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In some ways, the attention game for brands is only getting tougher. The increased pace of the cultural cycle and the tidal wave of slop hitting our feeds have added a layer of suspicion to any brand work. Is it real? How do you know? These are big, existential questions. This year, 20 companies, ranging from brands to agencies, are answering them from the perspective of marketers looking to build real connections with real people. The companies here are not only working to embed into and engage with culture, but they’re doing it in ways that reinforce the role of humans in that dynamic. It includes Dick’s Sporting Goods launching its own internal film studio to tell real stories of amateur athletes. It’s Heineken using its global reach to find a new successor for an Irish pub that’s been in the same family for 155 years. It’s Alto finding a way to make Expensify a secondary character in Brad Pitt’s blockbuster F1. You could argue that Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was an ad for Levi’s (stadium) or Apple (show sponsor), but Adidas partnered with the chart-topping artist to launch his first signature shoe, which was on full display. Culture and commerce seamlessly connected to the delight of fans everywhere. The variety of brand work celebrated on this list—Nike, Billie, Cheetos, Brawny, Ikea—is a testament to the very real creative ambition behind it. 1. Adidas For taking the three stripes on tour with Oasis’s blockbuster reunion A major part of Adidas’s recovery from its Yeezy debacle has been how it’s leaned into the brand’s heritage in sneakers and sports, pairing iconic products with smart partnerships that put the brand back at the center of culture. During Oasis’s blockbuster 2025 reunion tour, the three stripes were everywhere thanks to its Original Forever collab with the band on a limited-edition line of products and even a brand ad that ran in stadiums before every concert. It also extended to the Super Bowl halftime show, thanks to its ongoing work with Bad Bunny. As part of his Puerto Rican concert residency last summer, he partnered with Adidas to produce three custom Sambas celebrating the island’s culture. Ahead of his hit Super Bowl halftime show, they launched his first original shoe, the BadBo 1.0, and the limited edition of 1,994 sneakers (a nod to the artist’s birth year) sold out in minutes. Read more about ⁠Adidas, No. 7 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 2. Unwell For elevating the Call Her Daddy ethos into a media empire—and a new brand agency As the host of Call Her Daddy, Alex Cooper has evolved from a “try-hard vlogger” into the head of a podcast network, production company, and drink brand under the umbrella of her Unwell brand. In October 2025, she continued to expand her vision with the launch of the Unwell Creative Agency, a strategic move to help brands connect with her predominantly Gen Z and millennial female fanbase. Unlike typical celebrity ventures that leverage preexisting Hollywood fame, Unwell is built on Cooper’s self-made, unfiltered persona. The agency’s debut campaign—a Google Pixel 10 ad cowritten by, directed by, and starring Cooper—put her vision at the forefront, delivering an entertaining spot that garnered more than 39 million views on TikTok. As the agency looks to add clients, Cooper is focused on maintaining the authenticity that has defined her as a trusted voice for her audience. Read more about Unwell, honored as No. 23 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 3. Wieden+Kennedy For giving the swoosh its swagger back It’s not that Nike has been resting on its laurels. But the brand hasn’t exactly been exercising the quintessential edge that made so much of its advertising iconic over the decades. That changed last year, owing largely to the work W+K has crafted across the Swoosh and Jordan Brand. The agency that coined “Just Do It” brought the swagger back with Nike’s first Super Bowl ad in 27 years putting female athletes at the center of a male-dominated moment in the most-watched ad of Super Bowl LIX. The “So Win” ad has 98 million views on Instagram alone. The agency also helped launch Nike Football’s new brand platform, “Scary Good,” in global markets leading up to the 2026 World Cup, and its “Why Do It?” campaign put Nike’s iconic tagline into the context of today’s comparison and cringe culture that so often paralyzes earnest effort. Meanwhile, for Jordan Brand, the agency made a fun alt-history called “Can’t Ban Greatness” that jokingly gives the brand a bit too much cultural credit. It got 6.34 billion total campaign impressions and 65.4 million campaign views across the brand’s social channels. 4. Publicis Groupe For pairing engaging brand work with IRL impact Two agencies under the French holding company created two of the most creative pieces of brand work in the past year. First, in March 2025, creative agencies LePub and Publicis Dublin launched a worldwide recruitment campaign for Heineken called “Pub Succession” to help independent Irish pub owner, Josie McLoughlin, find a new successor for the pub that’s been in his family for 155 years. The brewer used its global reach to have eye-catching ads in cities worldwide where large numbers of Irish people have emigrated, including New York; Boston; Sydney; Auckland, New Zealand; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Phan Thiết, Vietnam; to find the right McLoughlin. It went to 128 countries, targeting the 88 million Irish around the world. It attracted more than 2,000 applications, got more than 1.19 billion earned media impressions, and they found their successor—Alan McLoughlin from Toronto. Then, in April 2025, Publicis Conseil made a three-word adjustment to French insurance company AXA’s home insurance policy that could mean the difference between safety and harm for women all over France. The three words are “and domestic violence.” AXA had long provided quick relocation resources to its home insurance customers in the event of fires or floods, but domestic violence—reports for which doubled in France between 2016 and 2023—had not been included. With its policy update, AXA modernized its business to meet the troubling trend; the company now instantly relocates victims who report domestic violence and provides legal, financial, and psychological support. Within the first month, AXA’s new policy had already helped 121 people. 5. Dick’s Sporting Goods For investing in its own entertainment studio to win the brand game Last year, Dick’s won a Sports Emmy for a doc called The Turnaround. In August, it premiered its newest documentary, Big Dreams: Little League World Series 2024, produced in partnership with Imagine Entertainment and MLB Studios. Soon after, it officially announced an in-house studio division called Cookie Jar & A Dream Studios to formalize its commitment to entertainment as a pillar of its brand. This is innovative in itself, since most brands announce things before ever doing any of the actual work. Here Dick’s is formalizing and boosting investment in a strategy it has been building for years. Last September, chief marketing officer Emily Silver told Fast Company that the new studio division will allow the brand to take a more aggressive stance in the number of films and pieces of content it puts out. It also helps brand the studio so that Dick’s can build more of a name for itself in the [entertainment] industry and attract different writers and different projects. And it gives the brand the opportunity to put a little more structure and framework around what content it wants to produce and where it wants to lean in to help build for the long term. “It really just helps formalize the process in a way that we can be a little more choice-ful about what we want to do in the future,” said Silver. 6. Billie For changing billboards into scratch-and-sniff ads Walking the streets of New York City has always been a cornucopia for the senses. And when it comes to smell, that reputation is too often on the negative side of the nasal scale. But last year, personal care brand Billie decided to change that with an innovative approach to a decidedly old-school advertising medium. Giant billboards posted at street-level in high-traffic areas of the city had enlarged shots of armpits and invited New Yorkers to literally smell their new Coco Villa body care scent by scratch-and-sniffing the armpit billboards. More than 5 million people went for it. The ads attracted widespread media coverage from outlets like the New York Post, ABC News, and Good Morning America, and they generated more than 1.76 billion impressions. Meanwhile, Coco Villa sales were up 60% on Amazon, the week after campaign launch. 7. Goodby Silverstein & Partners For turning Cheetos hands into a creative opportunity Cheetos has its fanatical fans already, but Goodby Silverstein & Partners didn’t need Chester or get Flamin’ Hot for some of its best work this past year. The innovation here is in how the agency creatively took a universal truth about a client’s product—that people get Cheetos dust on their hands—and turned it into a tool for growth and attention. “The Other Hand” campaign tapped into the fact that most people use their dominant hand to eat Cheetos, leaving their other hand to do the other work in life. Funny ads and billboards abound, but the real standout was “The Other Hand” font, created by designers using only their “other hand.” With no paid media it generated 432 million impressions and 11,000 downloads. It also led to a partnership with Netflix and Wednesday character Thing, making its fingertips in bright-orange Cheetle dust, crowning him the “Official Thingertips of Cheetos,” and becoming the brand’s most successful entertainment tie-in. For Cheetos, the campaign overall had 1.5 billion earned impressions, an 11-point lift in social awareness, and 5 million more bags sold in a category that was otherwise declining. 8. Johannes Leonardo For putting the Weinermobile in the Indianapolis 500 Back in 1936, Oscar Mayer’s nephew Carl G. Mayer thought it would be fun to make a hot dog car as a way to promote the brand. Man, he was right. The Wienermobile has been a brand icon ever since. Johannes Leonardo was tasked with reminding people just how iconic the Wienermobile is. What makes the Wienermobile work is that it’s something you can see, even take a ride in. So the agency decided to add rocket fuel to the idea of fan participation and spectacle as advertising by bringing Wienermobiles to one of America’s most iconic car races, the Indianapolis 500. So 89 years after the first Wienermobile rolled off that Chicago factory floor, the Wienie500 took place just before the Indy 500, pitting five WeinerMobiles against each other in a race streamed live on the Fox Sports app, with the same announcers and production crew as the Indy 500. The agency named and designed uniforms for each Wienermobile, making it possible for people to support a team on DraftKings, via a free-to-play pool. The race garnered 150 million total views on Fox Sports, and rival ESPN SportsCenter declared it “the Next Great American Tradition.” There were nearly 7 billion earned impressions as people shared the spectacle. Oscar Mayer saw its biggest Memorial Day sales lift in years. 9. The Martin Agency For supercharging its brand work with AI—thoughtfully but at scale The innovation here is the Martin Agency’s ability to evolve its way of working, particularly with AI, while delivering world-class work that’s still dependent on classic creativity. The agency uses predictive intelligence to surface invisible audiences, debunk conventions, and map unseen drivers of growth, while building other tools to codify and scale distinctive brand originality and avoid AI-driven sameness. The goal is a real alternative to legacy timelines, budgets, and processes. This year, the agency launched Bud Light’s “Armchair Quarterback”, a Netflix partnership blending sports fandom with branded storytelling; partnered with Hershey on a feature film debuting this year; and it worked with Subway Takes host and creator Kareem Rahma on UPS Business Trips. The latter has topped 100 million views. The agency is doing a formidable job in balancing innovation in brand entertainment with building out and scaling a workflow that incorporates AI and trains all employees to use AI for their work while identifying opportunities to be responsible about its use, like working with SAG-AFTRA to identify responsible use of voice talent. 10. Joan Creative For hilariously reinventing the Brawny Man mascot for today’s culture It’s not every day an iconic brand mascot gets reinvented. And when it does, the potential pitfalls are massive. But when Brawny wanted to hype its three-ply paper towel on the market as the strongest, most absorbent, most durable product of any national brand, in a world where 79% of consumers were looking for a tougher towel, Joan Creative called in the Brawny Man for a makeover. Suddenly, the bearded, plaid-clad muscle man was making memes, trying internet slang, even starring in GRWM (get ready with me) videos. Gone were the cute little orange juice spills. Now he was cleaning up after ragers. The result repositioned Brawny as a significant challenger to category-leader Bounty, while building long-term brand equity for Brawny parent Georgia-Pacific. The work generated more than 1.2 billion total impressions, 23% customer growth, and a 58% boost in search traffic for the brand. Now that’s a flex. 11. FCB For funding improvements to India’s rail system by turning train tickets into a chance to win the lottery As a result of the Omnicom-IPG merger, FCB was folded into BBDO but not before creating some impressively innovative ideas over the past year. Perhaps the best and most impactful example is the agency’s “Lucky Yatra” work for Indian Railways, launched in April 2025. As one of the largest railway systems in the world, Indian Railways has more than 24 million daily passengers daily. But a massive 41% of passengers don’t pay their fares, which results in more than $820 million in annual lost revenue. So FCB created a way to incentivize paying train fare. Indians spend about $30 billion on lottery tickets every year, so FCB turned the unique number on every Indian Railways ticket into a lottery ticket, thereby giving commuters the chance to win $117 every day, and $585 every week. The campaign received more than 560 million impressions and led to a 34% increase in ticket sales at launch. Not only that, but the investment in prizes is generating a revenue of over $685 million that will be reinvested back into the system to upgrade the centuries-old infrastructure. 12. Alto For making Expensify Brad Pitt’s F1 costar When expense management software brand Expensify asked Alto to come up with an idea just as big as a Super Bowl ad, the agency didn’t go to the big game. Instead, it went to Brad Pitt’s chest. The agency managed to land the brand a leading role in the blockbuster feature film F1, as a major sponsor of Pitt’s fictional racing team. The Expensify logo was everywhere, as all logos are in Formula One: Pitt’s racing suit, in press conferences, in dialogue, on pit wall signage. It even made the movie poster. People didn’t skip the ad—they paid to watch the logo framed on the screen for 40 full minutes during the film. Including a scene in which a main character is shooting an Expensify ad. The goal was to drive a double-digit lift in brand awareness over two quarters, but the result was a 94% increase in just six months. Another big moment was at the 2025 Met Gala, when F1 costar Damson Idris arrived in a custom Tommy Hilfiger racing suit with Expensify’s logo front and center. According to Launchmetrics, the Met Gala tie-in alone generated $1.3 billion in media impact value. Touchdown. 13. State Farm For gaming its own brand IP into a successful strategy beyond Jake Most brands have to make a choice between making funny ads, investing in entertainment IP, or going deep into major sports sponsorships. State Farm utilizes all of these— and Jake of course—to firmly embed the brand in culture. The brand has built a flywheel of content across many different audiences, which has helped the company boost its net worth to $145.2 billion in 2024, up from $134.8 billion in 2023. The project pushing its brand entertainment envelope the most over the past year has been Gamerhood. Part game show, part reality series, over five weekly episodes on Twitch and YouTube ,the show pits gaming creators like Kai Cenat, Ludwig, Mark Phillips, and Berleezy against each other in a combination of gaming and IRL challenges. The third season from last summer attracted more than 23 million views. It wrapped its fourth season in August, which was expanded to Prime Video, and its episodes had more than 27 million views on YouTube and Twitch alone. 14. Mischief @ No Fixed Address For pivoting Goldfish into a snack for adults to smile about A brand stunt is at its most impactful when it is rooted in truth. Since its founding in 2020, Mischief @ No Fixed Address has made a name for itself taking brand insights to their most ridiculous—and often, engaging—outcome, and this year was no exception. If there is a theme to the agency’s hit work, it’s that sometimes a brand’s own product packaging is the best media platform for a fun idea. When Pepperidge Farms tasked the agency with changing impressions that its Goldfish cracker brand was just for kids, Mischief used a cheeky rebrand to remind adults the snacks are for them too. Enter Goldfish “Chilean Sea Bass.” The new packaging and surrounding campaign drove attention to the tune of 14.5 billion impressions, hiking sales 15%, making it the brand’s most successful PR push ever. It wasn’t just selling snacks. When E.l.f. Beauty wanted to make sure people knew its Halo Glow Liquid Filter could also be used under foundation or as a highlighter, Mischief went all in on a familiar cliché. It created a Rebecca Black-voiced pony that took offense at the brand calling the Halo Glow Liquid Filter more than a one-trick pony, insisting she was a “Multi-Talented Small-Boned Horse.” The campaign and social work spiked the product’s sales 24% and 48%, respectively, within 72 hours of the campaign’s launch. 15. Rethink For turning late-night texts into an Ikea giveaway Between legacy brands and DTC upstarts, the mattress market is anything but soft. So in February 2025, when Ikea Canada wanted to get people’s attention to promote its mattresses, Rethink decided to target a very specific audience—sleep-deprived Canadians. Between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., the brands sent social media DMs to those still scrolling with a simple “u up?” text. Those curious enough to respond were awarded a free new mattress. The cheeky DMs were accompanied by an extended ad campaign across outdoor billboards and a timed promotion offering 15% off mattresses and other sleep products. As a result, the work got 4.5 million earned impressions and drove a 36% year-over-year increase in mattress sales for the brand. 16. BBDO For using nostalgia to boost Neutrogena’s retinol sales Back on May 17, 2000, more than 14 million people tuned in for the two-hour series finale episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, in which Donna Martin and David Silver were engaged and married. In that moment of pop-cultural history is where BBDO New York saw an opportunity for skincare brand Neutrogena. The agency created a spot that features a clip of the iconic proposal scene that is then interrupted by a dermatologist reminding fans that if they remember watching this episode, they probably should be in the market for Neutrogena’s Rapid Wrinkle Repair Cream. The campaign reversed a two-year sales decline, and 62% of consumers named Neutrogena their first-choice retinol brand. 17. Code and Theory For becoming the digital reinvention expert for the world’s biggest businesses Since 2001, Code and Theory has run on a 50-50 engine: half creatives, half engineers. It’s an agency designed to build creative solutions for a wide variety of major brands, from the NFL and Stanley Black & Decker to Diageo and Amazon. The agency helped redesign Diageo’s digital hub, theBar.com, which led to a 200% boost in e-commerce year over year, a 42% increase in user engagement, and 66% in return visitors. For Stanley Black & Decker, it led a massive digital transformation, unifying more than 30 brands across more than 55 markets, which led to a 40% increase in digital revenue year over year. Its redesign of the National Football League’s app led to a 20% boost in minutes spent on average per visit, 2.3 billion minutes streamed in app, and 5 million weekly app users. A B2B campaign for Amazon Ads was built to reframe Amazon as a bridge between local businesses and ready-to-buy customers, using behavioral signals to link digital intent with real-world demand. The results for small and medium-size businesses was a 10% boost in average monthly revenue per advertiser and a 33% increase for Amazon in unaided awareness. 18. Modern Arts For creating a hit Netflix doc with WhatsApp as its star Back in May 2025, a one-hour documentary dropped on Netflix called The Seat, chronicling the Mercedes Formula One team’s journey to replace legendary driver Lewis Hamilton, who had left for rival Ferrarai. It was instantly ranked in Netflix’s Top 10 rankings across numerous markets. What many viewers didn’t know is that the film is also a WhatsApp commercial, courtesy of brand entertainment agency Modern Arts. The company has been a leader in finding ways to show a brand’s cultural impact that fits seamlessly into existing viewing habits. The insight that led to the film was that many of the discussions and debates that resulted in Mercedes choosing young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli played out over messaging app WhatsApp. Here, Modern Arts found a lane to authentically weave a brand into a compelling IRL sports drama that doesn’t expire with a campaign clock but lives on streaming platforms for the foreseeable future. 19. Superconnector Studios For reimagining product placement with Netflix and AB InBev In September, Superconnector Studios brokered an unprecedented deal between one of the world’s biggest advertisers and arguably the globe’s biggest streaming platform. AB InBev—the parent to beer brands like Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, and Corona—signed a wide-ranging partnership deal with Netflix. This is not only getting these major beer brands front and center in Netflix’s push into live sports, but it’s also getting them early access to placement and integration into other Netflix programming like shows and movies. In just six months of the partnership, 14 titles are already in discussion or already live, including shows like Quarterback, Bridgerton, Full Swing: Ryder Cup, and Culinary Class Wars. With LVMH’s entertainment division 22 Montaigne, Superconnector is bringing a new Kenya Barris project into production this year, which wwill revolve around Hennessy’s historic Château in Cognac. 20. Tombras For helping Sweethearts win over Gen Z by ghosting Halloween The candy that usually features heartfelt messages is only big on Valentine’s Day. But last year, Tombras carved out a spot for Sweethearts during Halloween with a unique take on a scary situation. Not ghosts, but being ghosted by a date. The agency came up with the idea for limited-edition “Ghosted Sweethearts” and created a Halloween campaign that was Sweethearts’ first-ever direct-to-consumer push outside of Valentine’s Day. The boxes of candy dropped the typical messages, instead coming blank, in a box that says, “Started so sweet. Then poof! Gone.” Traffic to Sweethearts’ website surged 980% year over year (September to October), driving strong demand and e-commerce growth. The campaign generated nearly 500 million earned media impressions, valued at nearly $5 million in ad equivalency, becoming one of the most talked-about Halloween brand activations of 2025. Explore the full 2026 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 720 honorees that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 59 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more. View the full article

