GOOD introduces: Pete Esuola-Grant

How has the landscape changed in good causes & Purpose since you first started at GOOD?

Over the last decade, trust in media and government has declined, and we’ve seen the public increasingly looking to charities and businesses to solve the pressing societal issues we face.

For charities, this has meant a shift in narrative from just communicating problems to getting real about their unique and proven solutions that people can fund.

For business, this has meant stepping beyond making profit into Purpose. Genuinely solving societal issues, often in partnership with charities.

This week we’ve launched a report with YouGov that outlines the public’s high expectations of business in helping us all survive the cost of living crisis. The results show this isn’t a time for businesses to batten down the hatches but instead play an even more significant role in building society.

What has been a personal career highlight so far at GOOD?

There have been many unforgettable days at GOOD agency, from hearing Brian May’s passionate plea for British wildlife to being stuck in a cage dressed as a chicken on Carnaby Street campaigning against battery farming.

I’m especially proud of our Grief Kind campaign with Sue Ryder, as it’s genuinely shifting the narrative of grieving in the UK. What started as a small online innovation test has become a campaign to unite the whole organisation – including a very moving TV ad.

We received a story of a bereaved member of the public who had seen the campaign, went into a Sue Ryder charity shop and finally felt comfortable talking about their experiences – with a charity shop volunteer who had participated in the campaign and so felt comfortable having the grief conversation. Our campaign genuinely made someone’s life better, and that really mattered.

What do you find the most exciting about the work that you do?

There’s an old adage from William Bernbach that “the most powerful element in advertising is the truth”. The role of planners within an agency is to uncover insightful truths that help people see old problems in a new way – and this then drives all our creative work.

Uncovering the truth is even more important in the charity sector, where we often deal with themes and issues that are spectacularly misunderstood. Our best creative work is rooted in the genuine lived experience of issues like homelessness or food poverty. At GOOD, we have a brilliant process for sensitive co-creation that has led to work like Sense’s Sign School and WaterAid’s untapped campaign. Creating platforms for lesser-heard voices to tell their story to the world – that’s really exciting.