ADWEEK's 2026 Brand Genius Winners Are Changing Their Industries With Creativity and Resilience

After leaving her finance job in Manhattan, self-proclaimed “mani obsessi” Sarah Gibson Tuttle walked into a Dry Bar in Los Angeles and was struck by the model of accessible, affordable luxury. “Where’s the nail equivalent of this?” she wondered.

Gibson Tuttle launched Olive & June, named after her grandmothers, in 2013 and opened three salons before pivoting to fill a gap in the space: DIY. “I thought, ‘What if I can teach everyone in the world how to do their own nails?’” she told ADWEEK.

The breakthrough came in March 2019, with an at-home manicure system with clippers, nail file, buffer, polish, remover, and a tool for painting with your non-dominant hand. The pandemic pushed Olive & June to close its salons in 2020 and go fully DIY. It launched press-on nails in 2021 and an at-home gel system in 2024. 

“You don’t have to switch brands in order to get the product you want,” Gibson Tuttle said.

Rather than chasing “white space,” she looked for problems. “When you really are solving pain points, you’re not just creating products that people don’t really need. These are products that actually will change their behaviors,” she said.

The brand’s guiding light has been “everyone’s best friend for all things nails,” fueling an influencer strategy that grew from gifting to a community of more than 700,000 Instagram followers. 

“When you get paid to say you love something, I don’t think that’s a long-term strategy,” Gibson Tuttle said. “Ultimately, you want people to love your product and talk about it.”

Closing the salons was difficult, but the business—funded by Gibson Tuttle and one $10 million equity round—couldn’t sustain both. “I had to make a choice of what business I wanted to focus on,” she said. “People wanted autonomy over their routines.”

Olive & June sold to Helen of Troy, owner of Revlon and HydroFlask, in November 2024 for $240 million. Gibson Tuttle still runs the brand—without a contract. It wasn’t the highest bid, she said, but it gave her the most control over its future. 

“Find something that you are so obsessed with, because you never get sick of it,” she said. “You never tire of it. You never want to stop.” —Alison Weissbrot

Unlike Aflac’s Duck or Geico’s Gecko, Jake from State Farm can easily stroll down the street, sit in VIP with Donna Kelce, or go toe-to-toe with Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Originally portrayed by State Farm employee Jake Stone in 2011, Jake was revived in 2020 by actor Kevin Miles. Since then, he’s helped the insurer show up in culture, whether in commercials, at NBA games, or during Paris Fashion Week, while building an audience of nearly 1.8 million across TikTok and Instagram.

Jake personifies State Farm’s promise to be there for customers like a “good neighbor” would, head of marketing Alyson Griffin told ADWEEK. “He is not a cartoon. He’s not a caricature. He’s not a shill. He’s not a foil. He’s not trying to sell something.” 

In April, Jake took on his first role outside of State Farm’s advertising universe with a cameo in Netflix’s basketball comedy-drama series Running Point. The role played into the insurer’s long-standing NBA sponsorship, as well as Jake’s regular courtside appearances at real games. For Griffin, it worked because “fans expect to see Jake there.” Every appearance has to pass this test, and State Farm is happy to sit things out to avoid the “fine line of overexposure.”

While Jake is no salesman, the cultural noise around him has to translate into commercial goals.

In a category where people shop around, part of Jake’s job is to keep State Farm in the top-two consideration set. If it’s not top of mind at the exact moment someone decides to compare quotes, Griffin said, the brand has already lost. Every Jake moment is built with this goal in mind.

Miles himself rarely steps out of the khakis. However, casting him was a deeply personal decision for State Farm, rooted in what the brand wants to represent as a “Midwestern mutual.”

As Jake himself sees it, the secret to staying relevant while so many other brand mascots disappear is simple. “Knowing where to show up,” he said. “Good neighbors are there for the big wins, the everyday moments, and everything in between.” —Rebecca Stewart

Bing Chen has known his life’s mission since he was a young boy: to help people manifest their dreams into reality. After losing his father at 15 years old, he didn’t want to waste a moment in achieving it.

He spent his early days at YouTube as the creator economy was blossoming into a major force, garnering him recognition on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2014.

