Brand New World

In a culture obsessed with overnight virality, some brands are winning by moving slower—and smarter. In this panel, you’ll hear from marketing execs from Austin-based favorites Yeti and Huckberry about the power of patience in brand building. Rather than chasing trends or gaming algorithms, both companies have invested in community, storytelling, and product integrity—earning loyalty the old-fashioned way. You’ll learn how sometimes the boldest strategy to stand out isn’t to move fast—it’s to build something worth sticking with.

First things first—Brand New World is going from one episode per month to two! One episode will be hosted by Jeff Beer with his Fast Company colleague and Gen Z wizard Grace Snelling, for what we call "The Old Man and the Z." And the second episode each month will feature an interview with a brand, marketing, or advertising executive on work that we’re excited about.   This week’s episode is the newest edition of “The Old Man and the Z.” We break down some of our favorite brand work of the past few weeks, including why Burger King is asking people to call its president, Tom Curtis, and let him know what they think of all things BK.   And because BK is putting Curtis out in public as a face of the brand, we try to put this in the context of what we should call the Colonel Sanders Memorial Executive Brand Spokesperson Pantheon. Does Curtis have what it takes to someday join Steve Jobs, Rihanna, or even Victor Kiam? It will take a hell of a lot of phone calls to get there.

This month’s episode is all about the big game – but it’s got nothing to do with football. That’s right, it’s the most magical time of year for brands, that rare and brief three-or-so hour moment when people actually want to see commercials. Every marketer’s Xanadu.  Yep, it’s the Super Bowl. Fast Company reporter – and Brand New World's Gen Z consigliere – Grace Snelling is here to breakdown picks for the Pregame Brand Power Rankings. Jeff and Grace trade favorites of who had the best teasers, what ads we think will be talked about most, and more.  Then, we wanted to get a behind-the-scenes look at Super Bowl season from some folks who are up to their eyeballs in it. So Jeff is joined by Mark Gross and Chad Broude, co-founders and co-chief creative officers of Chicago-based independent ad agency Highdive. They have hundreds of Super Bowl ads between them – including ads for Jeep and Lay’s this year – so we talked about the role the big game plays in advertising right now, how it’s evolved most, and more.  And finally, Grace will return with another esteemed Fast Company colleague, staff editor David Salazar, to draft their All-Time Best Super Bowl Ads. Hot route! Red seven! Hut hut hut!

Since George Felix joined Chili’s as chief marketing officer in 2022, the brand’s marketing budget has gone from $32 million in FY 2022 to $137 million in 2025. As a result of that investment, Chili’s has gone viral on TikTok thanks to videos showing off the stretchiness of its mozzarella sticks, pulling in more than 200 million views on that platform, and selling more than 29 million of its Triple Dipper appetizers. The Office tie-in to the Scranton restaurant opening earlier this year was a massive hit, and the NASCAR-focused work around its Presidente margarita – “Ride the ‘Dente” – kept the momentum going. It all led to Felix being named one of Fast Company’s CMOs of the Year in our annual Brands That Matter issue.    On this episode of Brand New World, senior staff editor Jeff Beer talks to Felix about the Chili’s brand resurgence, the influence of his early successes at Old Spice and KFC, and where it all goes from here.    But first, it’s another edition of Old Man & the Z, and Fast Company’s Grace Snelling joins us to talk about the brand partnerships aiming to cash in on the final season of Stranger Things.  

Brands spend billions on trying to attract and retain audiences—they pay for the data about certain types of people, then pay more to create work for all these different audiences.    Data is big business for marketers, but what is it and what’s it all for? Demographic data, psychographic data, behavioral data, transactional data, geographic data . . . all of these are meant to parse and categorize any and all types of people in order to figure out how best to get their attention and persuade them to buy something.    It’s used for personalization, of course, but also segmentation, predictive analysis—what people (?) are likely to do, to optimize current ad campaigns, and to measure their return on investment.    So here at Brand New World, we wanted to reflect on the perspective from one of the most sought-after, valuable—but admittedly broad—demographics on the planet: Gen Z.    In this episode, Fast Company’s Grace Snelling—a proud Gen Zer—joins host Jeff Beer to talk about a few of their favorite pieces of brand work from the past month.

