Judge of the Day: Digitas’s Danisha Lomax encourages purpose as a business strategy
As part of The Drum Awards Festival’s Social Purpose jury, Danisha Lomax is challenging brands to move beyond slogans and treat purpose as something lived, measured and built into the core of business itself.
At Digitas Publicis Groupe, where she serves as chief connected community officer, Lomax has spent her career weaving together creativity, inclusion and accountability. Named to the 2024 Advertising Hall of Achievement, she’s known for work that amplifies unheard voices and for her belief that disruption can be a creative force. Her mantra “lean into the glitch” has become a shorthand for embracing imperfections that lead to real progress.
She believes the growing influence of AI will raise the stakes for authenticity rather than replace it. “AI won’t change the fact that audiences reward consistency, transparency and real commitment,” she says. “What it will change is the signal-to-noise ratio. Purpose-driven communication that is truly lived out by a company will stand out even more because people will crave rare authenticity amidst a flood of optimized narratives.”
That same expectation extends to how brands act, not just what they say. Lomax draws a distinction between purpose-led and purpose-washed work, urging brands to see impact as a long-term philosophy instead of a marketing lever. “Purpose becomes authentic when it’s not just a message but a way of being,” she explains. “Companies that embed impact into their business model, like sustainable sourcing instead of one-off Earth Day sponsorships, earn trust, loyalty and resilience.”
When asked how brands can communicate purpose credibly, Lomax’s advice is to start with action. “Do something meaningful, then communicate it,” she says. “Action, evidence, message, not the other way around. Radical transparency should include moments when things don’t go as planned. That honesty builds trust.”
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Her dream campaign for 2025 would focus on youth mental health and digital wellbeing, an area she sees as both urgent and full of potential. “Rates of anxiety, depression and loneliness among young people remain critically high. We need initiatives that empower them to reclaim digital culture, making healthy online behavior aspirational and collective while pushing platforms to be accountable.”
For Lomax, making purpose measurable begins with how teams are built and incentivized. “In too many organizations, purpose lives in decks and campaigns, not in everyday decision-making,” she says. “Teams should ask, ‘How does this decision advance our purpose?’ the same way they ask, ‘How does this impact revenue?’ When purpose becomes part of the operating system, it drives innovation, trust and long-term value.”
That conviction underscores her belief that the hardest part of purpose-led work isn’t creativity but courage. “Purpose only succeeds when it’s treated as a business strategy, not a side project,” she says. “It takes governance, structure and the willingness to absorb short-term trade-offs for long-term trust.”
The Drum Awards Festival celebrates the brands and leaders proving that creativity and conscience can coexist. Follow jurors like Danisha Lomax as they define what meaningful work looks like in 2025.
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