During the pandemic, as the world witnessed unprecedented levels of hate toward Asian Americans, Chen decided to launch what would become the cultural platform Gold House. Immediately, he worked with a team to popularize the hashtag #StopAsianHate, which expanded into the largest fundraising effort of its kind.

The name Gold House is a reclamation of stereotypes about the Asian diaspora. “Sometimes we have to fight back from victimhood and pain,” Chen told ADWEEK. “We have to fight back as victors and from power.”

Since then, Gold House has sought to bring Asian culture to the forefront with authenticity, Chen said. In its consultancy function, Chen’s team has reviewed or aided in casting over 800 films, series, and creative IP, including the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the music video for Laufey’s “Madwoman,” and the KPop Demon Hunters’ Fortnite skins.

These collective efforts have generated $500 million in net new dollars in cultural impact value, according to Gold House.

The themes within Chen’s Letterboxd Four Favorites list tell a lot about his growing vision for Gold House, which includes expansion into film and TV production with Gold House Studios: Everything Everywhere, Beauty and the Beast (1991), Inception, and Memento. 

“It’s the idea that we can be all things at any time,” he said. “None of us should be flattened to one thing.” —Christopher Cicchiello

Prior to taking the helm of the world’s largest coffee chain, CEO Brian Niccol dropped into various Starbucks locations to talk to customers and baristas. They gave him a clear message: “There’s a shared sense,” Niccol wrote in a company letter, “that we have drifted from our core.”

Throughout his two-year tenure, Niccol’s aim has been to get back to the heart of Starbucks. The chain’s Q3 results—showing comp-store sales up by 7.9%—suggest he’s well on his way.

Few would have wanted Niccol’s post when he took it. Plummeting traffic, complaining customers, and angry investors greeted him in the new role. But Niccol was armed with an ethos that had served him before: Marketing means nothing until unless you fix the product first.

With his “Back to Starbucks” initiative, Niccol’s aim was to restore Starbucks to what it had been in the 1990s. He brought back the condiment bar, reopened the restrooms, and renovated stores with cushy chairs and low lights to encourage people to stay. By slashing the menu by 30% and creating pay incentives, he also encouraged baristas to spend more time with customers.

That included resurrecting the beloved tradition of writing (and sometimes misspelling) customers’ names on its cups, which also became the creative inspiration for Anomaly’s “Not My Name” spot, debuted in January 2025.

Starbucks also dug deep into its green apron to pay for a Super Bowl spot in 2025, “Hello Again,” to remind the public of how seriously it takes a cup of coffee.

Niccol’s attention to operational detail is what saved the day for Chipotle, still reeling from a foodborne illness crisis when he joined in 2018. While introducing food-safety protocols, fixing the mobile ordering app, and finding a better queso recipe, Niccol also hired former Taco Bell colleague Christ Brandt to lead an aggressive digital marketing strategy. Niccol’s six-year tenure saw the chain double revenue and increase profits sevenfold.

Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” strategy ultimately reversed seven quarters of comp-store sales declines in Q2 of 2026, when they jumped by 7.1% in North America. Starbucks’ drift from the core appears to be over. “We’re reclaiming it,” Niccol told analysts, “one customer, one cup, one coffeehouse at a time.” —Robert Klara

When Sephora entered the sports marketing realm in 2025, CMO Zena Arnold was determined to do it differently.

Instead of standard team sponsorship packages, Arnold and her team developed custom experiential campaigns to stand out among the growing number of brands fighting for attention around sports.

“We thought not just about where can we put our logo, but how do we actually bring the ethos of Sephora and creating community together to life,” Arnold told ADWEEK.

Sephora first partnered with professional women’s 3v3 basketball league Unrivaled in 2025, stocking a “glam room” full of products and creating a branded tunnel walk where players and fans pose in outfits. In its first year, the Sephora-Unrivaled partnership resulted in 11.9 million viewers and $4.9 million in media value.

From there, Sephora continued to invest—sponsoring the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries and Toronto Tempo, followed by the women’s professional softball league AUSL, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, and F1 Academy. These partnerships are “a way to usher Sephora into new worlds” through storytelling rather than just exposure, Arnold said.