The way we consume culture has fractured into millions of pieces and the far corners of the internet. But media companies are finding creative ways to keep capturing market share. For publishing imprint Bloom Books, that means capitalizing on TikTok’s rise by turning #BookTok’s viral hits into paperback bestsellers. For Webtoon, it’s doubling down on a dynamic fast-metabolism format with five-minute-long “episodes” that bring comic books to life. The satiric newspaper The Onion is channeling its best quality—humor—into a new revenue stream by opening its own ad agency, while the New York Times is cranking out vertical video reels meant to be viewed on smartphones. Live sports continue to command audiences, with Beyond Sports offering a unique twist by rendering players as animated cartoon characters in action, in real time. Former YouTube channel turned entertainment company Dude Perfect is chasing the “live” element with a stadium tour, which attempts to land the trick shots and other antics that made it famous. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley’s buzziest new podcast, TBPN, brings SportsCenter energy to business and technology news. And AI continues to be a driving force. Some companies are focused on charting a responsible path forward, like cybersecurity giant Cloudflare, whose recent moves block LLMs from stealing journalists’ work. Others explore AI’s potential, like Moments Lab, which is training a filmmaking chatbot. Still others are using AI for the public good, like the Council on Foreign Relations, which is collaborating with Anthropic to rapidly translate thousands of Chinese Communist Party “dark matter” texts never before seen by American policymakers, into English. 1. Cloudflare For safeguarding the Internet from AI crawlers Founded in 2009 and now one of the world’s biggest cybersecurity companies, Cloudflare is both buttress and bulwark for much of the internet’s architecture. It speeds up websites by routing data through edge networks—serving 80% of the top generative AIs—and protects 20% of all existing websites from malicious attacks. That means it’s also equipped to block bots employed by AI companies—trawlers that scrape any written word found online for chatbot training. Some magazines and newspapers have drafted deals to license content to the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. But bots from Perplexity, for example, have been caught stealing data without permission, tanking financial incentives for content creators to keep putting out new stuff. In September 2024, Cloudflare launched AI Audit, which lets websites block AI crawlers with a single click—a service since used by 1 million customers. And in July 2025, it took the trailblazing step of blocking crawlers by default—websites can choose to allow them, with AI companies identifying their mission as training, inference, or search—and it’s now developing a “Pay Per Crawl” feature. The moves have been cheered by more than 40 companies including Conde Nast, Time, Pinterest, Reddit, and Quora, but for Cloudflare, it’s not just about digital altruism— it’s good business. As CEO Matthew Prince puts it: “Nobody wants to see the world consolidated into 5 AI companies. There would be very few businesses left to serve.” Cloudflare undergirds trillions of web traffic connections each day, with $2.2 billion in revenue (up 30% year-over-year) from 332,000 customers in 2025. Read more about Cloudflare, honored as No. 21 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 2. TBPN For becoming Silicon Valley’s go-to tech ‘news’ network You can’t throw a stone in Silicon Valley without hitting a tech-bro-turned-pundit starting a podcast. But few have enjoyed as meteoric a rise as 29-year-old Jordi Hays and 36-year-old John Coogan, whose TBPN (“Technology Business Programming Network”) launched just 16 months ago and has since skyrocketed to tech-world fame. Their angle? The pair tackle business news like sports commentators. Each 3-hour episode is energetic and rambling, hyping startup culture, gossiping about the AI talent wars as if they were tracking sports teams trading all-star players, and following buyout deals as if they were heavyweight-fight victories. It’s not hard-hitting journalism, but they seem to have struck gold with a simple idea: Like sports fanatics, the tech world loves drama. Many observers have drawn comparisons to ESPN’s SportsCenter—and part of the appeal is that TBPN’s hosts, as former entrepreneurs themselves, know the inside baseball (Hays founded crowdfunding VC Party Round, and Coogan cofounded meal replacement Soylent). TBPN has earned clout both within tech’s elite circles and more fringe crowds on X, with guests ranging from Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen to pseudonymous social media celebrities like @carriednointerest. In December, TBPN inked a partnership with the New York Stock Exchange to broadcast from its trading floor, and in January, both hosts were picked up by blue-chip talent agency CAA. TBPN relies on no outside investors and says it is profitable, bringing in $5 million in ad revenue in 2025. In September, the company hired a former Postmates and HQ Trivia executive as its first president and charged him with tripling revenue in 2026. According to the company, it already sold almost all its 2026 ad inventory by December. Read more about TBPN, No. 43 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 3. The Onion For proving print isn’t dead—especially if it’s funny With newspapers across the country disappearing, The Onion looked very much like yet another casualty. Founded in 1988, the legacy satire brand shuttered its print business in 2013 and was all but left for dead until 2024, when its website was taken over by a new coalition of owners led by Twilio’s billionaire CEO and a former NBC News reporter. Within months, the new ownership group breathed fresh life into the brand. First, it grabbed headlines with a publicity stunt: buying Alex Jones’ conspiracy-fueled right-wing outlet, InfoWars, out of bankruptcy. The Onion then bucked a long-running industry trend by resurrecting its print publication, which has hit the ground running. In September 2025, a year after it was reintroduced, it ranked as the 13th largest print newspaper in the United States by subscribers, slotting in between the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune, with almost 54,000 paying subscribers in over 50 countries. Since then, The Onion has only gained steam. In September, it revealed its next act: launching its own (funny) copywriting agency called America’s Finest, creating a new revenue stream. The agency has already netted gigs with Paramount (for its R-rated comedy The Naked Gun); the investing group Subversive ETFs (which targets publicly traded companies that sitting U.S. Congress members have invested in); and Frank McCourt’s nonprofit Project Liberty. The Onion’s total revenue tripled in 2025, up to roughly $6 million from under $2 million the previous year. Read more about The Onion, No. 48 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 4. Webtoon Entertainment For turning web comics into Hollywood IP—and vice versa The comic book universe exploded in the 2020s, and so did Webtoon. The South Korean web comics platform is the go-to place for big brands like Marvel and Star Wars to launch web comics around their intellectual property, already housing franchises like Stranger Things, Godzilla, and the legendary manga series Fullmetal Alchemist. In 2025, Disney took a 2% equity stake in the company and commissioned a standalone app for 35,000 comics from Disney’s iconic catalog. And it’s not the only media giant swinging big with Webtoon. In November, Warner Bros Animation announced a deal for 10 titles, and Webtoon is juggling 20 anime projects with Oscar-nominated studios DandeLion, Aniplex, and Crunchyroll. Webtoon’s ambition has grown alongside its Hollywood footprint. Beloved by Gen Z for its scrollable format, it branched into short-form video in 2025, releasing 5-minute episodes that infuse 14 Webtoon comics with motion, sound, music, and voice acting. Webtoon is also taking cues from not only TikTok, but also Netflix — last year it revamped its home page with algorithms based on reading history, and it threw open the doors to an online fan merch shop and a 2026 Los Angeles creator residency. Perhaps Webtoon’s most impressive achievement is the content pipeline it has built: 900 of the platform’s titles have been adapted into over 11 million books, games, toys, TV shows, and films — including by Webtoon’s own studio, whose 2025 productions smashed records in the U.S. and Canada on Tubi. Owned by parent company and internet giant Naver, Webtoon has a sibling, fan fiction platform called Wattpad; both are part of an ecosystem that feeds the other with ever more content for cultivation. Webtoon boasts 155 million monthly active users, 24 million creators, and [TK 2025 REVENUE FROM MARCH 3, 2026 EARNINGS] 5. Bloom Books For flipping the script on the book publishing industry When publishing houses bet on authors, they typically do it in advance, signing a check after the pitch is made but before the novel is written. But Bloom Books, a 5-year-old imprint of Sourcebooks, is rewriting that business model — choosing instead to buy up the back catalogs of already self-published authors. It’s still a gamble, but with the odds stacked more in Bloom’s favor. The rise of TikTok’s “#BookTok” made it possible for any story posted online to go viral, amassing millions of fans and a cult following — and those are the stories Bloom targets. The company has honed a lucrative strategy that turns internet blockbusters into paperback best-sellers. The imprint’s focus on romance overlaps nicely with BookTok’s most burgeoning genres — think romantasy and fan fiction. Bloom’s first author was 50 Shades of Grey’s E.L. James, who left a prestige publisher to help launch the fledgling imprint in 2020. Bloom’s 52 authors released 99 books in 2025 — 32 of which became New York Times best-sellers, an impressive hit-rate of almost one-third. The imprint’s small roster punches above its weight, accounting for nearly a quarter of the U.S. romance fiction market. It’s the reason Sourcebook cracked the top 5 publishers by print sales in 2025, according to Circana Bookscan — bumping much-larger rival Macmillan out of the trade’s longtime “Big Five.” Bloom’s success even inspired its own case study at Harvard Business School. 6. Beyond Sports For sprinkling a little Disney magic onto the sports field The live-sports industry is booming, and so is the market for alt-casts (alternate telecasts), which augment the game-watching experience with everything from the Manning brothers commenting on the action to Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story re-enacting a hockey skirmish or football pile-up. The latter comes courtesy of Beyond Sports, a Netherlands tech company acquired by Sony in 2022 (for estimates of up to $70 million). Beyond uses AI to transform live gameplay into real-time animations, featuring beloved TV and movie characters. The aim is to bring more kids and non-sports-fans into the fold. The company’s tech wizardry powers ESPN’s wildly popular NFL “Funday Football” series. 2023’s inaugural Toy Story-themed broadcast became the most-viewed live event on ESPN+ and Disney+ at the time, and a December 2025 Monsters Inc.-themed broadcast—with more than half a million viewers—was praised by sports trade groups as an “unmistakable leap in the art form,” with Beyond producing smooth, natural body movements from a complex tangle of optical trackers and RFID data. (Pixar even had the movie’s star voice actors record 30 minutes of game-time commentary.) Since 2021, Beyond has won three Emmy Awards, and its audience is growing, with broadcasts moving from streaming-only to primetime cable in 2025. In October, ESPN renewed a deal for more Disney-themed NFL, NHL, NBA, and WNBA games. On December 1, the company revealed it’s absorbing fellow Sony division Pulselive, which builds digital ecosystems for rights holders like the Premier League and World Rugby. The move signals that Beyond might aspire to expand beyond telecasts, to become a hub for everything from fantasy sports to prediction markets. 7. The New York Times Company For reinventing itself again and again in the digital age In the cratering news-media landscape, the New York Times stands out for actually making money—$700 million in revenue last quarter, up 10% year over year, netting out to a 28% bump in investor earnings per share. What’s it doing right? It’s a master of adapting to changing times. Take its successful expansion into audio/visual content. Its wildly popular The Daily podcast turned the newspaper’s star columnists into prominent talking heads. More evidence of digital savvy: In October, the Times debuted a TikTok-like “Watch” app with short-form vertical videos from eye candy-laden sections such as NYT cooking, The Athletic, and Wirecutter. The self-described bid to lure in a younger audience appears to be working. In Morning Consult’s 2025 ranking of fastest-growing brands, the New York Times was No. 2 among Gen Z. The effort represents a deft pivot from longer-form TV (see: its early-2020s FX/Hulu docuseries) to content geared for mobile, with the company’s video consumption across platforms more than doubling in 2025. Last quarter, the Times added 460,000 digital-only subscribers, its biggest three-month jump in years, bringing the total number to 12.33 million. The company also credits its success to its strategy of bundling subscriptions, with more than half of subscribers now paying for multiple products. The latest challenge the 174-year-old paper has had to adapt to is the rise of AI, and in 2025, the Times continued to blaze a trail on copyright lawsuits to protect journalists, suing Perplexity for using its content without compensation (following a 2023 lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for similar allegations). It’s also making a statement on free speech in the The President era, suing the Defense Department and Secretary Pete Hegseth in December over the Pentagon’s restrictions on press access, which the Times called a violation of First Amendment rights. 8. Moments Lab For creating an AI librarian for video archives Paris-based Moments Lab (formerly called Newsbridge) is one of many companies training AI models—but it’s found a niche targeting the news industry and Hollywood. Its AI platform, trained on 1.5 billion assets, can “understand every moment in a video and make it searchable.” And its Discovery Agent, launched in September, can field conversational prompts to create whole new videos from raw footage, cutting a filmmaker’s journey from idea to execution down to a brisk three minutes. According to the company’s CEO, it’s just months away from being able to produce a full-length documentary of America’s history from a decades-spanning library of news reels. There seems to be plenty of opportunity for Moments in this space. Speed is king in news, and journalists are increasingly expected to deliver reports in near-real-time. Meanwhile, there’s mounting pressure in Hollywood to crank out more entertainment, faster and cheaper than before, a la Netflix. Moments doesn’t hide the fact that it might accomplish this by replacing human workers with tech: Its CEO told Business Insider last year that a US financial media client already admitted it would need fewer editors. Founded in 2016, Moments works with giants including Warner Bros. Discovery, Thomson Reuters, Sinclair, and LVMH. Banijay Entertainment, the production company behind reality TV hits Survivor, Big Brother, and MasterChef, also signed a deal in September to organize its vast video archives, and Hearst is among the clients testing the new agentic AI. In 2025, the company doubled its revenue, tripled its number of users, raised $24 million in funding, and won “Best of Show” awards from the National Association of Broadcasters and International Broadcasting Convention. 9. Dude Perfect For nailing the trick shots on a stadium tour Dude Perfect began as a YouTube channel in 2009, with five college guys attempting crazy feats like bucketing a basketball thrown from the nosebleed seats of a full-size stadium. Now 17 years later, the group is running a media juggernaut focused on what they call “sports comedy.” Its diverse business pursuits include filming a Nickelodeon TV show, designing a toy for Walmart, endorsing drive-thru coffee chain 7 Brew, and claiming 19 quirky world records (like longest barefoot Lego walk). In 2024, the company netted $100 million from venture capital firms and hired a former NBA executive as its first CEO. In 2025, it spent that much of that cash, revealing a sprawling theme park-esque headquarters in Texas and hosting a summer “Hero Tour,” in which performers attempt mind-boggling trick shots live at arenas in 21 cities across the country. Although the Hero Tour’s follow-up theatrical release in Regal Cinemas flopped (not everyone can pull off a Taylor Swift-style hat trick), the tour itself was a hit, with 15 sold-out shows and over 200,000 spectators. The group, which has publicly leaned into its founders’ Christian backgrounds, snagged the nation’s largest promoter for faith-based events for the tour. it also forged partnerships with Samsung Galaxy and Google Gemini, headlined Arthur Ashe Kids Day at the U.S. Open, and is releasing trick shot games on Nex Playground’s motion-powered gaming system this summer. Dude Perfect has been profiled in Forbes, The Associated Press, The Ankler, and on the Texas A&M blog (the guys’ alma mater). And its YouTube channel, where pro athletes like Serena Williams, Steph Curry, and Luka Doncic have joined the antics, has more than 60 million subscribers. 10. Council on Foreign Relations For enlisting AI to bring previously unreachable Chinese texts to scholars around the world Amid China’s ascent on the global stage, the Council on Foreign Relations—the 105-year-old think tank and publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine—turned its eye eastward. In 2024, it launched the China Strategy Initiative, aimed at navigating the fraught geopolitics between China and America. Enter China Open Source Observatory, the initiative’s new project, which seeks to shed light on the so-called “dark matter” of China policy—hard copy material from the Chinese Communist Party that is greatly influential but isn’t online, and thus isn’t “seen” by Americans. The observatory is employing AI to scan and translate a cache of 10,000 Chinese government texts that have never before been digitized. The U.S. government did similar translation work from 1941 to 2013, but with new AI tech, the observatory saw a chance to fill the void—opening a window into Beijing even as it closes its doors to U.S. officials. The observatory collaborated with Google and Anthropic engineers to supercharge the effort, pushing LLMs to achieve what it calls “near-perfect” Chinese language translation accuracy, even on specialized subjects like military affairs and diplomacy. The texts will be freely available and AI-crawlable—meaning the fruit of the project’s labor will become public knowledge via AIs like ChatGPT (sans some sensitive material only available to researchers). The first 1,000 volumes will be released this spring. Project leads Rush Doshi and Tanner Greer say the council’s work has already been used by scholars, policymakers, and journalists for papers, board meetings, and exposes. In the past year, the China Strategy Initiative’s analysis has shown up everywhere from Congressional testimony on Taiwan to a column in the New York Times. Explore the full 2026 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 720 honorees that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 59 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more. View the full article