In this episode of Brand New World, host Jeff Beer breaks down one of the biggest brand entertainment deals to date: AB InBev’s wide-ranging partnership with Netflix. This unprecedented move will put global beer brands like Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, and Corona directly into Netflix programming and its growing live sports slate.   Is this the future of brand-funded entertainment that audiences actually want to watch? Or the beginning of even more corporate influence over the stories we love? To unpack it all, Jeff sits down with Jae Goodman, CEO and co-founder of Superconnector Studios—the strategist who helped broker the Netflix–AB InBev deal and who’s guided brands like Nike and LVMH in building entertainment arms of their own. They explore what this partnership means for marketers, creators, audiences, and the evolving landscape of Hollywood.   But first, we talk sneakers. Jeff chats with Fast Company global design editor Mark Wilson about the cultural power of footwear, New Balance’s surprise influence, and why Nike may finally be back in its innovation groove.   So crack a cold one and settle in—this is Brand New World.

This month’s episode of Brand New World was largely created during Fast Company’s Innovation Festival, which was held in New York City in mid-September.    So, we’re bringing you my interview with Bozoma Saint-John, former chief marketing or brand officer at companies including Netflix, Uber, and Beats by Dre—who also just happens to star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She’s also the cohost of NBC’s newest reality show On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, where 10 everyday people compete to have their advertising ideas actually used by major brands like Samsung, Dunkin', Southwest, Captain Morgan, and Therabody.    But first, I had the chance to tap into my inner pizza nerd and talk to founder Tom Gozney about content and design as pillars of his brand’s success, how he’s working to maintain the brand’s culture amid international expansion, and more. (WHICH BRAND?)   Pizza and reality TV? Let’s gooooo.

You know Dick’s Sporting Goods as one of America’s largest and most successful sports retailers. It has used that status to help create an impressive catalog of five feature-length films and 10 short-form or episodic documentaries over the past decade, including the Emmy-winning docs We Could Be King (2014) and The Turnaround (2024). But in August, Dick's took things to a new level, officially launching an in-house studio division called Cookie Jar & A Dream Studios. In this episode, I talk to Dick’s chief marketing officer Emily Silver about why now is the perfect time for an in-house studio, the evolution of the brand’s entertainment strategy, how the company measures success for these projects, and where it all goes from here.    Before that, I wanted to put what Dick’s is doing into some context. So I called up Zac Ryder, co-founder and chief creative officer at Modern Arts—the agency that helped WhatsApp produce the Netflix doc The Seat, which we talked about back in Episode 1 of this season. Zac and I nerd out on the evolution of brand entertainment, then break down our picks for the "Best Brand Entertainment of the Past Decade."

In this engaging discussion, brand consultant James Kirkham and Tools for Humanity CMO John Patroulis dive into the intriguing intersections of human identity and AI. They explore the innovative World project, emphasizing the importance of biometric verification for digital interactions. The duo elaborates on branding strategies surrounding major events like the Club World Cup, as well as the drive for authentic connections between fans and athletes. They also tackle the challenges of trust and transparency in a world increasingly influenced by AI.

Here are some deets fresh off the Croisette from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—basically the ad industry’s Oscars but also the global epicenter of brand culture—that happened in mid-June. Brands, marketers, ad agencies, tech companies, platforms, people from entertainment and sports, and anyone and everyone part of the brand world ecosystem were there. To make sense of it all, or at least a good portion of it, I called up Tim Nudd, creativity editor at Ad Age and a journalist who’s been covering and commenting on this industry for longer than almost anyone. In a conversation that included inside scoops, gossip, and good stories, Nudd and I talked about what impressed him most, what surprised him, and what he’s hearing we can expect from major brands heading into the second half of the year. Then, I really wanted to find out how Expensify landed the real estate on Brad Pitt’s chest for the new blockbuster film F1. Expensify’s chief financial officer Ryan Schaffer, and Hannes Ciatti, founder and head creative at ad agency Alto, gave me the inside story of how the brand got such a prominent role, including a scene in which they shoot an Expensify commercial in the film. This is getting under the hood on 1,000-horsepower product placement.