Good Stuff Partners, a purpose-driven brand and communication agency, is emphatic when it comes to its approach to business: If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. That clear-as-day purpose, as well as the agency’s authentic belief that you’re only as good as the company you keep, is deeply rooted throughout the business. The Certified B. Corp doesn’t just talk a good game about being purposeful and helping clients make a positive difference in the world, it confidently walks the walk.

In fact, Good Stuff Partners isn’t afraid to turn away clients if their values aren’t aligned with the agency’s. They work with and promote brands they genuinely believe in and that can make life better for people, animals, and the planet. That purpose-led mindset extends to the talent they hire and grow, the quality of its work, the communities they serve, and its commitment to giving back.

In this episode of Beyond Profit, a podcast of the ANA Center for Brand Purpose, host Ken Beaulieu catches up with Adrian Power, founding partner and brand strategist at Good Stuff Partners, to discuss the unique nature of his business, the state of purpose in these changing times, how brands can stand up to scrutiny, how to build true purpose equity, and more.

There is no denying that brands wield enormous influence and power, and they can use it to drive social change through an inclusive and rigorous marketing strategy. How to create and execute such a strategy for the greater good is the focus on the new book Cultural Intelligence for Marketers: Building an Inclusive Marketing Strategy.

Written by Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel, a senior insights lead at Reddit who specializes in progressing inclusivity within marketing, media, and tech, the book provides a framework for embedding equity and inclusion into every aspect of marketing. In addition to insights from former marketing leaders, the book draws on case studies from purpose-driven brands and Dr. Gabriel’s own expertise as a cultural theorist and brand strategist to help organizations drive the cultural conversation and transform society for the better.

In this episode of Beyond Profit, a podcast of the ANA Center for Brand Purpose, Dr. Gabriel, who has consulted for many of the world’s top brands and agencies, joins host Ken Beaulieu to discuss her book at length and what marketers can learn from it.

While total advertising spend in the U.S. last year, excluding programmatic, B2B, trade, and local cable, declined 2 percent versus 2022, overall ad investment in diverse-owned media outlets increased 9 percent, reaching $1.9 billion. That’s according to a new study by the ANA Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing, conducted in partnership with Media Framework and Guideline. The study also found that investment in diverse-owned and targeted media increased 7 percent year over year, reaching $1.1 billion.

On the surface, those numbers might sound impressive, but the fact is, the overall share of ad spend allocated to diverse-owned and targeted media is a miniscule 1.4 percent. Black-owned media, spurred by digital, registered the largest increase in ad investment in 2023 at $55 million, followed by Hispanic-owned media at $11 million and LGBTQ-owned media at $3 million.

The bottom line is that the ad industry’s pace of progress with diverse-owned and targeted media is extremely slow, despite the high resonance, relevance, and trust delivered by such media.

So, what are the issues at play? How does the industry drive positive change? In this episode of Beyond Profit, a podcast of the ANA Center for Brand Purpose, host Ken Beaulieu seeks answers to those important questions and others from Justin Barton, SVP of digital strategy and partnerships at the multi-media company Black Enterprise, and Jenn Chen, CRO and president of Connatix, a full-stack video platform for publishers and advertisers.