“We have a different approach than some sponsorships that are much more about, ‘How many impressions am I getting, how many times are people seeing my logo?’” she added. “We’ve seen the real magic come together when we’re able to create content that aligns with our values, tells stories, shows the benefits that we are bringing, and helps athletes tell their stories.”

Arnold has also helped Sephora step up its influencer marketing initiatives, launching an affiliate program, My Sephora Storefront, that lets creators earn commissions from products they promote. Since launching in 2025, creators have made more than 3,000 shoppable storefronts.

“We look to not just build these communities of influencers,” she said. “We want to also help them monetize and grow their businesses.” —Lauren Johnson

Colin Jost wouldn’t necessarily call himself a Brand Genius: “I would have been very happy with non-idiot,” Jost told ADWEEK.

But we beg to differ.

Over the last couple of years, the longtime Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor has made a name for himself in branding, scoring high-profile client campaigns alongside his No Notes Productions agency with T-Mobile, Blue Moon, and Zoom. The workplace and communications platform even tapped No Notes for a Super Bowl campaign.

No Notes Productions is also behind several movie and TV projects, including the 2026 romcom Love Language, the upcoming film South Pole Santa for Netflix, and a drama series for Peacock where Jost is breaking bad as a dentist-turned-drug kingpin.

Plus, the comedian and producer is continuing his SNL gig, hosting Pop Culture Jeopardy on Netflix, and turning a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry into a venue and event space alongside SNL alum Pete Davidson.

According to Jost, this phase of his career is about following creative projects he’s passionate about and approaching traditional fields like advertising from a different perspective.

For instance, the comedian views No Notes as a “mercenary agency,” adapting to a client’s needs and actively pitching brands on their creative ideas rather than waiting for an RFP.

“We’ll go to companies, directly to their CMO, and pitch them an idea that we come up with because we like the idea,” Jost said.

And though the company is called No Notes, Jost makes clear that that’s more wishful thinking than a mandate.

“It really should be called Some Notes,” Jost said. “I wanted to approach these projects from the place of, ‘What’s an ad we want to do?’ Before we are in a position of, ‘What’s an ad we have to do?’” —Bill Bradley

Ben Cohen embraced brand purpose long before it became a marketing buzzword. Throughout its nearly 50-year history, Ben & Jerry’s has used its colorful pints and public position to advocate for causes near and dear to the co-founder, from racial justice to sustainability to LGBTQ+ rights.

Now, Cohen says that social mission is under threat from corporate silencing. Former owner Unilever—which spun off its ice cream division, including Ben & Jerry’s, into the Magnum Ice Cream Company last year—blocked the brand’s public support of Palestinians before cutting off funding to the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation. In September 2025, Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield responded with the “Free Ben & Jerry’s” campaign, which urged Magnum to sell the brand, returning its independence.

Greenfield has since stepped away from the company, but Cohen has mounted public stunts, provocative social content, and calls for a Magnum boycott, with the “Free Ben & Jerry’s” petition gathering more than 200,000 signatures. Cohen told ADWEEK the campaign has resonated with people who share the brand’s values, “which is the deepest bond you can form with your customers.”

Cohen is still a rare voice standing up for business’s power to advance social change, even as brand purpose has fallen out of fashion. After a wave of purpose-driven campaigns in 2020, many companies, from Walmart to Target, have rolled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or corporate social responsibility programs. 

But Cohen isn’t giving up the fight. “Especially now, in the age of Trumpism, business needs to exercise its power and stand up instead of sucking up. Business has become the most powerful force in our society,” he said.

He believes that social advocacy, rather than traditional advertising, is the most powerful marketing tool that a brand can employ. “A socially conscious company, which uses its resources to actually help improve the quality of life for people in the community, is a self-marketing company,” Cohen said. “As your business supports the community, the community supports your business.”

Cohen is now intent on spreading that message to other marketers. He wants consumers and other brand leaders to stand up to corporations like Magnum and inspire them to preserve their missions.

