MARKETING MAKES A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE™
What 50 Years of Habitat for Humanity Can Teach Us About Building a Brand That Endures
Some brands endure because they protect what made them recognizable. The strongest endure because they also keep expanding what that promise means. Mention Habitat for Humanity and an image appears almost immediately. Volunteers. Hammers. A house taking shape. People working side by side with the family who will call it home. Few organizations—commercial or nonprofit—have […]
How Marketing Makes a Meaningful Difference
The 2026 Marketing Makes a World of Difference™ winners suggest that marketing’s contribution may be expanding—from communicating value to helping create it. Each year, The Internationalist’s Marketing Makes a World of Difference™ Awards look for work that meets a deceptively simple test: Something meaningful happened because marketing got involved. That means looking beyond awareness, engagement, […]
Patrick McLean: Turning “Highway Hospitality” Into a New Engine for Growth
As the first Chief Marketing Officer of Love’s, Patrick McLean is helping one of America’s largest family-owned businesses move from decades of growth through expansion to its next stage of growth through marketing—without losing what made the company successful in the first place. When most people think of Love’s Travel Stops, they probably think of […]
Cause Marketing Grows Up: From Campaign to Collaboration
For Momentum’s Mollye Rhea on why the strongest cause partnerships are becoming more integrated, more enduring—and more valuable to everyone involved. Cause marketing has come a long way from asking consumers to add a dollar at checkout or promising that a percentage of every purchase will go to a good cause. Those approaches haven’t disappeared—and […]
The World Cup Brought Generations Together. Did Marketing See It?
What one of the world’s greatest shared cultural experiences can teach us about multigenerational marketing. Before the FIFA World Cup began, The Internationalist’s GenMORE+ Initiative posed a slightly different question about the world’s biggest sporting event. Not simply: Who is watching? But: Who is watching together? We wondered whether a tournament capable of bringing much […]
When Celebrity Becomes Credibility: Why the Best Endorsements Shorten the Distance to Trust
Rob Gronkowski’s relationship with regenerative technology company DNA Vibe offers a timely reminder that the most powerful endorsements don’t simply attract attention. They help consumers understand why they should care. (Image courtesy of DNA Vibe.) Celebrity endorsements are hardly new. For generations, brands have borrowed fame, familiarity and cultural relevance in hopes that some of […]
How Marketing Is Quietly Evolving
One of the privileges of publishing The Internationalist is seeing remarkable marketing from around the world before anyone has labeled it a trend. At first, it’s simply an interesting campaign. And another. Eventually, patterns emerge. Across the work we’ve been reviewing lately—from World Cup activations, Cannes conversations, AI innovation, discussions with marketing leaders, to past […]
BEYOND BECKHAM: The World Cup Marketing that Added Something to the Experience
The official sponsors of the 2026 FIFA World Cup certainly received what they paid for: extraordinary visibility among one of the world’s largest shared audiences. And then there was David Beckham. The former England captain seemed to be everywhere—appearing in campaigns for nearly a dozen brands across sportswear, banking, food, technology, home improvement and telecommunications. […]
Mike Nelson: The Delicate Art of Brand Evolution
For nearly two centuries, Martin Guitar has balanced craftsmanship with innovation. Mike Nelson explains why enduring brands don’t choose between heritage and progress—they learn how to honor both. Marketing has always celebrated the new. New technologies. New platforms. New audiences. New ways of reaching consumers. Yet some of the world’s most admired brands have endured […]
Jared Belsky: Trust, Collaboration—and Why Marketing’s Best Days May Still Be Ahead
When Jared Belsky decided to return media rebates to Acadia’s clients, he knew people would notice. The decision challenged one of the marketing industry’s least-discussed practices. Instead of keeping rebates earned through media buying as agency profit, Acadia redistributed them to nearly 50 clients based on their share of spending. “It wasn’t my money in […]