Traditional economic development tends to focus on investments made and jobs created. For this year’s group of Most Innovative Companies—or in many cases, foundations or governments, in this case—the key performance indicator isn’t dollars spent, but connections made. Growth comes not from directing resources, but finding a better way to nurture what you already have. Governments found creative ways to unleash the potential of their residents, workers, and civil servants. The state of New Mexico, for example, made a first-in-the-nation move to subsidize childcare for all, giving working parents and families a leg up. In Illinois, the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act offered a pathway for low-income residents to electrify homes and cut their bills, while the San Diego Unified School District used one of their underutilized assets—land—to help launch an effort to build thousands of units of housing for their staff. And in St. Louis, the Arts Place Initiative eases the path towards owning a place to live for local artists, giving creativity a new home. Other organizations took a different approach to preserving local economics. Surfing nonprofit Save the Waves started the study of “surfonomics” and launched an insurance product to protect local economies built around key breaks. The Next California, an effort by the World Wildlife Foundation, seeded an agricultural shift in the Mississippi Delta, offering farmers a new opportunity amid a changing climate. And Brazil’s re.green tapped AI and high tech to restore Amazon rainforests, in part by bringing back sustainable, profitable hardwood harvests. Sometimes, the best impact comes from simply bridging a gap. Ox Delivers, which makes electric trucks for shipping goods in rural Africa, gives small businesses a better route to market (and money). Nevada’s Lithium Loop initiative seeks to build a full-circle mining, processing and development pipeline to make batteries in the U.S. And the new Greater Futures Scholarship Fund from the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation offers a more comprehensive model of college scholarships hoping to give students a real leg up on getting into, and graduating from, college. 1. State of New Mexico For making one of the most stubborn and trying costs for working parents disappear From San Francisco to New York City, municipal support for subsidized childcare have become a buzzed-about big city policy. In New Mexico, the goal of universal childcare has already been achieved, addressing a key pillar of the affordability problem plaguing families and helping working parents get some breathing room. In the words of a state official, it’s “putting families at the center of your policymaking.” Starting last November, every New Mexican family qualified for free, subsidized childcare, funded by an Early Childhood Trust Fund, currently paid for by oil and gas revenue. That’s a huge deal: it’s estimated that families in New Mexico spend $12,000 on average every year for childcare, and families nationwide can spend up to 16% of their income on childcare for a single child, according to the department of labor. In New Mexico, everyone qualifies, and the state helps support the increased demand by subsidizing higher wages for childcare workers. New Mexico also plans to invest in more than 1,000 child care sites to build out the infrastructure to support the program. Early results look promising. In the first month, about 7,000 children from 6,000 families enrolled in the program, 63% of whom were eligible but wouldn’t have qualified before, and more than 1,300 childcare providers received subsidies. 2. The Next California/WWF For supporting food safety and food systems while supercharging the Mississippi delta agricultural economy The long-term toll of climate change is expected to hit farms hard, as flooding, drought, and extreme heat and weather collude to challenge any notion of agricultural certainty. To get ahead of that disruption to the food system, the World Wildlife Foundation decided to not just look at what is being lost, but what can be created. The Next California Initiative, a years-long vision to transform the mid-Mississippi Delta and bring new commodity crops to the region, hopes to literally and figuratively seed a new era of agriculture. By 2034, backers hope, 3% of the region’s crop will be more high value fruits, nuts, and specialty grains. In partnership with local agriculture organizations, the WWF has spent years developing plans for spreading new crops across the region and laying the roadmap for new markets and logistics networks for growers. So far, a handful of pilots have been launched as part of the final phase of the project; for instance, switching to more profitable, specialty rices. In the years to come, the initiative hopes to set a template for climate resiliency and economic vibrancy. Three percent may seem small, but research shows that change could bring $3.2 billion more revenue to area farmers. 3. San Diego Unified School District For shoring up public education by making housing more affordable for teachers For teachers trying to work in downtown districts while paying increasingly high rents, the math often doesn’t add up. In California, ground zero for the nation’s affordability crisis, at least a third of educators are rent-burdened and struggle to pay for housing. Late in 2025, San Diego’s school district decided if the city’s costly housing market wasn’t making room for teachers and other district employees, they would. School leadership announced they would be utilizing the district’s own unused properties to create 1,500 units of affordable housing. The plan calls for building housing on land that will stay in San Diego Unified School District hands, and offering more options for educators to cut the cost of living. Some of the proposed projects will include childcare centers, a further boost for working parents. “Building affordable housing, and the district retaining ownership of the land to collect annual lease revenue, strengthens our schools and the surrounding San Diego neighborhoods,” said Superintendent Fabi Bagula. The school district has committed to building long term and based on the proposals in the works, would receive $504 million in revenue over the 99-year lease terms of these developments. 4. Greater Hartford Gives Foundation For creating a scholarship program that addresses higher education’s increasingly high cost Investing in education, long seen as the pathway to brighter futures and better outcomes, feels more like an investment than ever these days, considering the rising costs of college and for most, student loan debt. The average tuition has doubled in the last 30 years, and that’s not counting the rising cost of student housing. Roughly a third of college students in the past year have considered dropping out due to financial burdens. The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation decided it was time that the concept of a scholarship evolved. The Connecticut nonprofit’s new Greater Futures Scholarship Program, in partnership with Hartford Promise, aims to be a more realistic, and holistic, means of supporting higher education. Students at Greater Hartford public schools will receive generous financial support—up to $100,000 over the course of four years—as well as up to a decade of additional support services including career coaching and training, mental health support, and financial assistance for books, laptops and emergency needs. While the scholarship doesn’t require students to study in state, it is expected to dramatically boost the fortunes of the region’s graduates, a significant portion of whom will stay. The payoff? A study by the Parker Strategy Group found that over the course of a decade, with 100 students supported in each graduating class, the Greater Futures program would create 760 college graduates (50 with master’s degrees), $151 million contributed in additional local and state taxes, and entrepreneurial and investment success that would support and sustain 9,110 more jobs. 5. Lithium Loop For funding the creation of a fully domestic lithium mining economy to supercharge EV and battery production in the U.S. As the growth of renewable energy and EVs continues to gain momentum globally, the United States finds itself playing catch-up, especially to China, when it comes to mining and manufacturing the raw materials and finished goods behind this monumental shift. In Nevada, advocates for what’s called the Lithium Loop hope to start closing that gap. The plan, an effort supported by the governor’s office, state and local officials, and university partners, and backed by federal funding for the Nevada Tech Hub at University of Nevada-Reno, is to create and expand a closed circle for lithium-ion battery manufacturing, from digging up the materials to assembling and even recycling spent batteries, that becomes a “cradle to cradle” hub for the nation’s electrification and energy storage needs. Millions of dollars in funding for job training is flowing, and the Bureau of Land Management has approved two future lithium mines, Thacker Pass and Rhyolite Ridge. The state has already become a hotbed for the domestic battery industry, with firms like Tesla and Redwood Materials. But now the potential of the Lithium Loop to help bolster production, and fill in increasing demand for utilities and AI data centers, promises to grow the industry, incubate startups, and create up to 50,000 new jobs by 2029. 6. Save the Waves Coalition For insuring surf breaks—and the communities that rely on them—in the event of natural disasters It’s not possible to get a doctorate in surfonomics. But according to work done by surfing nonprofit Save the Waves, studying the local economic benefit of popping up and dropping in can be a boon to protecting surf spots around the globe. Last September, Save the Waves released a study of the surf economy for Santa Cruz, California, breaking down the environmental risks, investment strategies, and benefits of the region’s $194 million annual surf economy. It’s work like this that has fueled the organization’s more ambitious economic effort around the $9.5 billion global surf economy, creating an insurance policy for surf breaks. The idea is to measure the impact of surfing on a local economy, create a local trust that would benefit the relevant stakeholders, then enact an insurance policy that would pay out everyone in the event of a storm or disaster. Save the Waves has already set up such a system in El Salvador, enlisting global insurer Willis Towers Watson as a partner. Starting in 2026, the model will be up and running. It’s an idea the nonprofit hopes to expand across the oceans as a model for protecting local surf economics from the ravages of climate change. 7. OX Delivers For a cheap electric truck that aids mobility in Rwanda, while making small businesses more profitable A U.K. company that designed a bare-bones, easy-to-ship electric truck, OX Delivers seeks to solve a key conundrum for African farmers and entrepreneurs: with unstable, unaffordable, and uncertain transportation options, how can small businesses get goods to market? It’s an important question. Globally, the Food and Agricultural Organization estimates this problem leads to $400 billion worth of food spoiling before ever reaching a buyer. The OX, an electric truck with a 90-mile range that can be outfitted with cold storage, offers a cheaper, more reliable way to move goods. In Rwanda, where OX Delivers has created a service allowing farmers and merchants to rent space on these vehicles, it’s made formerly long, arduous journeys, sometimes on bicycle, far more efficient. So far, the company has signed up 5,000 customers since launching in 2021. The company has faced challenging economics, despite signing a $163 million contract in December 2024 to add service in nearly a half-dozen new countries. But the firm’s acquisition in late February by Berekley Coachworks, which brings commitment to the mission, passion for the technology, and fresh resources, gives it a new runway for growth and expansion. 8. St. Louis Art Place Initiative For finding a way to support a more thriving arts economy in a shrinking Midwestern metro The challenge of an affordable lifestyle and the tenuous nature of federal funding has been a tough one-two punch to art and culture in our cities. In St. Louis, a new initiative seeks to transform what some many see as blight into home and creative spaces for aspiring creatives. The Arts Place Initiative plans to turn vacant lots into affordable housing and creative space for artists. By cobbling together different grants, such as funding from the Community Development Administration, the initiative seeks to help pay a portion of the downpayment, with artists responsible for the mortgage, taxes, and insurance. In the Gravois Park neighborhood, for example, a three-story home is being converted into residential units for low-to-moderate income artists, with a backyard accessory dwelling unit being turned into an artist-in-residence program space. In all, the Arts Place Initiative plans to build 20 homes for artists, co-designing the properties and seeking to prevent displacement and build wealth through homeownership. The push for new artists housing is part of a larger network of programs focused on investment in the arts. Additional efforts include diverting a portion of tourism tax to the Regional Arts Commission and creating a maker district on Delmar Boulevard. 9. State of Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs Act For typing utility improvements to bottom-line investments helping the budgets and health of low-income residents In a clever spin on the phrase “power to the people,” Illinois lawmakers have figured out a novel and successful formula that not only pushed utilities to be better public servants and cut their emissions, but also uses this cudgel to directly improve the lives of low-income utility clients. The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, passed in 2021, mandates that utilities in the state cut electricity consumption; paying for home electrification, including electric stoves and heat pumps, counts for that reduction. That’s why the law has become a prime engine for low-income electrification across the state; residents can get more efficient heaters, new cooling systems, and electric ranges that reduce indoor air pollution. More than 700 homes have benefitted from whole-house electrification in just the past three years, with zero costs upfront. As the program drives down electricity use and cuts pollution, it also helps state residents lock-in cheaper electricity bills, at a time when rising energy costs have become a key political issue. Pairing the effort with solar and battery storage can save even more. With cuts and cancellations to federal programs for energy efficiency and green retrofits, these kinds of state-level solutions become even more important. 10. Re.green For using AI and an economic development model to help restore the Amazonian rainforest Considering the importance of the Amazon rainforest to our global climate, it’s clear not all forests are created equal. As Brazilian firm re.green sees it, not all forest restorations projects are created equal, either. Utilizing a unique technology and analytics model, fusing AI, satellite imagery, and seed-planting drones to figure out the most cost-effective, sustainable spots for forest restoration, re.green believes it can be much more effective at replanting and managing carbon credits. By planting in degraded farmland that used to be rainforests, re.green seeks to reverse the great decline of this crucial biome. And with its commitment to native hardwood species–it works with nearly two dozen partner nurseries–it creates sustainable, harvestable wood that can bolster business and jobs for local communities. To date, Re.green has restored nearly 100,000 acres, planted more than 6 million seedlings, and created hundreds of local jobs. In 2025, the company not only won the prestigious Earthshot Prize for its sustainability efforts, but also landed a massive deal with Microsoft to restore 82,000 acres of forest and signed a $15 million deal with the Brazilian development bank. Explore the full 2026 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 720 honorees that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 59 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more. View the full article

The world of public relations has always been about making a splash. And in an age of more and more media clutter, breakthrough ideas have never been more important. To create that can’t-miss-it buzz, this year’s most innovative PR firms paired an A-list Hollywood actor with an A-list Hollywood director, staged a surprise pop-event in a major urban transportation hub, enlisted some of the biggest stars from the booming world of women’s sports, and employed some creative grammar to stir up social media chatter. Giant Spoon created a campaign for the emerging electric vehicle brand Lucid that was essentially a short action film, directed by James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari, A Complete Unknown) and starring Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet. Jellyfish staged a surprise mini takeover of Grand Central Station to promote Apple TV+’s hit sci-fi series Severance. The Brand Agency not only created a memorable campaign for one of Disney’s most popular animated TV shows that had been on hiatus for nearly a decade, but it also enlisted Bradley Cooper to help the venerable BOSS fragrance line reach a younger audience with its newest scent launch. In the sports arena, Day One Agency leaned into the growing women’s sports wave by leveraging partnerships with female athletes and leagues for a popular beauty brand and teamed up with legendary tennis star Billie Jean King to promote a ride share service. For Super Bowl LIX, Colle McVoy deployed Paris Hilton to give traditional hot sauce brand Frank’s RedHot a dash of hip, and Alison Brod Marketing + Communications used an intentional typo to help get social media users talking about Coors Light. Black Arts PR helped Britpop mega-band Oasis make its much anticipated reunion tour a hit in its home country. Moonrock helped brands like Walmart and Ally Bank crack the wildly popular gaming space code. SolComms helped boost sales of contraception and cervical cancer prevention products, all with a greater social purpose in mind. And Weber Shandwick deployed AI bots to help navigate a real-time PR crisis for a major multinational food and beverage brand. 1. Giant Spoon For turning an ad for an emerging EV brand into a short action film (directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet) If you were in New York City in the summer of 2024, you might remember the giant, inflatable dragon wrapped around the Empire State Building promoting HBO’s House of the Dragon. Giant Spoon was behind that. In 2025, the agency pulled off another big stunt: it got Timothée Chalamet, arguably Hollywood’s hottest young star, to be the face of its client Lucid Motors’ marketing campaign. For Lucid’s “Driven” campaign, the electric car brand partnered with Chalamet and director James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari, A Complete Unknown) on a high-octane short film that positioned Lucid’s Gravity model as the symbol of a reimagined automotive future. In the spot, Chalamet’s motorcycle breaks down, leading him and model Larsen Thompson to steal a Gravity SUV to escape. One social media user referred to it as “cinema gold” — and according to Giant Spoon, the campaign resulted in more than a 10% increase in likelihood of buying a Lucid for shoppers getting a car in the next 6 months. Ahead of the premiere of A24’s Marty Supreme, starring Chalamet, Giant Spoon worked with Lucid again on a content series where the three-time Oscar nominee drove one of the cars while being interviewed by New York Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart about what “greatness” means to him. In its first week, the series drew 2.87 million impressions on social media and secured press in publications like Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and more. According to Giant Spoon, the series set a new benchmark for Lucid, surpassing its highest social engagement ever within the first hour of launch. Overall, Giant Spoon says it grew new business by 13% year-over-year in 2025. 2. Weber Shandwick For using generative AI to help brands navigate crises in real-time In the Internet and Social Media Age, a PR crisis can go viral in an instant. To help companies respond as quickly and effectively as possible, Weber Shandwick developed an AI tool that can work just as fast. Weber I/O, an agentic crisis communications platform, navigates teams through unfolding scenarios in real time—drawing on an organization’s own plans and past responses, along with intelligence from similar crises, to forecast likely escalation and engagement scenarios and draft responses in the organization’s tone. For instance, the platform was essential during an ESG crisis faced by a Fortune 500 food and beverage client. In that case, Weber used its AI tools to track audience sentiment and media coverage in real-time and to detect crises and deploy AI agents to craft and send messages to appropriate outlets in the client’s voice. Those efforts streamlined the tasks crisis management hd to do so they could focus on more high-level work. For the same client, Weber Shandwick developed a campaign highlighting the company’s mission and commitment to creating and sustaining U.S. manufacturing jobs, and used AI to test a complex message for the marketplace across key audiences. The campaign generated significant social-media mentions and coverage in top-tier media outlets. According to Weber Shandwick, its North American business saw double-digit year-over-year growth in multiple sectors. 3. Jellyfish For engineering a viral popup event at Grand Central Station to promote Season 2 of Severance If you happened to pass through New York’s Grand Central Terminal on January 15, 2025, you might’ve stumbled across the mysterious glass office cubicle occupied by Severance cast members Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, Zach Cherry, all in character, that appeared in the middle of the station. It turns out it was a viral marketing stunt orchestrated by Jellyfish as part of a campaign promoting the second season of the Emmy-winning Apple TV hit. The immersive, live-action event featured the actors portraying their “”innie characters”” performing everyday office tasks, like staring at computer screens with green numbers flashing on them, just as they do on the show. According to Jellyfish, the stunt helped the Severance Season Two campaign earn 1 billion impressions, 3.5 million engagements, and over 77,000 organic social mentions. The campaign also earned the agency the Silver Lion award at the 2025 Cannes Lion festival. Severance, meanwhile, has become Apple TV’s most-watched series. 