Media Agency 3.0: A New era

Since the 1780s, media agencies have come a long way from yellow pages to broadcast television and into our smartphones today, where we’re witnessing another shift in the media landscape, with agencies following suit.

The 2000s gave rise to corporate social responsibility campaigns (CSR), which evolved into large-scale PR campaigns in the 2010s and are now shifting again, this time into transforming entire organisations to be purpose-led rather than profit-driven. Today, the notion of purpose-led organisations has almost fully transitioned from shopworn buzzword to norm, with a rise in elaborate and meaningful CSR campaigns such as Avon's #VioletMonth and Dove's #PassTheCrown. Read more about it here.

The novelty of media agencies striving to work with and help create purpose-driven brands who prioritise social impact is leading to a shift in how companies see their work as well. In 2022, The Purpose Power Index reached the highest number of large-scale mainstream companies represented to date, many of which used media agencies to produce their impact-driven campaigns.

For the first time, we now have agencies who exclusively work to building business for positive change. Some examples include the Fifty&Fifty agency, who specialise in working with non-profits and are educating on making charity more accessible to all types of organisations (https://fiftyandfifty.org/blog/), the GOOD Agency UK, whose work includes developing a multichannel campaign for The Leprosy Mission, in which they ended up raising double the target goal, the Purpose agency whose communication and branding strategy projects include implementing the Racial Equity Impact Practice within their own organisation, to Assembly, who consistently reached their sustainability goals, aided in the creation of the Inflation Reduction Act and were named Ad Age's top purpose-led agency of 2022.

At Dante Media, we position ourselves in the midst of agencies who prioritise social impact. Our work so far has ranged from aiding EIT Food in the resolvement of Ukraine's grain export crisis to raising awareness for head and neck cancer. In alignment with the work we've done so far, Dante Media will continue to offer communication consulting services with the mission to collaborate on projects creating positive change and giving back through pro-bono work. To find out more, see our services.

If our thoughts and objectives in this article resonate with you and you'd like to be part of the new era of social impact, we just might be the perfect fit! To get in touch, say hello@dantemedia.eu