Clio

It's hard to overstate just how dominant purpose-driven advertising has become at award shows. Eight of the 11 Grand Clio winners this year were ...

Now it's pretty clear that before social media, none of these brands would've asked agencies to produce campaigns for these points in time—let alone make major investments in them, and make them the centerpiece of their annual creative efforts. And that content will almost certainly be less "wired" to the Calendar. I'm not suggesting the idea of brand purpose or purpose-driven initiatives will come to an end. The Calendar is what makes it possible for agencies to plan ahead and make investments. Up to now, the engine that drove social media conversation has been news and cultural events—the stuff brands build their social calendars around. And it's on those social channels that they're discussing social issues. [Eight of the 11 Grand Clio winners](https://clios.com/awards/winners?year=2022&trophy=Grand) this year were purpose-based campaigns—and they were even more triumphant [in the south of France.](https://ben-kay.com/2022/06/heres-a-purpose-based-initiative-wheres-my-award/) But all trends eventually run their course, and 2022 might turn out to be the high water mark for the purpose trend. Social media has been a primary driver of the purpose trend. [uncertainty around Twitter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/musk-twitter-foreign-policy-worries/), and the [growing backlash](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/17/juneteenth-walmart-black-businesses/) to purpose work that misses the mark—all of that points to fewer large-scale purpose campaigns. [to a "recommendation" model.](https://www.fastcompany.com/90772561/is-social-networking-dead) That will fundamentally change the way social works. They all focus their most ambitious campaigns around basically the same set of cultural moments in the year. Because the social media era as we know it is coming to an end.