4. Colle McVoy For creating hip campaigns for formerly sleepy brands For many, the words “cool” and “hip” might not be the first terms that come to mind when they think of La-Z Boy recliners or Frank’s RedHot hot sauce. But last year, the Minneapolis-based full-service creative agency Colle McVoy helped reposition the brands as just that, winning them a new generation of fans. For La-Z-Boy, the agency did a brand refresh targeted to Gen Z, positioning the product as more than just your grandpa’s old-school couch. The effort included a new logo, a softer visual identity, and a confident, inviting tone that positioned the product as more than a chair or sofa, but rather a sanctuary. The agency also led a #BanReclining campaign, in which people signed a pledge to keep their seats upright when they’re on an airplane. That effort resulted in more than 470,000 pledges, while the campaign drew some 2.9 billion impressions overall, plus coverage in major media outlets including CNBC. In its most recent earnings report, La-Z-Boy reported an increase in sales to $522 million, up 4 percent from the previous period. For Frank’s RedHot, meanwhile, Colle McVoy tapped Paris Hilton as the face of the brand for a winky Super Bowl LIX campaign that played on Hilton’s kitschy internet fame and her iconic catchphrase “That’s hot.” Instead of releasing a traditional in-game spot, the brand focused on the week leading up to the game, when fans are filling their shopping carts for their game-day parties. During that period, Hilton unveiled her own bedazzled Frank’s bottle and shared her “hottest” recipes for Buffalo chicken wings and dip with fans. Within 24 hours, more than 20,000 fans also submitted their own recipes in response to a Frank’s request. In all, the campaign resulted in 7.1 billion earned impressions and drove pre-game sales to a record $7.1M, a 178% year-over-year increase. 5. The Brand Agency For creating fun, experimental activations for “forgotten” brands and media The all-female team behind creative communications firm The Brand Agency delivered a one-two punch for brands that hadn’t been top of mind for some time. Disney’s animated series Phineas and Ferb, for example, was off the air on a 10-year hiatus, before returning for a fifth season. The Brand Agency helped promote the show’s comeback marketing campaign, which took place over the summer (the titular characters’ favorite season, since school is out). Their efforts included a stop at the Vans Warped tour (which itself was returning from a multi-year hiatus), activations including a secret spy lair disguised as an ordinary portable bathroom, and a Los Angeles premiere party that featured cast members like Ashley Tisdale and Vincent Martella, who performed popular songs from the show. According to the agency, the campaign received 3.1 billion earned media impressions, $79.6 million in estimated media value, and 11.5 million organic social media impressions. The 100-year-old fashion brand BOSS, meanwhile, which has been releasing its own signature scents for nearly 40 years, has spent the past few years attempting to refresh its image for younger generations. To aid that effort, The Brand Agency supported the campaign for the launch of the new BOSS Bottled Beyond fragrance, which featured actor Bradley Cooper and Colombian singer Maluma as brand ambassadors. For the launch party, held at the Manhattan’s immersive tech museum Mercer Labs, the agency invited influencers and celebrities like TikToker Noah Beck and Abbott Elementary star Tyler James Williams. Activations included scent samplings and photo opportunities. Cooper and Maluma were at the party and prior to the event, the agency hosted a separate performance with Maluma at the top of the Empire State Building. According to the agency, the event generated 7.7 billion earned media impressions, $192.7 million in total estimated media value, and 88.2 million in organic social media impressions. Overall, The Brand Agency says it grew by 32% in gross billings between January and September 2025, marking its third consecutive year of double-digit growth. 6. Black Arts PR For bringing Oasis into the social media age “I said maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me.” It seems that Black Arts PR, the firm that represents Oasis, took those lyrics to heart when handling public relations in the UK ahead of the wildly popular Britpop band’s much anticipated 2025 tour—its first in 16 years. When the group announced it was going on the road after the lengthy hiatus, fans were shocked. Had band members and brothers Noah and Liam Gallagher squashed their long-running public beef? Either way, the global reunion tour, which took place during the fall and summer last year and spanned the U.K., Europe, North America, and South America, ended up making more than $380 million in ticket sales, merchandise, and sponsorships — and is likely to reach more than $1 billion for its entire global run. Leading up to and during the tour, Black Arts PR handled the UK regional press for the band, with a campaign focused on reminding fans of the pride, nostalgia, and impact its music carries back at home. For instance, the firm touted the 30th anniversary of “Wonderwall” — the band’s most popular album, with 22 million copies sold globally — by heavily pushing limited-edition releases of “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory” box sets that featured four remastered 7” vinyl discs with B-sides in a “cigarette-style” box, including various colorways. The Sunday Times went on to call the Oasis comeback tour the “biggest rock comeback in history.” 7. SolComms For helping companies find new prescriptions for improving women’s health After the re-election of Donald The President in November 2024, the telehealth company Wisp saw sales of its reproductive health products, such as its Plan B morning after pill, spike as women began to stockpile emergency contraception for fear that they might lose access to it. SolComms worked with Wisp to gather data demonstrating the phenomenon, then publicize it. That effort led to over 700 media placements, including segments on CNN and stories in The Hill and The Associated Press, that resulted in more than 9 billion impressions. The campaign didn’t just help Wisp boost its business (according to SolComms, the company saw an immediate 2,000% surge in emergency contraception sales); it also helped the company fulfill its goal of raising awareness of women’s health issues. The fact that 10% of Wisp’s patients live in reproductive care deserts made the effort even more meaningful. Also in 2025, SolComms worked with Teal Health, a virtual women’s health company that focuses on eliminating cervical cancer by offering at home screening kits for the disease. The agency helped position the FDA’s approval of the kits as a milestone for women’s health, driving over 1,700 media stories and 13.9 billion impressions. All told, the campaign spiked consumer sign-ups by 250%. 8. Moonrock For helping brands like Walmart find a cheat code for video-game marketing Little-known fact: With some 3.5 billion players worldwide, gaming is a more popular entertainment option than movies and music combined. Moonrock is at the forefront of tapping that popularity for marketers, through both digital and real-world efforts. In 2025, for instance, the agency produced Walmart Skyward, a custom activation built in Minecraft that also extended into Discord. Through Skyward, players could go in and explore a branded world while engaging in Walmart’s Discord Video Quest program. That program allowed users to join Walmart Skyward’s server (a digital public space where users can chat and interact) to watch a trailer to unlock rewards like Discord avatars and other in-game items. According to Moonrock, Walmart Skyward drove “”millions”” of community interactions in Minecraft and Discord, with influencers engaging organically, fans creating content, and the campaign running well beyond its launch window. Discord also reported that the program resulted in over 513,000 completed views and 178 days of total watch time, surpassing established benchmarks and driving strong engagement. In another effort for Wamart, Moonrock launched an in-store gaming tour that spanned 75 locations across the United States, bringing hands-on gameplay and brand experiences to Walmart parking lots. For Ally Bank, meanwhile, the agency created Tee Time Speed Run a custom, immersive golf experience on Fortnite where players can “”be the ball,”” and participate in different obstacle courses and challenges. That initiative won a Digiday Award for Best Esports/Gaming Campaign. 9. Alison Brod Marketing + Communications For spinning a “mistake” into marketing gold No, your eyes weren’t deceiving you. In conjunction with Super Bowl LIX last year, Coors Light launched a series of ads that read “Mountain Cold Refershment” in which “refreshment” was deliberately misspelled. The spots appeared as print ads in the New York Times and on large digital billboards in high-profile locations like Times Square. Social media users quickly noticed the mistake, with many wondering whether it was a genuine proofreading error. In a public statement, Coors Light blamed it on a “case of the Mondays.” The company also released limited-edition “Mondays Light” 12-packs as well as sloth-themed ads and merch, like a “chill face roller,” to promote relaxation on everyone’s least favorite day of the week, especially the one after the Big Game. Alison Brod Marketing + Communications helped capitalize on the misspelling to make sure it went viral on social media and was covered in top media outlets. For the “Case of the Mondays” brand for the 12-packs and merchandise, the agency helped develop and push the “chill” narrative and helped position the beer brand as the solution to cure the post-Super Bowl Monday blues. Those efforts helped drive 12.6 billion earned impressions. All told, the brand sold some 1.8 billion of the limited-edition beer packs. 10. Day One Agency For tapping into the women’s sports boom to reach new audiences Michael Jordan may have ushered in the Golden Age of athlete as pitchman. Now, with women’s sports booming, Caitlin Clark, Coco Gauff, and others are taking up the mantle. This past year, New York-based Day One Agency helped bring e.l.f Beauty and Lyft Silver into the sports marketing arena. For Gen Z beauty favorite e.l.f, the agency secured a partnership with Katherine Legge—the only woman racing in the NASCAR CupXfinity Series and Indy 500—sponsoring her during races in which she drove an e.l.f.-branded car. D1A got e.l.f into the ring with female wrestlers, becoming the first-ever beauty sponsor for the Wonder Women of Wrestling (WWW) Varsity Tournament, the largest high school girls’ wrestling event in the United States. And the agency brokered a sponsorship deal between e.l.f and the Professional Women’s Hockey League, tapping Minnesota Frost star Kendall Coyne Schofield as a brand ambassador. All told, according to D1A, e.l.f supported more than 500 athletes and drew more than 12 billion impressions from activations in 26 cities worldwide. For Lyft Silver, D1A paired the newly launched service, which aims to help the millions of older adults in the United States who lack adequate transportation, with tennis legend Billie Jean King—demonstrating an ability to reach diverse demographic groups. To that same end, D1A also helped forge a collaboration between Lyft Silver and the New York Liberty’s Timeless Torches dance troupe. The results? Lyft reported that Lyft Silver got off to a strong start. Rides have doubled since last May, with an 80% user retention rate, and nearly 20% of Silver users are new to the platform. Explore the full 2026 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 720 honorees that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 59 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more. View the full article

The most innovative retailers in 2025 used technology not to chase trends, but to solve real problems. As tariffs squeezed margins and labor costs climbed, companies scrambled to adapt. Shopify opened its platform to agentic AI shoppers, letting customers purchase directly within ChatGPT. Amazon launched Lens Live to turn smartphones into instant product scanners. Rebel scaled its re-commerce platform into new categories, processing over 70,000 returned products weekly and keeping 25 million pounds of goods out of landfills. Others doubled down on heritage and experience. J.Crew proved nostalgia sells when paired with a carefully curated archive. Printemps brought its European department store model to Manhattan, where food and beverage now accounts for 35% of sales. Fanatics launched Fanatics Studios to produce sports content, creating new touchpoints to keep fans inside its ecosystem. On the operational side, Walmart insulated shoppers from trade wars by keeping grocery prices low while building higher-margin revenue streams. Its marketplace and advertising businesses grew 37% and 28% respectively, helping the company achieve e-commerce profitability for the first time. 1. Shopify For opening its doors to agentic AI shoppers As chatbots begin to reshape online shopping, Shopify is racing to ensure the five million merchants using its platform aren’t left behind. In fall 2025, Shopify introduced a partnership with ChatGPT that lets merchants sell directly within the chatbot, so customers can discover and buy products without ever leaving the platform. The company also launched a universal cart option that allows shoppers to add items from multiple retailers through a conversational interface whereby a bot can fill your cart rather than forcing you to hop between different websites. Behind the scenes, Shopify is also deploying AI to lighten the load for merchants. It built an AI-powered store builder that lets retailers build a functioning storefront by simply describing what they want. The company also upgraded Sidekick, its AI assistant, with voice chat capabilities in more than 20 languages, visual asset generation, and analytics support. The bet appears to be paying off: Shopify reported 9% year-over-year revenue growth in Q3, reaching $1.67 billion. Read more about ⁠Shopify, No. 3 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 2. Walmart For insulating shoppers from the trade wars In 2025, Walmart got better at being Walmart: keeping prices down, moving inventory faster, and leveraging its scale to weather storms. While tariffs squeezed competitors, the megachain kept grocery prices low to pull shoppers in, then built higher-margin businesses around them. Its marketplace and fulfillment services for third-party sellers grew 37%, while its advertising business—which leverages data from serving 90% of U.S. households—jumped 28%. The strategy worked: Walmart achieved e-commerce profitability for the first time and grew overall sales more than 5%. The company also leaned into AI where it actually matters. Sparky, an AI shopping assistant in the Walmart app, helps customers find products. Wally, an internal AI tool, helps merchants troubleshoot inventory issues in real time. And Walmart used its massive infrastructure to push delivery speeds faster—three-hour deliveries grew 91% year-over-year, with plans to reach 95% of the U.S. population by the end of fiscal 2026. Read more about ⁠Walmart, No. 9 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2026. 3. Fanatics For parlaying its sports merch and collectibles into live events and film and television Most sports retailers stop at the jersey, but Fanatics is building an entertainment empire. In 2025, the sports merchandising giant’s annual fan festival, Fanatics Fest, nearly doubled attendance from 70,000 to over 125,000, signaling strong demand for live experiences beyond traditional retail. Now Fanatics has launched Fanatics Studios, a joint venture with OBB Media, with a mission to create, finance, produce, and distribute content at the intersection of sports and culture. Fanatics Studios, which projects over nine figures in revenue in its first year, arrived with deals already in place: co-producing the 2026 ESPY Awards with ESPN, creating original content for WWE’s digital platforms, and partnering with Major League Baseball on a 2026 World Baseball Classic docuseries. Looking ahead, Fanatics Studios will produce the official film for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic games, and is developing documentaries, live event specials, and digital series—proof that content isn’t a side project but a way to keep fans inside the Fanatics ecosystem while selling more merch in the process. 4. Square For updating its signature point-of-sale system to meet the needs of today’s retailers For most retailers, a point-of-sale system is just the thing that processes payments. Square wants to change that. After six years without launching a new point-of-sale device, the company unveiled Square Handheld—a pocket-sized business command center that weighs just 11 ounces. The device lets sellers manage everything from payments to inventory and back-of-house operations on the go, giving teams the speed and flexibility they need in fast-paced retail environments. The hardware is just the entry point. Square is building an entire ecosystem around modern retail needs, from accepting Bitcoin payments to launching AI-powered analytics that predict future sales and automate marketing campaigns. The company also rolled out subscription billing tools, recognizing that more businesses want to offer monthly boxes or memberships without juggling multiple platforms. That shift toward recurring revenue models is especially relevant for Square’s fastest-growing user base: content creators and small media businesses. The company now offers subscription management for premium content and exclusive newsletters, plus integrated social media tools that let creators share products and monetized content directly to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The numbers tell the story: In Q2 2025, Square sellers processed more than $64 billion in gross payment volume, pushing the company’s gross profit up 11% year-over-year to $1.03 billion. 5. J.Crew For using its heritage and legacy to sell customers updates to its classic styles Since J.Crew relaunched an iconic catalog in September 2024—with Demi Moore on the cover wearing one of her personal vintage J.Crew sweaters from the ’90s—the brand has been mining its own archive and doubled down on its heritage. The strategy came to life during New York Fashion Week 2025, when J.Crew transformed a landmark building in Lower Manhattan into a museum of its 40-year history. Visitors entered through a lobby lined with archival photography and vintage catalog pages before discovering the centerpiece: the Rollneck Generation campaign. The initiative celebrated the relaunch of J.Crew’s ’80s classic sweater with a roster of rising stars including Taylour Paige, Dominic Sessa, and Benito Skinner. Beyond the splashy activations, J.Crew launched the “J.Crew Archive” capsule—a collection that reissues beloved pieces like limited-edition denim jackets, flannel shirts, and striped tees. The brand also leaned into nostalgia on social media with #JCrewHeritage, encouraging customers to share their vintage finds and well-worn favorites. The Rollneck sweater alone generated 42,000 keyword searches during launch week, with Google searches spiking 900%. Overall, the heritage focus helped J.Crew drive a 20% increase in returning customers and 4-5% sales growth compared to the same quarter in 2024. 6. Printemps For reimagining the department store In March 2025, the French retailer opened its first U.S. location in Manhattan’s financial district, importing a European model that treats shopping as an experience rather than a transaction. The store is less than half the size of a typical American department store, with far less space devoted to clothing racks and cosmetics counters. The product selection is tightly curated—a quarter of its brands are either exclusive or new to the U.S.—and customers are encouraged to wander through a space designed to evoke a luxurious Parisian residence. What really sets Printemps apart, however, is the food. The Manhattan store houses five dining venues, including a Champagne bar, café, raw bar, and fine dining restaurant. And it’s not just window dressing: Food and beverage accounts for roughly 35% of overall sales at the New York location, proving that people will linger (and spend) when you give them a reason to stay. The approach has worked even in a tough market: Printemps told the Wall Street Journal that the first two months delivered sales “above our expectations.” 7. Rebel For diverting returns from landfills and putting them back on the market American retailers return about 17% of their inventory, or about 8.4 billion pounds of products annually, and most of it ends up in landfills, regardless of condition. Rebel is trying to change that math. The recommerce platform—which started as a baby gear business and expanded to home goods, travel products, and outdoor gear in 2025—processes more than 70,000 unique products weekly at its 300,000-square-foot warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. There, it turns returned and overstock goods into deals for budget-conscious shoppers. The volume is so substantial that Rebel’s website adds new deals every 15 minutes. To handle that scale, Rebel built an AI-powered system that detects, logs, and tags the condition of each return, then determines the most efficient path from retailer to consumer. The company’s smart-pricing algorithm auto-adjusts item prices based on demand, condition, and inventory more than 10 times daily, allowing Rebel to offer shoppers savings of up to 70% off retail prices. The growth has been steep: Rebel’s revenue increased 1,806% in just three years, and by August 2025, the company had already surpassed its entire 2024 revenue. 8. Amazon For using AI and personalization to help customers navigate the ‘everything store’ Navigating Amazon’s “everything store” has always meant wading through endless options. In 2025, Amazon used AI to flip that experience and let technology do the heavy lifting while shoppers sit back. In September, the retail giant launched Lens Live, which turns smartphones into real-time product scanners by letting you point your camera at any item and suggesting matching products directly in the camera view. The company’s AI shopping assistant, Rufus, also got a major upgrade with Shopping Memory, which recalls past purchases, browsing history, abandoned carts, and even how much time shoppers spent looking at different items. Rufus can now ask clarifying questions, compare products across categories, and surface relevant deals based on individual shopping patterns. The assistant expanded to cover $700 billion worth of products and rolled out to 13 additional international marketplaces. Though it is a free service, Rufus has generated $700 million in operating profit in 2025. 9. Field.iO For creating easily deployed immersive retail experiences Creating an immersive retail experience used to cost $5 million and take two years to build. Field.io has collapsed that timeline to four months and $150,000. The London-based studio spent 15 years building custom digital environments for clients like Nike and Chanel. In 2025, it packaged that expertise into Lucient OS—a platform that transforms physical stores into intelligent, responsive spaces. The system uses anonymous sensors to track movement and behavior, then adjusts lighting, sound, projections, and even scent in real time. Since the AI processing happens on-site rather than in the cloud, customer data never leaves the building. For Nike, Field.iO built a centralized digital hub that manages immersive visuals across 94+ flagship stores globally. The platform can adapt to any screen size or architecture, which means new stores can deploy experiences quickly. Content shifts based on hyperlocal context while staying responsive to broader campaigns and product launches. The results: 40% operational efficiency gains and 47% conversion rate improvement. By reducing deployment time by 82% and costs by 97%, Field.iO is making these responsive retail experiences accessible to thousands of retailers who couldn’t previously afford them. 10. VenHub For creating the fully automated convenience store of the future VenHub is betting that the future of convenience stores doesn’t include humans—just robotic arms and algorithms. In 2025, the Las Vegas-based company opened five fully automated locations in Los Angeles, including Hollywood, Glendale, North Hollywood, the LAX/Metro Transit Center, and Union Station. The stores operate 24/7 without staff, and unlike traditional convenience stores, where products sit on open shelves vulnerable to theft, VenHub keeps everything behind bulletproof glass. Customers order through a touchscreen app, and robotic arms retrieve chips, soft drinks, basic medicines, or small electronics and hand them over within seconds. The unmanned model is resonating far beyond urban transit hubs dealing with labor costs and shoplifting. VenHub has racked up more than $400 million in pre-orders for its smart-store kiosks, with interest coming from unexpected places: a 200-person community in East Texas that doesn’t want to drive miles for sundries, and a gated Connecticut neighborhood where parents want a safe, walkable option for their kids to grab snacks. Since the stores require no employees and can be installed in just seven days, they’re ideal for locations that can’t support traditional staffing. Explore the full 2026 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 720 honorees that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 59 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more. View the full article

