Charlie Syme: Marketing for Good and Building Brands That Actually Matter

My guest this week is Charlie Syme — a marketing strategist, founder of Pigface Marketing, and chair of the Common Ground Project, working at the intersection of marketing, creativity, and social impact.

Charlie’s work is grounded in a simple but powerful idea: marketing should be a force for good. Through Pigface Marketing, they partner with purpose-driven organisations, B Corps, and social enterprises to help them connect with the right audiences through authentic storytelling and clear strategy.

Charlie is also deeply involved in the Common Ground Project — a regenerative farming social enterprise that grows, cooks, and shares food while creating pathways into hospitality for migrant women and building connection within the community.

In this episode of Humans of Purpose, we explore what marketing looks like when it’s driven by purpose rather than growth for growth’s sake. Charlie challenges the idea of perpetual growth and instead advocates for finding your audience, building relationships, and using storytelling as a genuine tool for connection.

We also discuss:

• why authenticity and conviction are essential in a content-saturated world

• how leaders can build trust and cut through by standing for something specific

• why CEOs should prioritise their personal profile and thought leadership

• and how the concept of stakeholder primacy — central to the B Corp movement — is reshaping the role of business in society.

This is a thoughtful and practical conversation about how organisations can move beyond traditional CSR models and build deeper, more meaningful connections with the communities they serve.

🔗 Explore more from Charlie’s work here:
https://www.pigface.au/

Growing Your Business and Impact

Talk to us today about how we can grow your capacity to level up your business and impact with our fully trained and managed outsourced marketing solutions — delivered by our digital heroes armed with good strategy, the latest tech and big smiles.

Learn more at humansofpurpose.com

Promotional Partnerships

Like what we are serving up on Humans of Purpose? Our promotional campaigns have delivered great marketing and sales outcomes and ROI for our partners to date.

Whether you're seeking a 1-month, 2-month or season sponsorship, follow the flow below to become a partner before we run out of our remaining promotional slots.

Click Here to learn more about collaborating on a custom campaign package. Ready to partner? Just complete this short Partner Enquiry Form and we'll be in touch.

Gold Membership

Want a premium listening experience that directly supports us to keep making the podcast?

Join current members Michael, Pravati, Noel, Kathy, Andrew 1, Andrew 2, Chris, Nikki, Margaret, Ben, Misha, Sarah and Geoff and enjoy our range of member benefits:

Premium dedicated podcast feed
Removal of all three ads per episode
Early access to all episodes
Full transcripts of all episodes
Brokered intros to all podcast guests
Ask me anything page access

To take up this great offer, just head to our Gold Member page today.

CREDITS

Music intro and outro on this podcast was written and performed by Keyo Rhodes, with Harrison McGregor on drums and percussion.
Sound engineering and mastering by Lachlan McGregor.