The most innovative advertising and marketing companies of 2026

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.

@sweetheartscandies

Blank hearts. No messages. Just sweet revenge. 👻 #GhostedSweethearts

♬ original sound – Sweethearts Candies

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