Jump in manufacturing input prices balance is largest in any month since October 1992View the full article

If you’re looking to improve your sales strategy, implementing effective cross-selling techniques can make a significant difference. By tracking customer purchasing behavior and segmenting your customer base, you can provide customized recommendations that resonate. Moreover, utilizing auto-triggered messages guarantees your offers reach customers at the right time. The key lies in limiting product suggestions and demonstrating their value. There’s much more to explore, including ways to build trust and showcase product benefits effectively. Key Takeaways Analyze customer buying patterns and preferences to offer personalized cross-sell recommendations that resonate with specific segments. Utilize auto-triggered messages for timely offers, such as cart abandonment emails, to suggest complementary products effectively. Limit cross-sell suggestions to three or four relevant items to simplify decision-making and enhance customer engagement. Create urgency with countdown timers and limited stock alerts to motivate quick purchasing decisions and drive impulse buys. Showcase product value through real-life examples, video tutorials, and customer testimonials to illustrate the benefits of complementary products. Track Customer Purchasing Behavior To effectively boost your sales through cross-selling, it’s essential to track customer purchasing behavior carefully. Start by analyzing customer preferences and their prior purchases to identify their cross-selling potential. By tracking buying patterns across various channels, like email and your website, you can gain a thorough comprehension of how customers interact with your products. This insight allows you to develop customized cross-selling techniques that resonate with individual customers. Recognize which products are frequently sold together, as this information helps you craft personalized recommendations. Pay close attention to the specific moments when customers add items to their carts; these are prime opportunities for upsell products. Segment Your Customer Base for Targeted Recommendations To effectively boost cross-selling efforts, you need to segment your customer base based on buying patterns and preferences. By comprehending these patterns, you can craft customized messaging strategies that resonate with specific groups, increasing the chances of conversion. This targeted approach not only improves customer satisfaction but also optimizes your marketing efforts for better returns. Identify Buying Patterns Identifying buying patterns is crucial for businesses looking to improve their cross-selling strategies effectively. By analyzing customer preferences and past purchases, you can tailor your recommendations, potentially boosting sales by 20% and profits by 30%. Segment your customers based on demographics and buying patterns to implement hyper-targeted messaging. Buying Pattern Recommended Action Frequent Pairing Cross Sale High-End Purchases Up Sale Seasonal Trends Timely Promotions Loyalty Program Users Exclusive Offers Tracking buying patterns across channels helps you identify products sold together, enhancing relevance and engagement. Utilizing value-based segmentation allows for personalized cross-sell offers, greatly driving customer satisfaction and additional revenue. Tailored Messaging Strategies Effective customized messaging strategies hinge on grasping your customer base, which allows you to craft targeted recommendations that resonate with individual preferences. Start by segmenting your customers based on demographics and buying patterns, as this improves your comprehension and satisfaction. Implement value-based segmentation to maximize your return on investment, refining cost per conversion. Use real-time updates on customer interactions to tailor offers that align with current needs. Moreover, analyze purchasing behavior across various channels to identify trends and frequently bought products. Limit your cross-sell recommendations to three or four relevant items, ensuring you don’t overwhelm customers. This focused approach will help boost customer engagement and elevate your cross-selling success. Utilize Auto-Triggered Messages for Timely Offers Auto-triggered messages can be a considerable turning point for your sales strategy, as they enable you to engage customers at crucial moments during their shopping experience. By implementing these messages based on customer actions, like adding items to their cart, you can greatly increase engagement. For instance, cart abandonment emails suggesting complementary products can recover lost sales, achieving conversion rates of 10-15%. In addition, automated follow-up messages sent shortly after a customer indicates purchase intent encourage additional purchases and improve satisfaction. Utilizing marketing automation workflows guarantees real-time updates on customer behavior, keeping offers relevant. Here’s a quick overview of effective auto-triggered messages: Trigger Event Message Type Goal Cart Abandonment Reminder Email Recover lost sales Product Page Engagement Popup Suggestion Capture interest Purchase Intent Follow-Up Message Encourage additional purchases Time Spent on Page Related Product Offer Increase cross-sells Limit the Number of Products in Your Suggestions When you present cross-sell recommendations, it’s important to limit the number of products you suggest. Research shows that recommending three or four relevant items prevents overwhelming customers and improves their decision-making process. Presenting too many options can lead to decision fatigue, making it less likely for them to complete a purchase. Focus your suggestions on complementary products that truly augment the primary item, avoiding unrelated suggestions that can confuse customers. Display these curated recommendations at strategic points, like product pages or the checkout process, so customers can easily grasp their options. Simplifying choices not just clarifies the decision-making process but can as well lead to higher engagement rates. Studies indicate that well-defined suggestions greatly improve conversion rates, as customers appreciate having a manageable selection to ponder. Demonstrate Use Cases for Recommended Products Demonstrating use cases for recommended products can greatly improve the shopping experience for your customers. By showcasing how these products improve primary purchases, you build confidence and drive additional sales. Here are a few effective strategies to think about: Utilize video content to visually demonstrate the benefits of pairing products, which boosts engagement. Create comparison charts that highlight compatibility and advantages, helping customers see the value in add-ons. Leverage customer testimonials to provide social proof, showcasing successful product pairings that encourage potential buyers. When customers can visualize the benefits of additional products, they’re more likely to make those purchases. A structured approach to demonstrating use cases not only highlights product value but also improves customer experience, eventually leading to higher conversion rates. Create a Sense of Urgency With Limited-Time Offers Creating a sense of urgency with limited-time offers can greatly impact your sales strategy. By using time-sensitive discounts, countdown timers, and limited stock alerts, you encourage customers to act quickly before the opportunity passes. This approach not only enhances conversion rates but likewise helps sway undecided buyers by highlighting the value of acting fast. Time-Sensitive Discounts Time-sensitive discounts serve as influential tools for driving sales and enhancing customer engagement. By creating urgency, you encourage quicker purchasing decisions and can greatly boost conversion rates. Here are some key benefits of time-sensitive discounts: Limited-time offers can sway undecided customers, especially when paired with complementary product discounts. Highlighting these promotions in cart abandonment emails can recover up to 15% of lost sales. Using phrases like “while supplies last” increases the urgency and appeal of the offer. Research shows that these promotions can lead to a 20% increase in sales, driven by the fear of missing out (FOMO). Implementing time-sensitive discounts effectively can enhance your sales strategy and encourage customers to act swiftly. Countdown Timers When you incorporate countdown timers into your sales strategy, you tap into a potent psychological trigger that encourages customers to act swiftly. These timers create a sense of urgency, prompting customers to make faster purchasing decisions to avoid missing out. Research shows that using countdown timers can lead to a substantial 30% increase in sales, highlighting their effectiveness in cross-selling techniques. By enhancing the perceived value of your offers, you motivate customers to secure deals before they expire. Furthermore, pairing countdown timers with exclusive offers can amplify this urgency, nurturing a fear of missing out (FOMO). This combination effectively encourages customers to complete their purchases without delay, driving higher conversion rates and boosting overall sales performance. Limited Stock Alerts Limited stock alerts effectively prompt customers to take immediate action by highlighting the scarcity of a product. When you implement these alerts, you create a sense of urgency that encourages quick decision-making. Here are three key benefits of using limited stock alerts: Increased Conversion Rates: Scarcity messaging can boost conversion rates by up to 50%. Impulse Buying: Time-sensitive messages, like “only 3 left” or “sale ends in 24 hours,” can drive impulse purchases, enhancing sales by 20-30%. Enhanced Perceived Value: Pairing limited-time discounts with stock alerts makes offers more attractive, prompting customers to complete their purchases quickly. Utilizing these strategies can greatly improve your sales performance as you ensure customers don’t miss out on popular items. Leverage Customer Data for Personalized Cross-Selling To effectively boost your cross-selling efforts, leveraging customer data is crucial. By analyzing customer preferences and past purchases, you can create customized recommendations that improve your cross-selling effectiveness. In fact, personalized cross-sells account for 26% of total revenue, although they only come from 7% of web visits. Segmenting customers based on demographics and buying patterns allows you to modify your strategies, maximizing your return on investment. Tracking buying patterns across different channels enables you to identify items frequently purchased together, informing your targeted suggestions. Moreover, real-time updates on customer interactions help you make timely and relevant offers, ensuring your recommendations align with current interests. Keep the Conversation Going After the Sale Engaging customers after a sale is essential for nurturing ongoing relationships and uncovering new cross-sell opportunities. Keeping the conversation alive not just demonstrates your commitment to their satisfaction but also increases the likelihood of future purchases. Here are three effective strategies to maintain that dialogue: Follow-Up Messages: Send timely communications to check on product performance, which keeps your brand top-of-mind. Customer Feedback: Asking for feedback shows genuine interest and opens the door for discussions about complementary products. Regular Engagement: Establishing a continuous dialogue can lead to a 25% increase in conversion rates, enhancing the overall customer experience. Build Trust Before Pitching Additional Products Building trust with your customers is essential before you start pitching further products, as a solid foundation can greatly influence their purchasing decisions. When you prioritize relationship-building, studies show that you can achieve an 80% cross-selling rate in organizations where trust is established. Engaging customers post-sale to discuss their experiences not just improves satisfaction but also opens up opportunities for future product suggestions, resulting in a 25% increase in conversion rates. By demonstrating genuine interest in their success through personalized interactions, you cultivate credibility, making customers more receptive to your offers. Furthermore, leveraging customer data to understand individual preferences allows you to tailor recommendations that align with their interests. This approach makes your cross-selling efforts feel relevant and trustworthy, ultimately leading to increased customer loyalty and recurring sales, which contribute to a stable revenue stream for your business. Showcase Product Value With Tangible Examples To effectively showcase the value of cross-selling, you should illustrate real-life scenarios where complementary products improve the primary purchase. Highlighting the benefits of these add-ons, like how a skincare product can work better with a specific moisturizer, helps customers see their practicality. Moreover, using engaging visuals, such as video demonstrations or comparison charts, can greatly clarify these advantages, making it more likely that customers will consider additional purchases. Illustrate Real-Life Scenarios When you showcase real-life scenarios that illustrate product value, you not just engage customers but furthermore help them understand the practical benefits of their purchases. For example, consider these scenarios: A video tutorial demonstrating how to use a kitchen appliance with complementary utensils can inspire customers to buy those additional items. Customer testimonials about camping gear, like tents paired with sleeping bags, provide social proof, encouraging others to make similar purchases. Side-by-side comparisons on a product page can effectively show how a basic fitness tracker becomes more valuable with additional features, incentivizing upgrades. Highlight Complementary Benefits Highlighting complementary benefits is essential for helping customers recognize the value of product pairings. When you showcase how items work together, it improves their comprehension and encourages purchases. Providing tangible examples, like use cases or specific advantages, persuades customers to reflect on adding to their carts. For instance, demonstrating through videos how a new phone case protects during the enhancement of style can notably boost interest. Furthermore, implementing comparison charts that outline the compatibility and advantages of bundled products clarifies their worth. Customer testimonials that share successful experiences with product pairings likewise build credibility, making potential buyers more inclined to invest in complementary items. Use Engaging Visuals Engaging visuals play a crucial role in showcasing product value, making it easier for customers to comprehend how complementary items work together. By utilizing effective visuals, you can improve customer comprehension and drive purchases. Consider these strategies: Use high-quality images and videos to demonstrate product pairings in action, highlighting their benefits. Create comparison charts that clearly outline the compatibility and advantages of add-ons, simplifying decision-making for customers. Incorporate customer testimonials that showcase successful product combinations, providing social proof and illustrating real-world applications. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the 3 3 3 Rule in Sales? The 3 3 3 Rule in sales is a strategic approach to customer interactions. It involves asking three questions to uncover customer needs, making three statements about product benefits or features to build trust, and offering three customized solutions to address those needs. This method encourages engagement and guarantees a thorough comprehension of the customer’s situation. What Is the 25% Rule of Thumb for Cross-Selling? The 25% rule of thumb for cross-selling suggests that the total price of additional items shouldn’t exceed 25% of the original purchase price. For example, if you buy a smartwatch for $200, the cross-sell items should ideally cost $50 or less. This guideline helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed by excessive suggestions, ensuring the recommendations remain relevant and appealing, thereby enhancing your shopping experience without compromising trust in the seller. How to Cross-Sell Effectively? To cross-sell effectively, you should first understand your customers’ needs and preferences. Segment them based on their purchasing behavior, which allows you to tailor your offers. Use auto-triggered messages to suggest complementary products when customers show intent. Limit your recommendations to three or four items to avoid overwhelming them. Finally, create urgency through limited-time offers to encourage quick decisions, making it easier for customers to appreciate the added value of your suggestions. What Are the 4 C’s in Sales? The 4 C’s in sales are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication. First, focus on identifying your customer’s needs and preferences, tailoring your approach accordingly. Next, consider competitive pricing to build trust and encourage additional purchases. Convenience is key; streamline the buying process to improve the customer experience. Finally, maintain open communication to build relationships and present relevant offers. Comprehending and applying these elements can greatly enhance your sales strategy and customer satisfaction. Conclusion Incorporating effective cross-selling techniques can greatly improve your sales strategy. By tracking customer behavior, segmenting your audience, and using auto-triggered messages, you can deliver timely and relevant product suggestions. Limiting your recommendations to a few choices and demonstrating their value through use cases nurtures customer comprehension. Moreover, maintaining engagement after the sale and building trust can lead to increased loyalty and repeat purchases. Implement these strategies to maximize your cross-selling potential and drive revenue growth. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "10 Effective Cross Selling Techniques to Boost Sales" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