“The fate of Ben & Jerry’s is in the hands of everyday people. If they make their voices heard, we’ll end up saving the soul of the company,” he said. “If they don’t do anything, Ben & Jerry’s just turns into another piece of frozen mush clogging your freezer.” —Brittaney Kiefer

Three decades ago, Monica Lewinsky became arguably the most famous woman in America—but she had no control over her own story. She’s spent the last decade-plus taking back her voice through advocacy and authentic storytelling. 

In 2014, Lewinsky told her story for the first time publicly in a widely circulated Vanity Fair essay. Soon after came a TED talk, and in 2017 she teamed with BBDO on a series of IRL dramatizations of the effects of cyberbullying, earning her an Emmy nomination. 

Lewinsky wasn’t taking a formulaic approach to rebranding—“There’s no five-step plan,” she joked—but fighting to be seen as herself, rather than how others have described her. Today, she’s a dedicated activist, producer, public speaker, media owner, and the undisputed teller of her own story. 

“The goal in so much of the last 10-plus years for me has been around both finding purpose and being seen as my true self,” she told ADWEEK.

The latest manifestation of that mission is her podcast, Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky. A year and a half after launch, she has interviewed more than 75 guests, giving them a space to speak candidly about resilience, survival, and reclaiming their personal narratives. The production snagged a 2026 Gracie Award, was nominated for a 2026 Webby, and appeared on top podcast lists from The Guardian and Rolling Stone last year.

But Lewinsky’s ambitions extend far further. She produced FX’s Impeachment: American Crime Story, served as executive producer on Hulu’s 2025 The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, and is gearing up to produce a new project, though details are under wraps.

For Lewinsky, following her gut is paying off: “All of these things have come together in ways that have allowed me to be understood for something different than what I was understood for a long time ago.” —Kendra Barnett

Tracee Ellis Ross still remembers the time, at age 12, that she got into big trouble at home.

“My mom came into my room and she was like, ‘Listen here, little girl, it’s enough with the shopping. The hair products alone are going to break the bank,’” Ellis Ross told ADWEEK.

That wasn’t likely. Mom was Diana Ross, an R&B and pop music legend, and a highly astute businesswoman. Even so, she was ticked.

“She was like, “You’re either going to have to get a really rich husband or a really great job,” Ellis Ross continued. “So, I got a really great job.”

In fact, she has several great jobs—model, actress, director, producer, host, and entrepreneur. After breaking out in UPN’s Girlfriends in the early 2000s, Ellis Ross produced and starred in ABC’s critically acclaimed Black-ish. That series led to her founding Joy Mill Entertainment, best known for the 2022 docuseries The Hair Tales, which Hulu described as “an honest and layered look into the complex culture of Black hair and, ultimately, Black women’s identity.”

That theme is also the raison d’être of Pattern Beauty, the brand Ellis Ross founded in 2019. 

“The genesis came out of my own hair journey,” she said, “creating a company through the lens of celebrating the joy and diversity of Black beauty and serving this curly, coily, and tight texture community.”

Ellis Ross saw the gap in the market as early as 2008, though it would take a decade to get the brand on shelves: “It took a long time for the industry to catch up with the beauty, the power, and the importance of this community—and the money that was on the table.”

She credits venture firm Beach House Group for Pattern Beauty’s operational savvy, but Ellis Ross is deeply involved with the brand, which appears routinely on her Instagram. And while Ellis Ross said she has a “gift [for] branding and marketing,” most of it doesn’t come from showbusiness. It’s instinctive: “from the fact that I’m a consumer.”

Going back to age 12, at least. —Robert Klara

Whether it’s spending 23 seasons in the NFL—winning seven Super Bowls—or taking his lifelong love of trading cards to the next level with CardVault by Tom Brady, the superstar quarterback knows how to keep his name and his brands in the headlines.

The NFL GOAT is currently in the midst of a 10-year, $375 million analyst deal with Fox Sports; he co-founded multi-platform sports media and production company Religion of Sports; he merged his wellness brand TB12 with apparel maker Nobull earlier this year; and he has ownership stakes in multiple pro sports franchises, including the Las Vegas Raiders (NFL) and Aces (WNBA), as well as Birmingham City FC.

