<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6877701b88030d58f11ac053/6a16dbd962fd6355e578130d_playback-the-rise-of-purpose-driven-pr-68b815f760472629934108.webp" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Expression</span> <h1 class="gn-title"><em>Playback:</em> The Rise of Purpose-Driven PR: Communicating Your Brand&#39;s Values</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>3 September 2025</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>1 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <h2>Purpose-Driven PR: What Agencies Need to Know to Do It Right</h2> <p>Purpose-driven PR has moved well beyond a trend. Audiences are more sceptical than ever, journalists are quicker to call out hollow claims, and brands that lead with values without the substance to back them up face swift and public backlash. For PR agencies, this creates both a significant opportunity and a genuine craft challenge: how do you build campaigns rooted in a client's values that hold up to scrutiny, deliver results, and evolve as expectations shift?</p> <p>In a session hosted by The GO Network as part of its Expression event series, three senior PR practitioners shared their perspectives on what separates purpose-driven campaigns that land from those that fall flat. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/charissa-redfern-7a4268144/">Charissa Redfern</a>, B2B Business Director at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.tangerinepr.com/">Tangerine</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhonatempler/">Rhona Templer</a>, Group Managing Director at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://gold79.co.uk/">GOLD79</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloebaker1/">Chloe Baker</a>, Head of Public Relations at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.weareliquid.com/">Liquid PR</a>, brought candid, agency-side insight to a topic that can too easily default to vague aspiration.</p> <p>Here are the core takeaways for agency teams working on purpose-led briefs.</p> <h2>Start with Substance, Not Story</h2> <p>The most common mistake agencies make with purpose-driven briefs is reaching for the narrative before testing whether there is anything real underneath it. A compelling story built on a shaky foundation is not just ineffective, it is a liability. Before any creative or media work begins, the agency's job is to interrogate the client's claimed purpose with the same rigour a journalist or activist would apply.</p> <p>That means asking hard questions early. Is this value embedded in the client's operations, supply chain, and internal culture, or is it aspirational positioning? Is there evidence that can be cited, verified, and held up over time? Are the people inside the organisation willing to speak to it authentically?</p> <p>The agencies in this session were clear that the discovery and audit phase is not a courtesy exercise. It is the work. Purpose-driven PR that skips this step tends to generate short-term coverage but long-term reputational risk, for both the brand and the agency that built the campaign.</p> <h2>Align Values to Audience Without Losing Authenticity</h2> <p>One of the more nuanced challenges in purpose-driven PR is the tension between tailoring messages for different audiences and maintaining a consistent, credible core. In B2B contexts particularly, the audiences a brand needs to reach, including procurement teams, industry press, and senior decision-makers, often require different framings of the same underlying values.</p> <p>Charissa Redfern's perspective from Tangerine is grounded in B2B reality: purpose messaging that works in consumer PR does not automatically translate to business audiences, who tend to expect specificity, proof points, and relevance to their own commercial concerns. The framing needs to shift, but the substance cannot.</p> <p>The practical discipline here is building a values architecture before campaign planning begins. This means establishing the non-negotiable core claims that will remain consistent, and then identifying how those claims can be expressed differently across channels, audiences, and formats without contradiction. When a journalist, a procurement lead, and a potential employee all encounter the brand in the same week, they should arrive at the same understanding of what it stands for, even if they came via very different routes.</p> <h2>Adapt Without Drifting: Staying Relevant as Expectations Evolve</h2> <p>What audiences expect from purpose-driven communication shifts continuously. Issues that were fringe concerns five years ago are now mainstream expectations. Areas that once generated positive coverage for being progressive can now feel performative if the approach has not kept pace.</p> <p>For agency teams, this creates an ongoing obligation to monitor how the landscape is shifting, not just for their own positioning, but for every client operating in a purpose-adjacent space. Rhona Templer and the team at GOLD79 work across sectors where values-led communication is increasingly the norm rather than the differentiator. The competitive pressure is no longer about whether a brand communicates purpose, but about whether it does so with enough specificity and honesty to be believed.</p> <p>The practical implication is that purpose-driven campaigns cannot be set-and-forget. They require regular reviews against external context: what is happening in the news cycle, how is regulation shifting, what are peer brands doing, and what are audiences now demanding that they were not demanding eighteen months ago? Agencies that build this review cadence into their retained relationships add real strategic value beyond execution.</p> <h2>Measure What Actually Matters</h2> <p>Evaluation is where purpose-driven PR most often lets itself down. Coverage volume and AVE are inadequate proxies for whether a values-led campaign is doing its job. The more useful measures are those that track perception shift, stakeholder trust, and commercial impact over time.</p> <p>The frameworks discussed in the session point toward a tiered approach to measurement. Output metrics (coverage, reach, share of voice) remain useful as baseline indicators. Outcome metrics (changes in brand sentiment, media narrative, audience behaviour) get closer to the real question. Impact metrics (effect on recruitment, partnerships, revenue conversations, or policy engagement) are where the genuine business case for purpose-driven PR is made.</p> <p>Chloe Baker's work at Liquid PR reflects a broader industry shift toward building measurement into the campaign architecture from the start, not retrofitting it at reporting time. The discipline of agreeing what success looks like before a campaign launches forces sharper thinking about what the purpose messaging is actually supposed to achieve.</p> <h2>A Practical Starting Point for Agency Teams</h2> <p>If your agency is working on a purpose-driven brief right now, or anticipating one, the most useful immediate step is to run an internal audit before any external work begins. Map what the client claims to stand for against what their operations, leadership behaviour, and public record actually demonstrate. Identify the gaps. Decide which gaps can be bridged through genuine action and transparent communication, and which represent risks that need to be surfaced in the client relationship before the campaign goes live.</p> <p>Purpose-driven PR done well is some of the most credible and durable work an agency can produce. Done poorly, it accelerates exactly the reputational problems it was meant to solve. 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