If you’re looking to improve your sales strategy, implementing effective cross-selling techniques can make a significant difference. By tracking customer purchasing behavior and segmenting your customer base, you can provide customized recommendations that resonate. Moreover, utilizing auto-triggered messages guarantees your offers reach customers at the right time. The key lies in limiting product suggestions and demonstrating their value. There’s much more to explore, including ways to build trust and showcase product benefits effectively. Key Takeaways Analyze customer buying patterns and preferences to offer personalized cross-sell recommendations that resonate with specific segments. Utilize auto-triggered messages for timely offers, such as cart abandonment emails, to suggest complementary products effectively. Limit cross-sell suggestions to three or four relevant items to simplify decision-making and enhance customer engagement. Create urgency with countdown timers and limited stock alerts to motivate quick purchasing decisions and drive impulse buys. Showcase product value through real-life examples, video tutorials, and customer testimonials to illustrate the benefits of complementary products. Track Customer Purchasing Behavior To effectively boost your sales through cross-selling, it’s essential to track customer purchasing behavior carefully. Start by analyzing customer preferences and their prior purchases to identify their cross-selling potential. By tracking buying patterns across various channels, like email and your website, you can gain a thorough comprehension of how customers interact with your products. This insight allows you to develop customized cross-selling techniques that resonate with individual customers. Recognize which products are frequently sold together, as this information helps you craft personalized recommendations. Pay close attention to the specific moments when customers add items to their carts; these are prime opportunities for upsell products. Segment Your Customer Base for Targeted Recommendations To effectively boost cross-selling efforts, you need to segment your customer base based on buying patterns and preferences. By comprehending these patterns, you can craft customized messaging strategies that resonate with specific groups, increasing the chances of conversion. This targeted approach not only improves customer satisfaction but also optimizes your marketing efforts for better returns. Identify Buying Patterns Identifying buying patterns is crucial for businesses looking to improve their cross-selling strategies effectively. By analyzing customer preferences and past purchases, you can tailor your recommendations, potentially boosting sales by 20% and profits by 30%. Segment your customers based on demographics and buying patterns to implement hyper-targeted messaging. Buying Pattern Recommended Action Frequent Pairing Cross Sale High-End Purchases Up Sale Seasonal Trends Timely Promotions Loyalty Program Users Exclusive Offers Tracking buying patterns across channels helps you identify products sold together, enhancing relevance and engagement. Utilizing value-based segmentation allows for personalized cross-sell offers, greatly driving customer satisfaction and additional revenue. Tailored Messaging Strategies Effective customized messaging strategies hinge on grasping your customer base, which allows you to craft targeted recommendations that resonate with individual preferences. Start by segmenting your customers based on demographics and buying patterns, as this improves your comprehension and satisfaction. Implement value-based segmentation to maximize your return on investment, refining cost per conversion. Use real-time updates on customer interactions to tailor offers that align with current needs. Moreover, analyze purchasing behavior across various channels to identify trends and frequently bought products. Limit your cross-sell recommendations to three or four relevant items, ensuring you don’t overwhelm customers. This focused approach will help boost customer engagement and elevate your cross-selling success. Utilize Auto-Triggered Messages for Timely Offers Auto-triggered messages can be a considerable turning point for your sales strategy, as they enable you to engage customers at crucial moments during their shopping experience. By implementing these messages based on customer actions, like adding items to their cart, you can greatly increase engagement. For instance, cart abandonment emails suggesting complementary products can recover lost sales, achieving conversion rates of 10-15%. In addition, automated follow-up messages sent shortly after a customer indicates purchase intent encourage additional purchases and improve satisfaction. Utilizing marketing automation workflows guarantees real-time updates on customer behavior, keeping offers relevant. Here’s a quick overview of effective auto-triggered messages: Trigger Event Message Type Goal Cart Abandonment Reminder Email Recover lost sales Product Page Engagement Popup Suggestion Capture interest Purchase Intent Follow-Up Message Encourage additional purchases Time Spent on Page Related Product Offer Increase cross-sells Limit the Number of Products in Your Suggestions When you present cross-sell recommendations, it’s important to limit the number of products you suggest. Research shows that recommending three or four relevant items prevents overwhelming customers and improves their decision-making process. Presenting too many options can lead to decision fatigue, making it less likely for them to complete a purchase. Focus your suggestions on complementary products that truly augment the primary item, avoiding unrelated suggestions that can confuse customers. Display these curated recommendations at strategic points, like product pages or the checkout process, so customers can easily grasp their options. Simplifying choices not just clarifies the decision-making process but can as well lead to higher engagement rates. Studies indicate that well-defined suggestions greatly improve conversion rates, as customers appreciate having a manageable selection to ponder. Demonstrate Use Cases for Recommended Products Demonstrating use cases for recommended products can greatly improve the shopping experience for your customers. By showcasing how these products improve primary purchases, you build confidence and drive additional sales. Here are a few effective strategies to think about: Utilize video content to visually demonstrate the benefits of pairing products, which boosts engagement. Create comparison charts that highlight compatibility and advantages, helping customers see the value in add-ons. Leverage customer testimonials to provide social proof, showcasing successful product pairings that encourage potential buyers. When customers can visualize the benefits of additional products, they’re more likely to make those purchases. A structured approach to demonstrating use cases not only highlights product value but also improves customer experience, eventually leading to higher conversion rates. Create a Sense of Urgency With Limited-Time Offers Creating a sense of urgency with limited-time offers can greatly impact your sales strategy. By using time-sensitive discounts, countdown timers, and limited stock alerts, you encourage customers to act quickly before the opportunity passes. This approach not only enhances conversion rates but likewise helps sway undecided buyers by highlighting the value of acting fast. Time-Sensitive Discounts Time-sensitive discounts serve as influential tools for driving sales and enhancing customer engagement. By creating urgency, you encourage quicker purchasing decisions and can greatly boost conversion rates. Here are some key benefits of time-sensitive discounts: Limited-time offers can sway undecided customers, especially when paired with complementary product discounts. Highlighting these promotions in cart abandonment emails can recover up to 15% of lost sales. Using phrases like “while supplies last” increases the urgency and appeal of the offer. Research shows that these promotions can lead to a 20% increase in sales, driven by the fear of missing out (FOMO). Implementing time-sensitive discounts effectively can enhance your sales strategy and encourage customers to act swiftly. Countdown Timers When you incorporate countdown timers into your sales strategy, you tap into a potent psychological trigger that encourages customers to act swiftly. These timers create a sense of urgency, prompting customers to make faster purchasing decisions to avoid missing out. Research shows that using countdown timers can lead to a substantial 30% increase in sales, highlighting their effectiveness in cross-selling techniques. By enhancing the perceived value of your offers, you motivate customers to secure deals before they expire. Furthermore, pairing countdown timers with exclusive offers can amplify this urgency, nurturing a fear of missing out (FOMO). This combination effectively encourages customers to complete their purchases without delay, driving higher conversion rates and boosting overall sales performance. Limited Stock Alerts Limited stock alerts effectively prompt customers to take immediate action by highlighting the scarcity of a product. When you implement these alerts, you create a sense of urgency that encourages quick decision-making. Here are three key benefits of using limited stock alerts: Increased Conversion Rates: Scarcity messaging can boost conversion rates by up to 50%. Impulse Buying: Time-sensitive messages, like “only 3 left” or “sale ends in 24 hours,” can drive impulse purchases, enhancing sales by 20-30%. Enhanced Perceived Value: Pairing limited-time discounts with stock alerts makes offers more attractive, prompting customers to complete their purchases quickly. Utilizing these strategies can greatly improve your sales performance as you ensure customers don’t miss out on popular items. Leverage Customer Data for Personalized Cross-Selling To effectively boost your cross-selling efforts, leveraging customer data is crucial. By analyzing customer preferences and past purchases, you can create customized recommendations that improve your cross-selling effectiveness. In fact, personalized cross-sells account for 26% of total revenue, although they only come from 7% of web visits. Segmenting customers based on demographics and buying patterns allows you to modify your strategies, maximizing your return on investment. Tracking buying patterns across different channels enables you to identify items frequently purchased together, informing your targeted suggestions. Moreover, real-time updates on customer interactions help you make timely and relevant offers, ensuring your recommendations align with current interests. Keep the Conversation Going After the Sale Engaging customers after a sale is essential for nurturing ongoing relationships and uncovering new cross-sell opportunities. Keeping the conversation alive not just demonstrates your commitment to their satisfaction but also increases the likelihood of future purchases. Here are three effective strategies to maintain that dialogue: Follow-Up Messages: Send timely communications to check on product performance, which keeps your brand top-of-mind. Customer Feedback: Asking for feedback shows genuine interest and opens the door for discussions about complementary products. Regular Engagement: Establishing a continuous dialogue can lead to a 25% increase in conversion rates, enhancing the overall customer experience. Build Trust Before Pitching Additional Products Building trust with your customers is essential before you start pitching further products, as a solid foundation can greatly influence their purchasing decisions. When you prioritize relationship-building, studies show that you can achieve an 80% cross-selling rate in organizations where trust is established. Engaging customers post-sale to discuss their experiences not just improves satisfaction but also opens up opportunities for future product suggestions, resulting in a 25% increase in conversion rates. By demonstrating genuine interest in their success through personalized interactions, you cultivate credibility, making customers more receptive to your offers. Furthermore, leveraging customer data to understand individual preferences allows you to tailor recommendations that align with their interests. This approach makes your cross-selling efforts feel relevant and trustworthy, ultimately leading to increased customer loyalty and recurring sales, which contribute to a stable revenue stream for your business. Showcase Product Value With Tangible Examples To effectively showcase the value of cross-selling, you should illustrate real-life scenarios where complementary products improve the primary purchase. Highlighting the benefits of these add-ons, like how a skincare product can work better with a specific moisturizer, helps customers see their practicality. Moreover, using engaging visuals, such as video demonstrations or comparison charts, can greatly clarify these advantages, making it more likely that customers will consider additional purchases. Illustrate Real-Life Scenarios When you showcase real-life scenarios that illustrate product value, you not just engage customers but furthermore help them understand the practical benefits of their purchases. For example, consider these scenarios: A video tutorial demonstrating how to use a kitchen appliance with complementary utensils can inspire customers to buy those additional items. Customer testimonials about camping gear, like tents paired with sleeping bags, provide social proof, encouraging others to make similar purchases. Side-by-side comparisons on a product page can effectively show how a basic fitness tracker becomes more valuable with additional features, incentivizing upgrades. Highlight Complementary Benefits Highlighting complementary benefits is essential for helping customers recognize the value of product pairings. When you showcase how items work together, it improves their comprehension and encourages purchases. Providing tangible examples, like use cases or specific advantages, persuades customers to reflect on adding to their carts. For instance, demonstrating through videos how a new phone case protects during the enhancement of style can notably boost interest. Furthermore, implementing comparison charts that outline the compatibility and advantages of bundled products clarifies their worth. Customer testimonials that share successful experiences with product pairings likewise build credibility, making potential buyers more inclined to invest in complementary items. Use Engaging Visuals Engaging visuals play a crucial role in showcasing product value, making it easier for customers to comprehend how complementary items work together. By utilizing effective visuals, you can improve customer comprehension and drive purchases. Consider these strategies: Use high-quality images and videos to demonstrate product pairings in action, highlighting their benefits. Create comparison charts that clearly outline the compatibility and advantages of add-ons, simplifying decision-making for customers. Incorporate customer testimonials that showcase successful product combinations, providing social proof and illustrating real-world applications. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the 3 3 3 Rule in Sales? The 3 3 3 Rule in sales is a strategic approach to customer interactions. It involves asking three questions to uncover customer needs, making three statements about product benefits or features to build trust, and offering three customized solutions to address those needs. This method encourages engagement and guarantees a thorough comprehension of the customer’s situation. What Is the 25% Rule of Thumb for Cross-Selling? The 25% rule of thumb for cross-selling suggests that the total price of additional items shouldn’t exceed 25% of the original purchase price. For example, if you buy a smartwatch for $200, the cross-sell items should ideally cost $50 or less. This guideline helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed by excessive suggestions, ensuring the recommendations remain relevant and appealing, thereby enhancing your shopping experience without compromising trust in the seller. How to Cross-Sell Effectively? To cross-sell effectively, you should first understand your customers’ needs and preferences. Segment them based on their purchasing behavior, which allows you to tailor your offers. Use auto-triggered messages to suggest complementary products when customers show intent. Limit your recommendations to three or four items to avoid overwhelming them. Finally, create urgency through limited-time offers to encourage quick decisions, making it easier for customers to appreciate the added value of your suggestions. What Are the 4 C’s in Sales? The 4 C’s in sales are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication. First, focus on identifying your customer’s needs and preferences, tailoring your approach accordingly. Next, consider competitive pricing to build trust and encourage additional purchases. Convenience is key; streamline the buying process to improve the customer experience. Finally, maintain open communication to build relationships and present relevant offers. Comprehending and applying these elements can greatly enhance your sales strategy and customer satisfaction. Conclusion Incorporating effective cross-selling techniques can greatly improve your sales strategy. By tracking customer behavior, segmenting your audience, and using auto-triggered messages, you can deliver timely and relevant product suggestions. Limiting your recommendations to a few choices and demonstrating their value through use cases nurtures customer comprehension. Moreover, maintaining engagement after the sale and building trust can lead to increased loyalty and repeat purchases. Implement these strategies to maximize your cross-selling potential and drive revenue growth. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "10 Effective Cross Selling Techniques to Boost Sales" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Postpartum depression is often framed as a private struggle that unfolds at home or in the doctor’s office. But for millions of working parents, its effects also show up quietly at work—through missed deadlines, sudden disengagement, or a colleague who no longer seems like themselves. Too often, these changes are misunderstood as performance issues rather than signs of a common and treatable mental health condition. To better understand what employers, managers, and coworkers often miss—and how workplaces can respond more thoughtfully—I spoke with Andrea Clark, deputy CEO of Postpartum Support International, a global nonprofit focused on supporting families and raising awareness about perinatal mental health disorders. In our conversation, Clark explains how postpartum mood disorders can appear in professional settings, what supportive leadership actually looks like, and why truly family-centered workplaces must consider the mental health of both birthing and non-birthing parents. Many conversations about postpartum depression still focus primarily on the clinical or home environment. From your vantage point, what are employers and colleagues most often missing about how PPD shows up at work? Like most people, employers and colleagues don’t realize that PPD or other perinatal mood disorders can manifest anytime during the pregnancy or up to one year following delivery. Employers and colleagues sometimes mistake common symptoms of PPD for disorganization and inefficiency. PPD may manifest as a lack of motivation, missed deadlines, isolation, or an unwillingness to attend company functions or have lunch with others. Employees may be late, seem disorganized, or have trouble concentrating or completing tasks. I think most people understand that new parents don’t get much sleep and may struggle to maintain energy during the day. But what people don’t understand is that the lack of sleep and disruption to schedules can exacerbate symptoms. Another fact many people do not know is that this applies not only to the person who gave birth, but also to the non-birthing partner or father. Approximately 10% of male partners also experience PPD and anxiety. Another common misconception is that PPD is the only perinatal mood disorder. Other perinatal mood disorders that affect birthing people include postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis, and postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder. All are temporary and treatable. For managers and HR leaders who want to be supportive—but worry about overstepping—what are realistic signs that an employee might be struggling with PPD, and what is an appropriate first response? In addition to the signs and symptoms listed above, employees may seem more easily agitated or irritable than usual, or they may express feeling overwhelmed despite having the same or a similar workload as before having a baby. Employees may also take more frequent time off or express panic or anxiety attacks triggered by concern for their newborn. The most important thing is to approach the employee with care and concern. Explain that you have noticed changes in work quality, while recognizing they’ve had a major life shift. Ask how you can offer support and assure them you really want them to succeed in their roles at work and home. Do not ask for a diagnosis or expect that someone will communicate they have a perinatal mood disorder unless they are requesting an accommodation. You should normalize seeking help and share supportive resources like the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline (1-833-TLC-MAMA) and the Postpartum Support International Helpline (1-800-944-4773), or refer them to employer-sponsored resources like your company’s employee assistance program (EAP). We ask frontline managers to support returning parents, but most have little training in maternal mental health. What is one thing every manager should be equipped to say—or not say—to an employee who may be experiencing PPD? First, do not guess at a diagnosis or ask the employee to disclose one. If the manager has noticed any of the performance changes mentioned above, address the employee with empathy. The manager should mention noticing the employee’s recent difficulties, assure them they are valued, and confirm that the manager/company/organization wants to help and support them in any way possible to make their workload more manageable. Deciding whether to disclose postpartum mental health challenges at work can feel fraught. What guidance do you give parents who are weighing if, when, and how to share that they’re struggling? Deciding whether to disclose a mental health condition to an employer is difficult. Disclosing a mental health condition to employers that results from what is generally considered a joyous event can be even more fraught. An employee should carefully consider their goals before disclosing their diagnosis. If the employee knows that their performance or productivity is affected, disclosing the diagnosis may provide context and legal protection before a disciplinary or safety issue arises. The employee should also know their rights and the company resources available for assistance. Many perinatal mood disorders may be considered temporary disabilities, qualifying for job accommodations and protections under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), or Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The employee should also disclose their condition on a “need to know” basis, and consider whether disclosing the condition to their manager is more appropriate than disclosing it directly to human resources. Human resources professionals are often more familiar and accustomed to receiving and protecting sensitive information. Beyond parental leave, what workplace policies or cultural practices have you seen that meaningfully reduce the burden of PPD for working parents? Typically, policies or cultural practices that use a phased approach to returning to work after birth have positive effects on the parents’ mental health. Phasing an employee back into work may mean starting with a reduced schedule and gradually increasing their hours over several weeks or months. Alternatively, it may mean redistributing an employee’s workload so they are not feeling overwhelmed by the expectation that they resume working at the level they were before taking parental leave. Regarding workplace culture, employers who vocalize support for employees, emphasize the value of their contributions, and readily make resources like EAP available—while encouraging their use—also help ease the burdens of perinatal mood disorders. As you noted above, partners can also struggle significantly. Where do you see workplaces overlooking partner mental health—and what would more truly family-centered support look like in practice? We know that at least 10% of non-birthing, male-identified partners experience postpartum depression and anxiety. Symptoms for non-birthing partners may be exacerbated by having to return to work sooner than the birthing partner, and feeling responsible for caring for both their partner and the baby. A more family-centered approach to supporting new parents who were not the person who gave birth would involve making the same inquiries and offering the same supports mentioned above for new non-birthing parents transitioning back into the workplace. Expressing concern for them, letting the employee know they are valued, offering to adjust their schedules or workload, and encouraging them to seek assistance—including the EAP—are all ways employers can take a more family-centered approach to supporting the mental health of new parents in the workplace. 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Join our on-demand webinar to understand the intersection of AI and SEO. Learn how to leverage AI for improved search results. The post SEO 2.0: How Content Marketing Drives Visibility in AI Search appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