Among Brady’s biggest post-NFL successes is CardVault. Founded during the pandemic amid a trading card boom in 2020, he came on as an investor in 2025 and set the franchise of card-focused retail stores on a stratospheric rise, from three locations to 17 nationwide in just over a year.

All of which to say, he’s been busy on the business front. But Brady is also a longtime promoter, having worked with everyday brands like Foot Locker to luxury names like Aston Martin. Not all of his brand ambassadorships have been perfect (he famously fronted crypto exchange FTX before its collapse), but he’s been able to make his face synonymous with brands across categories.

Lately, as he’s moved away from his strict NFL regiment, he’s starred in a World Cup ad for Ferrero and campaigns for Pizza Hut and Dunkin’. About the change, Brady told CNBC that his philosophy is “moderation in all things,” and that he enjoys making commercials—and staying top of mind with his fans and beyond. 

“A lot of this is really fun,” Brady said, “being a part of the World Cup, being a part of these campaigns that are going to be broadcast in front of tens of millions of people.” —Bill Bradley

If there’s one thing that’s stayed consistent through 25 years of running a jewelry brand, it’s Kendra Scott’s willingness to go against convention. 

Scott launched the eponymous brand in 2002 with just $500, after her first venture selling headwear for women undergoing chemotherapy failed. Unlike most retailers, she waited nearly a decade before taking outside investment, and didn’t bring in institutional capital until 2024 from 65 Equity Partners, HPS Investment Partners, and Belzberg & Co.

As of 2025, the company is valued at $900 million, according to Forbes, has more than 150 stores in the U.S., and crossed $500 million in annual sales.

Like most founders, Scott wanted scale, but not at the expense of what built the brand in the first place. “If you lose your purpose or your customer along the way, no amount of growth is worth it,” she told ADWEEK.

The company’s Yellow Rose collection tested that instinct. Launched in November 2024, it pushed Kendra Scott into apparel and footwear for the first time, including a collaboration with Wrangler, country singer Lainey Wilson, and Paramount’s Yellowstone. 

“Anytime you expand beyond what customers know you for, there is a risk that it may not connect,” Scott said. “What I have learned is that growth only works when it’s authentic. We don’t expand because something is trending; we expand when it strengthens our relationship with our customer and stays aligned with who we are.”

Perhaps that’s why Kendra Scott emerged as one of the brand stars of #RushTok, a viral TikTok phenomenon of college sorority recruitment videos often starring students decked out in the brand’s necklaces and earrings. 

“The strongest brand moments often come directly from your own customers,” Scott said.

It also tracks with a misconception among founders: that a lasting brand comes down to one breakthrough moment, or hitting a certain size. “In reality,” she said, “it’s about showing up for your customer every single day and staying committed to serving them.” 
—Trishla Ostwal

A legacy endures not by being written down in history books, but when the next generation takes up the cause. Dr. Bernice A. King is keeping her father’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance just as relevant today as CEO of The King Center, the nonprofit organization dedicated to carrying out Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission.

Under her leadership, the center has reached more than 500,000 people primarily through educational and training programs such as the Beloved Community Leadership Academy and Nonviolence365. These initiatives teach teenagers, educators, and organizations that rather than being passive, nonviolence is actively resisting injustice in whatever form it takes. 

That means supporting the LGBTQ+ community, advocating for social issues ranging from food safety to gun control, and speaking out about ending global conflicts as loudly as equal rights for Black Americans.

For King—who also carries out the work as a minister, lawyer, and author—confronting injustice today also looks a lot like what her parents did in the 1950s and ‘60s. In May, she addressed crowds from the same Alabama Capitol steps as her father, calling the weakening of the Voting Rights Act “the test of our generation.” Last year, when the federal government cut SNAP benefits, King personally distributed food and supplies to families in need. And in 2020, she rallied Georgia business leaders to support hate crime legislation. 

With every program and speech, King and the center are building the Beloved Community, where fairness and mutual respect are the governing principles. But reframing people’s mindset takes work, and King has consistently pushed back against attempts to reduce her father’s message to inspirational soundbites. 

“As my father said, it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence,” she told Black-owned media network Rolling Out earlier this year. “We still have a choice.” —Eva Kis