2024 was Apple’s year for advertising—or was it?

The first iteration of Brand New World was a very specific look at how AI is changing how brands and marketers work. Now we’re back to talk about brand culture more broadly. Of course that will involve AI from time to time, but I’ll also be digging into sports, entertainment, music, comedy, and everywhere else brands squeeze their way into pop culture. 

Everyone says they hate advertising, but everyone loves at least one brand. Brand New World is here to talk about why. That means I’ll be popping up in your feed once every month as part of the Fast Company Podcast Network. 

Okay, here’s what you’ll hear on the first episode of season two.

Apple’s big (creative) year

For those who don’t know or are unfamiliar, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is part awards show, part industry conference, and probably the biggest annual gathering of brands, marketers, entertainment folks, tech folks, and media on the planet. Anything and anyone that touches a brand—from social platforms to sports stars and celebrities—is there. 

This year, ahead of the festival that kicks off June 16, Apple has been named the Creative Marketer of the Year. Now, Apple is an iconic marketer, an all-time, first ballot Hall of Famer. But in my opinion, 2024 has been a bit of a mixed bag. So why is this Apple’s year?

To discuss where this past year fits in the pantheon of Apple’s greatest hits, I called up Elizabeth Paul. A strategist by trade, Paul is the chief brand officer at award-winning ad shop the Martin Agency. You’ll know their work for major brands like Geico, UPS, the new Axe work with Pete Davidson, and much more. More importantly, she’s always up for some hot take banter about the work and culture around advertising and brands.

Paul told me when she was rewatching a lot of Apple’s 2024 work, she kept thinking about whether any of it would fit into her top 5 list of Apple’s all-time work. “Is there anything this year that would dislodge something else that I’ve loved for a long time?” she says. “I would say the thing that got closest to me was ‘Someday,’ which is beautifully done and really powerful.”

Listen to the podcast to hear us break down our top 5 lists of all-time Apple ads. 

Driving brand entertainment

Last month, a new doc called The Seat debuted on Netflix about how Mercedes’ Formula One team decided on a successor for racing legend Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton had announced his departure, so the racing giant was forced to strategize its next move quickly and discreetly. That’s where WhatsApp comes in. The entire process of evaluating and naming young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli played out over the messaging app. The Seat is not only a feature documentary, but an excellent piece of brand entertainment, produced in partnership with WhatsApp.  

This episode I was excited to chat with Meta’s head of global consumer marketing Eshan Ponnadurai to talk about the process behind the doc, as well as the role it plays in the brand’s overall strategy. Esh has worked on major brands from Ford and P&G, to Uber, YouTube and Google. He’s got a long history of finding compelling and authentic brand stories to tell in unique ways.

Here, we find out what The Seat takes from past successful work, particularly WhatsApp’s award-winning doc work We Are Ayenda, and its Giannis Antetokounmpo film Ugo: A Homecoming Story, as well as the precedent it sets for the future.

“The primary thing was knowing what people are going to be interested in,” says Ponnadurai. “‘How did you get to this driver? Why him? What’s his story?’ That’s the hook. That’s what people are tuning in for. And then organically, how does WhatsApp play a role here? So I think the balance is always (between) what is the right story and what people are interested in, and where the product naturally fits. The danger sometimes can be the inverse: ‘We wanna sell you something, where’s the story?’”