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. […]
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 […]
Signals Every year, Cannes Lions produces a long list of trends. AI. Creators. Retail media. Commerce. Cultural relevance. Trust. Measurement. Brand experience. Purpose. This year was no different. But looking across the conversations, jury discussions and industry announcements, something more interesting began to emerge. The biggest story wasn’t any one trend. It was the growing […]
AI & Humanity | Before becoming a technology entrepreneur by founding quantilope, Dr. Peter Aschmoneit spent more than a decade making the same kinds of decisions that today’s CMOs face. His experience as a brand marketer at Unilever, Danone and Fuchs—and his doctorate in marketing—led him to a simple conclusion: the future of AI depends […]
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 […]
How the FIFA World Cup is helping America—and the world—rediscover one another. More than 13 million visitors are expected to travel across North America during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with international supporters accounting for roughly 40% of stadium attendance. Many will stay for two weeks or longer, visit multiple cities, and spend more than […]
Why Creative Infrastructure May Become Creative’s Next Competitive Advantage An Internationalist Conversation with Alexander Augustesen CEO & Co-Founder, Zuuvi Over the past several weeks, The Internationalist has explored an increasingly important question facing global brands. How do great ideas survive scale? We examined why global campaigns often lose coherence as they move across markets, agencies, […]
… From Audience Segmentation to Human Understanding… For decades, marketers have relied on demographics to understand consumers. Age. Income. Geography. Household composition. These categories helped brands identify audiences, but they rarely explained what people were actually experiencing. The winners of The Internationalist’s 2026 AI for Better Marketing Awards suggest that a new model is beginning […]
The story of this year’s Internationalists is the evolution of marketing leadership itself. The most influential marketers today are not simply building brands. They are helping people navigate complexity, creating confidence in uncertain times, building communities around shared passions, humanizing technology, and finding new ways for organizations to create meaningful value. The 2026 Internationalists of […]
Why the industry’s challenge may not be creativity itself—but the systems required to scale it. Most marketers believe creativity drives growth. Far fewer believe their organizations consistently deliver it. That is one of the most striking findings from new research by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Cannes LIONS, released as the industry gathers […]