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When people choose their cofounder, it’s rarely scientific. They’re guided by trust, and trust is easiest to find in familiar places: former coworkers, college classmates, close friends, people who already sit in your orbit. While starting a company is chaotic enough without bringing strangers into the mix, I wanted to understand whether this instinct toward familiarity actually comes with a cost. Turns out it does. Having worked with hundreds of early-stage startups as founders and investors, including at Coatue, Kleiner Perkins, and NFX, we wanted to test whether the instincts founders use to choose partners actually hold up in the data. We surveyed nearly 350 U.S. tech IPOs and more than $1 billion in exit outcomes over the past 20 years to complete the Outcast Billion-Dollar Founder Study. This report analyzes founder count, prior relationships, startup experience, age at founding, and more. We then compared these variables against exit valuation and time to liquidity, linking verifiable founder histories to performance outcomes. The pattern became clear. Deliberate teams outperform convenient ones, meaning familiarity correlates with worse exits. To put it into hard numbers, founders who had worked together before starting a company produced 21% lower exit valuations than founders who hadn’t, while founders who went to school together saw 7% lower valuations than founders who hadn’t. When the default is proximity, a founder isn’t deliberately finding the teammate who fills their gaps. Instead, they are selecting for comfort, and comfort doesn’t always produce results. Sharing a relationship built over years in the same class or company means shared perspective and overlapping blind spots. Pre-existing social relationships also make hard conversations—equity splits, role clarity, performance expectations—even more challenging. What did correlate with stronger exits? Startup experience. Founders who had previously worked at a startup (even one that failed) produced 41% higher exit valuations than first-time founders. Prior exits were the strongest signal in our study as those with a previous exit achieved 91% higher valuations than those without. Previous founders know when to hire, when to cut burn, when to push versus sell. Clarity in these pivotal moments doesn’t come from deliberating with a confidant from your past job. It comes from pattern recognition earned the hard way. Across the dataset, founding teams outperformed solo founders on both exit size and speed. Adding founders doesn’t guarantee success, but across two decades of venture-backed outcomes, teams show a consistent structural advantage. Even in the current AI cycle, the most valuable private companies were team-founded: OpenAI, xAI, Perplexity AI, Decagon, and Anduril. These teams formed in many ways, some through prior collaboration and others through new introductions, but the consistent pattern is that the largest companies are rarely built alone. Deliberate teams look different The founders behind OpenAI, Chime, Decagon, and Uber did not default to whoever was most convenient. Many met through introductions, conferences, and general field overlap. They selected for experience relevant to the problem, not pre-existing familiarity. Some solo founders will build massive companies. Some college friends will create generational outcomes. It’s true that success can be built in several ways. But it is clear that the median outcome is worse when founders default to what’s easiest. If you’re forming a founding team, consider these three steps: Define the gaps before you define the people. What experience is missing from your own background? Have you scaled a team? Navigated a board? Sold a company? Survived a failed one? Widen your aperture beyond your existing network. Your network is a starting point rather than the boundary. Ask for introductions, attend industry events, join the Outcast Catalyst program, and deliberately spend time with people outside your immediate circle. The right partner may sit outside your current graph. Seek alignment, not proximity. Shared standards, complementary judgment, and willingness to challenge each other are essential while prior proximity isn’t. Across 350 exits, the signal is clear: founders who selected partners deliberately, based on experience and complementarity, outperformed those who defaulted to convenience. The better question isn’t “Who do I already know?” It’s: who will challenge me when it matters? That person may not be in your contacts yet. Finding them takes more work than defaulting to what’s familiar, but the data suggests it’s worth it. View the full article

If you have a direct report who identifies as neurodivergent, you may wonder how best to be their manager. Often, when we manage others, we imagine how we would react to the things we plan to ask, or the feedback we plan to give, and the work environment we aim to create. That strategy is not always effective in general, and it is likely to fail spectacularly when engaging with neurodivergent colleagues. Here are a few things to consider when supervising a neurodivergent employee. Engage with curiosity Start by being curious. Meet with your supervisee and get their permission to ask questions so that you know best how to enable them to succeed. Trust your employee to know what works for them: they are the expert on themselves. Find out what has worked for them in the past and what has not. Take notes and work with them to formulate a plan. In addition, you should let your supervisee know that you are quite likely to make some mistakes. Encourage them to talk to you when you have approached a situation in the wrong way or have asked them to do something in a way that goes beyond their capacity. When you believe that you can make mistakes and learn from them, then you will work more effectively than if you are concerned that every action you take has to be the right one the first time. High standards and high support In his wonderful book 10 to 25, my former colleague David Yeager talks a lot about the power of mixing high standards and high support to create a great environment for adolescents and young adults. This advice holds for almost anyone who works for you. It can be a valuable framework for supervising your neurodivergent employees. You might be tempted to hold your neurodivergent supervisees to a different set of standards than other employees. That is a mistake. The job you have hired someone to do is important for the success of the organization. Putting someone in a role and then not expecting excellence hurts the organization. More importantly, it harms the employee. Everyone deserves the opportunity to shine and to ultimately advance in their careers. When you relax standards, you limit the degree to which your supervisee can advance. In addition, other people on your team will know you are setting different standards for different employees, which will create resentments among team members. Expect excellence, but allow flexibility for the way your direct report gets their work done. Maybe they need to be off-camera during Zoom calls because the visual stimulus is distracting, or they need an AI notetaker during meetings. Often, your employee will know what works best for them. Your job as a manager is to help your employees use their strengths to do their work and provide support and strategies for closing their skill gaps or figuring out work-arounds. Create an environment in which all of your team members can succeed by expecting greatness and giving them the tools they need to achieve it. It’s not just the law, it’s also a good idea In the United States, employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to employees as a legal requirement under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). That strategy of being curious about how to help your neurodivergent employee enables you to find out what requirements they need and to determine what is reasonable to allow in order for the organization to succeed. This isn’t just a legal requirement, though, it is the right way to engage with all of your employees. A good supervisor should be aware of what their employees need to work effectively. While you can’t always give everyone what they want, the more that you can help to provide a hospitable work environment, the more that employees will bring their full selves to work. A workplace is a community, and you should strive to be a great neighbor to the people who work for you. View the full article

An employee background check form is a crucial tool in the hiring process, designed to gather fundamental information about a candidate’s identity, work history, and criminal background. This form helps guarantee that employers make informed hiring decisions during compliance with legal standards, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Comprehending the components and importance of this form can greatly impact workplace safety and hiring practices. So, what specific information should you expect to find on this form? Key Takeaways An employee background check form gathers essential personal information to verify identity, employment history, and criminal records of job applicants. It ensures legal compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by requiring written consent before conducting background checks. The form promotes transparency in the hiring process, protecting both employers and candidates from potential legal issues. Background checks enhance workplace safety by identifying past criminal behavior and mitigating hiring risks related to negligent hiring lawsuits. Best practices include standardizing forms, providing candidates with their rights, and including sections for disputing or clarifying information. Definition of an Employee Background Check Form An employee background check form is an essential document that gathers important information from job applicants to verify their identity, employment history, and criminal records. This form typically requires you to provide personal details such as your name, address, and Social Security number, along with a background check authorization form and a background check consent form. By signing these forms, you allow employers to conduct necessary screenings in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The employee background check form guarantees compliance with legal requirements and promotes transparency throughout the hiring process. Furthermore, it may vary by industry, including specific authorizations for checks related to education, credit history, or driving records, depending on the job’s requirements. Purpose of the Employee Background Check Form The Employee Background Check Form serves vital legal compliance requirements by obtaining your consent for background checks, ensuring adherence to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and relevant state laws. It collects important candidate information, such as your full name and Social Security number, which helps employers verify your identity accurately. Legal Compliance Requirements Comprehending the legal compliance requirements surrounding the Employee Background Check Form is vital for both employers and candidates. This form serves to guarantee adherence to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. Key aspects include: Obtaining written consent through the background check authorization form. Clearly disclosing the nature of background checks in the background verification authorization form. Maintaining a record of the signed background check form to demonstrate compliance. Providing candidates with a copy of the background check report if adverse action is taken. Failure to properly utilize the Employee Background Check Form can lead to penalties, including fines and lawsuits, highlighting its critical role in the hiring process and protecting both parties involved. Candidate Information Collection Collecting accurate candidate information through the Employee Background Check Form is crucial for companies aiming to make informed hiring decisions. This form gathers important details like personal identification, employment history, and educational qualifications, which facilitate thorough verification processes. By using a well-structured background check authorization template, you can guarantee that all necessary data is captured efficiently. Furthermore, candidates must provide consent, as required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), to promote transparency. A proper background check format not just streamlines data collection but additionally helps identify discrepancies in candidate claims, mitigating hiring risks. Completing a background check authorization form doc is often a prerequisite for job offers, underscoring its significant role in the hiring process across various industries. Information Collected in a Background Check Form When filling out an employee background check form, you’ll typically provide several key pieces of personal information that are essential for identity verification. This information helps employers confirm your identity and assess your qualifications. The form often collects: Your full name and Social Security number Date of birth and current address Consent for checks on criminal history and employment history Educational institutions attended and references Importance of Verifying Identity and Credentials Verifying identity and credentials is vital for ensuring a safe and trustworthy workplace, as it helps prevent potential risks associated with hiring unqualified or fraudulent candidates. An employee background check form is fundamental for obtaining consent to verify this information, ensuring compliance with Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. By providing personal information, candidates enable employers to cross-reference against various databases, addressing concerns like identity theft and fraud, which 83% of employers prioritize. Furthermore, accurately verifying credentials, such as education and employment history, allows organizations to make informed hiring decisions. This process not only streamlines hiring but also reduces the risk of negligent hiring lawsuits, in the end contributing to a more secure work environment for everyone involved. Mitigating Risks in the Hiring Process Conducting thorough employee background checks is a crucial step in mitigating risks during the hiring process, as it helps guarantee that you’re making informed decisions about potential candidates. These checks can greatly reduce the likelihood of hiring individuals who may pose risks to your organization. Key benefits of background checks include: Uncovering criminal histories that could indicate a threat. Identifying past employment issues or discrepancies in qualifications. Reducing the chance of workplace theft and fraud, as many cases involve trusted insiders. Encouraging a safer work environment, which is a priority for most employers. Legal Compliance and Regulatory Requirements When you conduct employee background checks, it’s essential to adhere to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) standards, which require you to inform applicants about the checks being performed and obtain their written consent. Furthermore, various industries have specific regulations that may demand customized forms to capture necessary information. FCRA Compliance Standards To guarantee compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), employers must adhere to specific legal standards when conducting background checks. Here are the key requirements you need to follow: Obtain written consent from candidates before initiating any background checks, ensuring transparency. Provide candidates with a clear disclosure stating that a background check will occur, separate from the job application. Inform candidates of their rights, including the right to dispute inaccuracies found in the background check results. If you take adverse action based on the background check, notify the candidate and provide them with a copy of the report used. Non-compliance with these FCRA standards can lead to serious legal consequences, including fines and lawsuits, making adherence crucial during the hiring process. Industry-Specific Regulations Employers must navigate a complex terrain of industry-specific regulations that dictate the requirements for conducting background checks, particularly in sectors like healthcare, education, and finance. These regulations often mandate background checks to guarantee compliance with safety and security standards. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you’ll need to obtain written consent from candidates and provide them with disclosures about the screening process. Additionally, some states have laws limiting the types of information considered, such as restricting the lookback period for criminal convictions to seven years. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) emphasizes that background checks should be consistently applied to all candidates to prevent discrimination. Non-compliance with these regulations can lead to legal penalties, highlighting the importance of following both federal and state laws. Enhancing Workplace Safety and Security Enhancing workplace safety and security is essential for creating a productive environment where employees can thrive. Implementing employee background check forms is a significant step in this process, as they help you verify candidates’ identities and histories. By doing so, you can: Identify any past criminal behavior, reducing risks of workplace violence or misconduct. Mitigate potential negligent hiring lawsuits, protecting your organization’s finances and reputation. Promote compliance with legal requirements, enhancing overall workplace security. Build trust among employees and clients, reinforcing a culture of accountability. Regular and thorough screenings not only contribute to a safe atmosphere for everyone but additionally reflect your commitment to maintaining integrity within your organization. Prioritizing these checks shows you value the safety of your team and clients alike. Components of a Comprehensive Background Check A thorough background check is crucial for guaranteeing that you hire candidates who meet your organization’s standards and values. This process typically includes several key components. First, criminal history checks reveal any felony or misdemeanor convictions, pending cases, and arrests, helping you assess potential risks. Next, employment verification confirms the accuracy of a candidate’s claimed work experience, including job titles and dates of employment. Education verification guarantees that the candidate possesses the necessary academic credentials, which is significant for specific roles. For finance-related positions, credit history checks evaluate an individual’s financial responsibility by reviewing credit scores and existing debts. Finally, reference checks provide insights from previous employers, further enhancing your comprehension of the candidate’s suitability for the role. The Role of Consent in Background Screening Comprehending the role of consent in background screening guarantees that candidates are aware of their rights and the implications of the checks being conducted. Consent is essential for several reasons: Legal Requirement: Employers must obtain written consent, as mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Transparency: Candidates need to know the purpose of the background check and how it might affect hiring decisions. Separate Form: The consent form should be distinct from the job application, allowing candidates to understand their agreement without pressure. Avoiding Consequences: Failing to obtain proper consent can result in legal repercussions for employers, including fines or lawsuits. Understanding these aspects cultivates trust and guarantees compliance with legal standards during the hiring process. Best Practices for Using Background Check Forms When implementing background check forms, it’s crucial to adhere to best practices that guarantee fairness and compliance. Start by clearly outlining the required information, such as personal details and employment history, during obtaining consent in line with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Provide candidates with a copy of their rights under the FCRA to encourage transparency. Standardizing forms across your organization helps maintain consistency, ensuring all candidates face the same requirements and minimizing discrimination risks. Include a section for candidates to dispute or clarify any information that may arise from the checks, protecting their rights. Regularly review and update the forms to reflect current legal requirements and best practices, ensuring compliance and safeguarding against potential liabilities. Common Challenges in Background Screening Steering through common challenges in background screening can be intimidating, especially as compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and varying state laws becomes increasingly complex. Here are some key obstacles you might encounter: Legal Compliance: Ignoring FCRA guidelines or state laws can lead to severe penalties. Data Accuracy: Incomplete or outdated information might result in hiring decisions based on incorrect data. Delays in Results: Court backlogs or complex international checks can prolong the hiring process, affecting candidate experience. Candidate Consent: Some candidates may not fully understand the consent process, creating hurdles in obtaining necessary permissions. Future Trends in Employee Background Checks As the terrain of employment evolves, you’re likely to see significant changes in employee background checks that incorporate advanced technologies and adapt to new workplace dynamics. