Jim Stengel's Brand Ideals

Jim Stengel, a Procter & Gamble marketing executive, has proposed the concept of the brand ideal. What is a "brand ideal"? According to his book "Grow", it is a "shared goal of improving people's lives." Brands that operate according to their ideals, are more likely to grow profitably and, Stengel claims, provide higher return to the shareholders.
The book is based on a study, narcissistically called the Stengel Study that identified brands or business (the term is used interchangeably, which is acceptable in this context) which have shown significant growth in the past 10 years and have developed a strong bond with consumers. The Stengel Study finally converged on 50 brands that have created "meaningful relationships with people" and "outpaced" the competition.
If we write down in which way each of these top 50 brands improve people lives and then take a look at the list, we'll see a pattern emerging. All of these ideals can be summarized into 5 fundamental "human values" that improve people's lives. Let me just state them (I am typing verbatim from page 38 in my edition)

1. Eliciting Joy: Activating experiences of happiness, wonder and limitless possibilities
2. Enabling Connection: Enhancing the ability of people to connect with one another and the whole world in a meaningful way.
3. Inspiring Exploration: Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences.
4. Evoking Pride: Giving people increased confidence, strength, security and vitality
5. Impacting Society: Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo and redefining categories.

The book then continues with a description of each of these five ideals and how to align an organization and a brand to choose among them and associate it to your brand.
By page 50, I stopped counting how many things I don't like about the book. It is full of vanity, the methodology is just wrong from what I can see, the proposal is neither new nor well thought. So I will tell you what I do like.
I do think the world is rewarding brands who can focus on improving people's lives. I think there are more ideals than Stengel's "fundamentals", such as "safety", "simplifying life", etc. In fact, the book makes it sound as if these ideals are so basic that they cover all ideals and they are distinct. I think the list is incomplete and the ideals as they are described are ambiguous and overlapping. But it cannot be denied that as the world becomes more complex and the underlying technology of products is more inscrutable, consumers will rely on ideals to choose and like brands. So the list may need to be rethought, but coming up with a list based on contemporary cases should be applauded, even if the applause is feeble. Bottomline: Ideals matter.