These 5 parent companies built big marketing moments around their brands

Fast Company’s Brands That Matter is designed to honor the brands that plant their flags firmly at the intersection of business and culture in unique ways. But there are also bigger companies that manage to succeed in that task with multiple brands.

The five 2025 Brands That Matter family of brands honorees didn’t just excel with a single brand—they’ve created cultural moments and sales momentum for multiple brands across their businesses. While being bespoke for each brand, the efforts are nonetheless able to drive solid results on engagement and overall business performance.

Coca-Cola

When you make the world’s top-selling soda, it might be easy to let the market share do all the talking, but that has never been the company’s style—and that’s especially true of its portfolio beyond the eponymous brand. One of Coca-Cola‘s biggest coups of the past year has been Sprite surpassing Pepsi as the U.S.’s number three best-selling soda, in part due to the revival of its “Obey Your Thirst” messaging and collaborations with athletes, including the addition of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. It took that momentum global with international Sprite ads focused on refreshment for its summer 2025 global “Turn Up Refreshment” campaign, which included signing on ambassadors from the world of K-pop and Chinese films. Stateside, the Coca-Cola brand partnered with South African pop star Tyla for a campaign encouraging Gen Z to live in the moment—using a cold Coke as a vehicle for them to reengage with the people around them.

AB InBev

As one of the world’s largest breweries, AB InBev‘s brand portfolio is extensive, and several of its brews notched marketing wins in the past year. Principal among them has been Corona. As the beer celebrated its 100th anniversary, it launched its Beach 100 guide to the world’s top beaches and grew the reach of its nonalcoholic Corona Cero (which will also be front and center at the 2026 Winter Olympics). And 2025 has also been about Michelob Ultra, which unseated fellow AB InBev brand Bud Light in September as the best-selling beer in America, highlighting renewed demand for a low-calorie and low-carb beer option. The brand showed up at the Super Bowl with a spot starring Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara playing pickleball against a younger doubles pair—showing off the beer as a choice for active drinkers. It was one of four ads at the big game from Ab InBev that were among the top seven most-watched from the event. The company also focused on impact through its brands, including a focus on local production globally and water efficiency, the latter of which is paired with support of Water.org through Stella Artois.

Haleon

Haleon—the spin-off of GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer health brands—may not be a known name, but its sub-brands are in the medicine cabinet of most of the world, each of them with unique and strong branding. For Emergen-C‘s Immune+ Crystals launch, the company built an ASMR pop-up that helped drive half a billion media impressions and double the product’s distribution goals. Sensodyne’s Clinical White launch focused on recyclable packaging, with strong sales that buoyed the brand’s overall 2024 sales and market share. In 2025, the company focused on conversations around wellness and self-care. To highlight Theraflu’s Nasal Mist, the brand focused on family and fitness influencers to underscore the product’s ability to prevent congestion from slowing them down.

Hormel Foods

By borrowing a phrase uttered by many a reluctant Super Bowl viewer, Hormel Foods combined its portfolio of brands into a single campaign—”Here for the Snacks.” Unlike a lot of Super Bowl fodder that focuses on celebrities and big-ticket spectacle, “Here for the Snacks” went practical, sharing a sports-themed assortment of recipes for many a gameday nosh. Informed by insights from the company’s in-house cultural anthropologist Dr. Tanya Rodriguez, the recipes showcased brands like Hormel pepperoni, Herdez salsa, Wholly guacamole, Planters, and Hormel Chili. The result was increased cross-purchase of Hormel brands and a 4% boost in sales, particularly among younger and more diverse shoppers.

J.Crew Group

As parent company to brands like J.Crew, Madewell, and J.Crew Factory, J.Crew Group leaders have spent the past year reviving its eponymous retail offering and finding new inspiration from longtime collaborators at Madewell. At J.Crew, the fall 2024 relaunch of the retailer’s physical catalog helped the brand lift its perception among shoppers by 11% and boosted its Google search activity by 30%, while bringing a 20% increase in reactivated shoppers. With buzzy collabs throughout 2025—including a collection with London’s Alex Eagle and a relaunch of a classic rollneck sweater starring up-and-coming actors like Dominic Sessa and Benito Skinner—J.Crew is setting its sights on 2026. In the first year of a three-year partnership with U.S. Ski & Snowboard, the brand’s presence will be a factor in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics. At Madewell, the brand launched its own Substack, Well Said, and its Well Said Collective—a brand ambassador program with content on social media, in stores, and on digital platforms. Since fall 2024, the brand has partnered with longtime collaborator Alexa Chung, launching three collections, most recently in November. Campaigns around the collections with Chung have brought in more than 7 billion social media impressions.

This story is part of Fast Company’s 2025 Brands That Matter. Explore the full list of honorees that have demonstrated a commitment to their brand’s purpose and cultural relevance to their audience. Read more about the methodology behind the selection process.

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