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) will improve accuracy by automating data analysis and identifying patterns. With remote work rising, digital identity verification will mitigate fraud risks. Data privacy regulations like GDPR will influence compliance measures, ensuring stricter candidate data handling. A trend in the direction of holistic background checks is emerging, evaluating soft skills and cultural fit alongside traditional checks. Furthermore, increased reliance on social media checks will help assess candidates’ online presence. Trend Description AI Integration Automates analysis for efficiency and accuracy Digital Identity Verification Validates identity in remote hiring Holistic Evaluations Assesses cultural fit and soft skills Social Media Checks Evaluates online behavior and presence Frequently Asked Questions What Is the Purpose of Employee Background Check? The purpose of an employee background check is to verify a candidate’s qualifications and integrity, ensuring they’re suitable for the role. It improves workplace safety by identifying any criminal history or behaviors that could pose risks. Background checks help organizations comply with legal requirements and prevent negligent hiring. Is It Mandatory to Do a Background Check for Employment? Whether a background check is mandatory for employment depends on various factors, including local laws and the specific industry. For instance, jobs in healthcare or finance often require checks because of regulatory compliance. As well, the Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn’t mandate all employers conduct them; many choose to mitigate hiring risks. Furthermore, state laws may restrict what information can be collected, making it essential for employers to understand applicable regulations before proceeding. Why Is My Job Asking for a Background Check? Your job’s asking for a background check to verify the information you’ve provided, ensuring it aligns with your educational and employment history. This process helps employers maintain a safe workplace by identifying any potential risks associated with your background. Furthermore, it protects the company from legal issues related to negligent hiring. What Information Does an Employer Need to Do a Background Check? To perform a background check, an employer needs your full name, date of birth, and Social Security number to verify your identity. They likewise require your consent, as mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Furthermore, you’ll need to provide details about your educational history, including school names and attendance dates, along with previous employment information, such as company names, job titles, and employment dates, to validate your work experience. Conclusion In summary, an employee background check form is fundamental for ensuring a thorough assessment of potential hires. By collecting critical information and obtaining necessary consent, it helps verify identities and credentials during the hiring process. Employers can improve workplace safety and maintain legal compliance through effective background screening practices. As hiring trends evolve, staying informed about best practices and challenges in background checks will remain important for making sound employment decisions. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "What Is an Employee Background Check Form and Why Is It Necessary?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

An employee background check form is a crucial tool in the hiring process, designed to gather fundamental information about a candidate’s identity, work history, and criminal background. This form helps guarantee that employers make informed hiring decisions during compliance with legal standards, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Comprehending the components and importance of this form can greatly impact workplace safety and hiring practices. So, what specific information should you expect to find on this form? Key Takeaways An employee background check form gathers essential personal information to verify identity, employment history, and criminal records of job applicants. It ensures legal compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by requiring written consent before conducting background checks. The form promotes transparency in the hiring process, protecting both employers and candidates from potential legal issues. Background checks enhance workplace safety by identifying past criminal behavior and mitigating hiring risks related to negligent hiring lawsuits. Best practices include standardizing forms, providing candidates with their rights, and including sections for disputing or clarifying information. Definition of an Employee Background Check Form An employee background check form is an essential document that gathers important information from job applicants to verify their identity, employment history, and criminal records. This form typically requires you to provide personal details such as your name, address, and Social Security number, along with a background check authorization form and a background check consent form. By signing these forms, you allow employers to conduct necessary screenings in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The employee background check form guarantees compliance with legal requirements and promotes transparency throughout the hiring process. Furthermore, it may vary by industry, including specific authorizations for checks related to education, credit history, or driving records, depending on the job’s requirements. Purpose of the Employee Background Check Form The Employee Background Check Form serves vital legal compliance requirements by obtaining your consent for background checks, ensuring adherence to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and relevant state laws. It collects important candidate information, such as your full name and Social Security number, which helps employers verify your identity accurately. Legal Compliance Requirements Comprehending the legal compliance requirements surrounding the Employee Background Check Form is vital for both employers and candidates. This form serves to guarantee adherence to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. Key aspects include: Obtaining written consent through the background check authorization form. Clearly disclosing the nature of background checks in the background verification authorization form. Maintaining a record of the signed background check form to demonstrate compliance. Providing candidates with a copy of the background check report if adverse action is taken. Failure to properly utilize the Employee Background Check Form can lead to penalties, including fines and lawsuits, highlighting its critical role in the hiring process and protecting both parties involved. Candidate Information Collection Collecting accurate candidate information through the Employee Background Check Form is crucial for companies aiming to make informed hiring decisions. This form gathers important details like personal identification, employment history, and educational qualifications, which facilitate thorough verification processes. By using a well-structured background check authorization template, you can guarantee that all necessary data is captured efficiently. Furthermore, candidates must provide consent, as required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), to promote transparency. A proper background check format not just streamlines data collection but additionally helps identify discrepancies in candidate claims, mitigating hiring risks. Completing a background check authorization form doc is often a prerequisite for job offers, underscoring its significant role in the hiring process across various industries. Information Collected in a Background Check Form When filling out an employee background check form, you’ll typically provide several key pieces of personal information that are essential for identity verification. This information helps employers confirm your identity and assess your qualifications. The form often collects: Your full name and Social Security number Date of birth and current address Consent for checks on criminal history and employment history Educational institutions attended and references Importance of Verifying Identity and Credentials Verifying identity and credentials is vital for ensuring a safe and trustworthy workplace, as it helps prevent potential risks associated with hiring unqualified or fraudulent candidates. An employee background check form is fundamental for obtaining consent to verify this information, ensuring compliance with Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. By providing personal information, candidates enable employers to cross-reference against various databases, addressing concerns like identity theft and fraud, which 83% of employers prioritize. Furthermore, accurately verifying credentials, such as education and employment history, allows organizations to make informed hiring decisions. This process not only streamlines hiring but also reduces the risk of negligent hiring lawsuits, in the end contributing to a more secure work environment for everyone involved. Mitigating Risks in the Hiring Process Conducting thorough employee background checks is a crucial step in mitigating risks during the hiring process, as it helps guarantee that you’re making informed decisions about potential candidates. These checks can greatly reduce the likelihood of hiring individuals who may pose risks to your organization. Key benefits of background checks include: Uncovering criminal histories that could indicate a threat. Identifying past employment issues or discrepancies in qualifications. Reducing the chance of workplace theft and fraud, as many cases involve trusted insiders. Encouraging a safer work environment, which is a priority for most employers. Legal Compliance and Regulatory Requirements When you conduct employee background checks, it’s essential to adhere to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) standards, which require you to inform applicants about the checks being performed and obtain their written consent. Furthermore, various industries have specific regulations that may demand customized forms to capture necessary information. FCRA Compliance Standards To guarantee compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), employers must adhere to specific legal standards when conducting background checks. Here are the key requirements you need to follow: Obtain written consent from candidates before initiating any background checks, ensuring transparency. Provide candidates with a clear disclosure stating that a background check will occur, separate from the job application. Inform candidates of their rights, including the right to dispute inaccuracies found in the background check results. If you take adverse action based on the background check, notify the candidate and provide them with a copy of the report used. Non-compliance with these FCRA standards can lead to serious legal consequences, including fines and lawsuits, making adherence crucial during the hiring process. Industry-Specific Regulations Employers must navigate a complex terrain of industry-specific regulations that dictate the requirements for conducting background checks, particularly in sectors like healthcare, education, and finance. These regulations often mandate background checks to guarantee compliance with safety and security standards. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you’ll need to obtain written consent from candidates and provide them with disclosures about the screening process. Additionally, some states have laws limiting the types of information considered, such as restricting the lookback period for criminal convictions to seven years. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) emphasizes that background checks should be consistently applied to all candidates to prevent discrimination. Non-compliance with these regulations can lead to legal penalties, highlighting the importance of following both federal and state laws. Enhancing Workplace Safety and Security Enhancing workplace safety and security is essential for creating a productive environment where employees can thrive. Implementing employee background check forms is a significant step in this process, as they help you verify candidates’ identities and histories. By doing so, you can: Identify any past criminal behavior, reducing risks of workplace violence or misconduct. Mitigate potential negligent hiring lawsuits, protecting your organization’s finances and reputation. Promote compliance with legal requirements, enhancing overall workplace security. Build trust among employees and clients, reinforcing a culture of accountability. Regular and thorough screenings not only contribute to a safe atmosphere for everyone but additionally reflect your commitment to maintaining integrity within your organization. Prioritizing these checks shows you value the safety of your team and clients alike. Components of a Comprehensive Background Check A thorough background check is crucial for guaranteeing that you hire candidates who meet your organization’s standards and values. This process typically includes several key components. First, criminal history checks reveal any felony or misdemeanor convictions, pending cases, and arrests, helping you assess potential risks. Next, employment verification confirms the accuracy of a candidate’s claimed work experience, including job titles and dates of employment. Education verification guarantees that the candidate possesses the necessary academic credentials, which is significant for specific roles. For finance-related positions, credit history checks evaluate an individual’s financial responsibility by reviewing credit scores and existing debts. Finally, reference checks provide insights from previous employers, further enhancing your comprehension of the candidate’s suitability for the role. The Role of Consent in Background Screening Comprehending the role of consent in background screening guarantees that candidates are aware of their rights and the implications of the checks being conducted. Consent is essential for several reasons: Legal Requirement: Employers must obtain written consent, as mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Transparency: Candidates need to know the purpose of the background check and how it might affect hiring decisions. Separate Form: The consent form should be distinct from the job application, allowing candidates to understand their agreement without pressure. Avoiding Consequences: Failing to obtain proper consent can result in legal repercussions for employers, including fines or lawsuits. Understanding these aspects cultivates trust and guarantees compliance with legal standards during the hiring process. Best Practices for Using Background Check Forms When implementing background check forms, it’s crucial to adhere to best practices that guarantee fairness and compliance. Start by clearly outlining the required information, such as personal details and employment history, during obtaining consent in line with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Provide candidates with a copy of their rights under the FCRA to encourage transparency. Standardizing forms across your organization helps maintain consistency, ensuring all candidates face the same requirements and minimizing discrimination risks. Include a section for candidates to dispute or clarify any information that may arise from the checks, protecting their rights. Regularly review and update the forms to reflect current legal requirements and best practices, ensuring compliance and safeguarding against potential liabilities. Common Challenges in Background Screening Steering through common challenges in background screening can be intimidating, especially as compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and varying state laws becomes increasingly complex. Here are some key obstacles you might encounter: Legal Compliance: Ignoring FCRA guidelines or state laws can lead to severe penalties. Data Accuracy: Incomplete or outdated information might result in hiring decisions based on incorrect data. Delays in Results: Court backlogs or complex international checks can prolong the hiring process, affecting candidate experience. Candidate Consent: Some candidates may not fully understand the consent process, creating hurdles in obtaining necessary permissions. Future Trends in Employee Background Checks As the terrain of employment evolves, you’re likely to see significant changes in employee background checks that incorporate advanced technologies and adapt to new workplace dynamics. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) will improve accuracy by automating data analysis and identifying patterns. With remote work rising, digital identity verification will mitigate fraud risks. Data privacy regulations like GDPR will influence compliance measures, ensuring stricter candidate data handling. A trend in the direction of holistic background checks is emerging, evaluating soft skills and cultural fit alongside traditional checks. Furthermore, increased reliance on social media checks will help assess candidates’ online presence. Trend Description AI Integration Automates analysis for efficiency and accuracy Digital Identity Verification Validates identity in remote hiring Holistic Evaluations Assesses cultural fit and soft skills Social Media Checks Evaluates online behavior and presence Frequently Asked Questions What Is the Purpose of Employee Background Check? The purpose of an employee background check is to verify a candidate’s qualifications and integrity, ensuring they’re suitable for the role. It improves workplace safety by identifying any criminal history or behaviors that could pose risks. Background checks help organizations comply with legal requirements and prevent negligent hiring. Is It Mandatory to Do a Background Check for Employment? Whether a background check is mandatory for employment depends on various factors, including local laws and the specific industry. For instance, jobs in healthcare or finance often require checks because of regulatory compliance. As well, the Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn’t mandate all employers conduct them; many choose to mitigate hiring risks. Furthermore, state laws may restrict what information can be collected, making it essential for employers to understand applicable regulations before proceeding. Why Is My Job Asking for a Background Check? Your job’s asking for a background check to verify the information you’ve provided, ensuring it aligns with your educational and employment history. This process helps employers maintain a safe workplace by identifying any potential risks associated with your background. Furthermore, it protects the company from legal issues related to negligent hiring. What Information Does an Employer Need to Do a Background Check? To perform a background check, an employer needs your full name, date of birth, and Social Security number to verify your identity. They likewise require your consent, as mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Furthermore, you’ll need to provide details about your educational history, including school names and attendance dates, along with previous employment information, such as company names, job titles, and employment dates, to validate your work experience. Conclusion In summary, an employee background check form is fundamental for ensuring a thorough assessment of potential hires. By collecting critical information and obtaining necessary consent, it helps verify identities and credentials during the hiring process. Employers can improve workplace safety and maintain legal compliance through effective background screening practices. As hiring trends evolve, staying informed about best practices and challenges in background checks will remain important for making sound employment decisions. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "What Is an Employee Background Check Form and Why Is It Necessary?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

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