flexibility. But this perceived limitation is actually a strength. It proves to customers that your purpose isn't subject to changing market conditions or quarterly pressures.

Of course, this approach doesn't work for everyone. You need genuine conviction (not manufactured purpose), categories where values influence purchase decisions, and willingness to accept initially slower growth for stronger long-term positioning. But when the conditions align, the results speak for themselves.

Beyond the Chocolate

The deeper lesson from Tony's isn't about ethical sourcing or challenger brand marketing. It's about what happens when you build a business from values first, rather than adding values onto an existing business.

Those unequal chocolate pieces aren't just clever product design. They're physical proof that this company will prioritise mission over convenience, meaning over ease, purpose over profit.

But Tony's has embedded something even deeper than marketing strategy into their business. They launched "Mission Lock", an independent committee with legal veto power over any future business changes. Future owners can't compromise on sourcing standards or abandon the anti-exploitation focus without formal mission approval.

This structural protection is one of the deepest differences between authentic purpose and purpose-washing. When your values are legally encoded rather than marketing-dependent, customers can trust that your brand stands for something permanent, not just convenient.

Tony's started as one journalist's lonely fight against an entire industry. Today they're driving systemic change while commanding premium prices and taking market share from multinational giants.

The question for every marketer isn't whether you should copy Tony's tactics. It's whether you have the courage to start with purpose and build everything else from there.

Because Tony's proves that when you begin with authentic mission rather than manufactured messaging, you don't choose between doing good and doing well. You create a business where doing good becomes the foundation for doing well.

In our age of endless choice and purpose-washing fatigue, authenticity isn't just more ethical. It's more profitable, more memorable, and more sustainable.

I might find it harder to control my row-by-row consumption of a chocolate block, but the results speak for themselves.

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