Earlier this year I was part of a panel at Mumbrella CommsCon 2023 to discuss "how to profit with purpose". I joined three leaders in Australia’s communications industry – all women, movers and shakers; founders and leaders of their respective Communications Agencies. The discussion we had was a good one, but barely had time to scratch the surface of such an important topic within an industry that has such influence and leverage.

So I invited them to join me on the podcast to take a deeper dive into the topic. I managed to get two of them into the interview. The third, Simone Gupta, who is co-founder of a new independent creative agency, Supermassive, helped us shape the subject but unfortunately couldn’t make the actual interview on the day.

My two guests in this interview are

Joanne Painter - Co-founder & Group Managing Director of Icon Agency

Dena Vassallo - CEO and Founder of SOCIETY

Joanne Painter Co-founder & Group Managing Director of Icon Agency Joanne has over 30 years of experience across media, strategic communications and public relations. She was recently named ‘2022 PR Agency Head of the Year' in the prestigious PR Asia Awards.

Formerly a senior journalist with The Age, Joanne now consults to Icon’s government and corporate clients in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific, including Salesforce, Schneider Electric, ADP, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Defence, AUSTRAC, the Department of Education and the National Library of Australia.

Dena Vassallo CEO & Founder of SOCIETY

SOCIETY is an independent, female-led creative agency with a fresh and brave approach to marketing communications. SOCIETY puts people at the heart of everything they do, and works to support brands and organisations that are positively shaping the societies in which we live, work, and play.

Dena lives her values of environmentalism and female representation and empowerment through her work on the board of Green Adelaide and as the Chair of She Creates.

In this interview, the rabbit hole we go down is, I believe, a really important one...the power of brands to lead positive change within business. But it’s actually more than that – this interview is about brands leading societal progress. Our conversation expands to leadership, the risk of inaction, the need for bravery and how brands and leaders can move forward with their purpose agenda.

It's a rich conversation with two brilliant women who are driving change through their industry. I hope you enjoy it.

Highlights of this interview:

Brands – the benefits of emotional characteristics over functional in building brand saliency and resilience; and the impact of a brand on building connection and belonging
Who leads purpose and ESG standards within an organisation?
Why brand leadership is so important to building a purpose-led economy.
The importance of the SME community to embrace ESG standards to meet Australia’s ESG targets, as well as to position themselves for the supply chain needs of large organisations
Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney – a case study of how to damage a brand through inauthentic cause marketing/purpose washing and a failure of leadership
Unilever ANZ’s B Corp Certification – how Society approached PR and Comms announcing this achievement
Joanne and Dena’s advice to business leaders who are holding back on leading with purpose because of fear of the risks

Connect with Dena

Connect with Joanne