The most revealing word in marketing may be target. It sounds harmless because it is familiar. But look at the picture hidden inside it: a round thing, pinned in place, waiting for somebody else to take aim. In 1998, Sergio Roitberg left the world of television journalism and started Newlink from his home in Miami Beach. He had worked at CNN and CBS Telenoticias, back when broadcasters still occupied the middle of almost every public conversation. Then the middle began to dissolve. People acquired channels, reach, and the useful habit of answering back.
Newlink's big move was to take that change literally. Roitberg replaced the target with an orbit. A consumer might also be an employee, neighbor, voter, creator, parent, skeptic, or shareholder. Each role comes with its own interests and connections. A company could no longer fire one immaculate message into a demographic and expect obedience. It had to find a reason for those moving actors to participate.
“The communication is the route; engagement is the destination.”Sergio Roitberg, founder and CEO
The metaphor that failed first
Most agency pivots are described in the language of channels: print became digital, television became YouTube, press releases became social content. Roitberg's complaint is sharper. Moving the same broadcast habit onto a smaller screen changes the pipe, not the relationship. The first thing to fail was the assumption of control.
Newlink turned that observation into a consultancy with three connected practices. Brand covers positioning, creativity, digital marketing, content, influencers, and experiences. Reputation covers corporate communications, public affairs, crisis preparation, media relations, and trust. Culture works inside the organization through employee engagement, leadership alignment, and transformation. Clients buy strategy, projects, campaigns, events, or ongoing counsel. The company now reports more than 700 employees, seven offices in six countries, and work in seven languages.
The Newlink model
Start with the point of gravity, not the media plan. A credible shared purpose sits at the center. Existing relationships form the near orbit; people the organization still needs to reach form the outer one.
A pizza earned the right to stay
The theory becomes more interesting when it reaches a menu. Little Caesars wanted to launch Mexicana! Mexicana! in Mexico during September, the country's celebratory national month. The easy version would have been a limited-time topping and a flag-colored ad. Newlink worked further down: beans and jalapeños, papel picado, family meals, and a specifically Mexican sense of humor moved through the communication and the point of sale.
Over nine weeks, orders rose 39%. Searches for Little Caesars increased, the new pizza entered the brand's top 15 search results, and television activations registered more than 418,000 impacts. The useful outcome was not a trophy. A product intended to be temporary stayed on the menu. Cultural connection had altered inventory.
For Gatorade's Gatorlit launch in Peru, the problem ran in the opposite direction. The isotonic shelf already shouted sport. Newlink placed the drink after the party instead: launch invitations became creator kits, a 1,200-person event made the consumption occasion tangible, and product showed up in podcasts and personal celebrations. More than 160 influencers produced over 600 pieces of content. The reported reach across media and influencer channels was 139 million views. Newlink did not make hydration louder. It found hydration a different hour of the day.
The sloth in the square
Tourism advertising tends to behave like a beautiful screensaver. Costa Rica already owned nature and adventure in the Spanish imagination; the missing association was emotional. In Newlink's Pura Vida Madrid campaign, a giant sloth appeared in the frantic Callao Square without explanation. The teaser invited curiosity before the destination arrived. Then the animal wandered through Madrid, making slowness look less like laziness and more like a product benefit.
The work produced more than 31 million impressions, an 83% view-through rate, and over 52,000 clicks. The numbers matter, but the sloth explains the method better. It compressed destination, mood, behavior, and joke into one participant that people could carry onward. During the pandemic, Newlink's #ForTheWyn campaign used a smaller version of the same mechanism: 12 giveaways for local Wynwood businesses prompted 5,300 entries and lifted engagement 395% over normal levels. The content occupied less than half the feed but generated 90% of its interactions.
Borrow the orbit, not the jargon
Orbital Thinking can sound grand for a planning exercise. Its value is that a small team can strip it down to four moves. No planets are required.
List everyone who can accelerate, block, interpret, or repeat the outcome. “Women 25-44” is a demographic, not a role.
Write the overlap between what the organization needs and what each group can honestly want. If the overlap is fictional, stop.
Give each group something useful to do: try, host, teach, remix, recruit, recommend, or decide.
Choose an operational signal before publishing - orders, applicants, visits, participation, retention, or permission to continue.
This approach is a poor fit when leadership wants the language of purpose without changing a decision, when stakeholders cannot influence the outcome, or when the only available measure is reach. A shared purpose that exists only in copy is still a slogan. The Little Caesars result worked because the product, retail experience, and communication changed together. The National Police recruitment program in the Dominican Republic required regional mapping, spokesperson workshops, alliances, monitoring, and a crisis plan - not merely a friendlier poster.
What Newlink is really selling
Newlink sits between the large global communications networks and regional specialists in PR, digital, public affairs, and culture. Its Mexico operation merged with FCB México in 2024, combining FCB's creative network with Newlink's brand, reputation, and culture model. In Spain, its integration with Both put organizational culture inside the group; the companies opened a shared Barcelona office in early 2026. The pattern is consistent: build enough breadth that the stakeholder map does not have to be handed from one agency to another.
What it sells, finally, is coordination around a point of gravity. That is harder to photograph than an advertisement and easier to fake than a sales result. Yet it answers a genuine modern problem. People do not wait in neat segments for a brand to arrive. They move among group chats, workplaces, stores, streets, and feeds, carrying some ideas and dropping most. Newlink's wager is that the idea survives when the person carrying it can see a little of their own interest inside.