brand-activation
(8)
The Company That Turned the Checkout Line Into a Media Channel
Mars United Commerce spent 50 years learning how people actually shop. In 2024, Publicis paid a reported $600 million to own that knowledge.
Buoyant Aero
Buoyant Aero builds zero-emissions, self-flying advertising blimps and rents them out as a turnkey service. Founded in 2020 by MIT hardware engineers Benjamin Claman and Joe Figura, the company (Y Combinator S21) started out designing unmanned cargo airships for middle-mile delivery, then turned the same self-flying blimp technology into 'Blimps-as-a-Service' - electric, camera-equipped ad blimps up to 35 feet long that fly pre-planned routes over events, retail launches and conferences for brands like Amazon Prime Video.
The Icebox Cool Stuff
The Icebox Cool Stuff is an Atlanta-based, full-service branded merchandise and custom apparel agency founded in 2001 on the belief that promotional products can actually be cool. It handles the whole chain - creative design, product sourcing, in-house decorating, warehouse fulfillment, company-store management and global distribution - for corporate clients ranging from Delta Air Lines to Google. Roughly 150 employees work across three locations and 150,000+ square feet of warehouse space, serving brands that want merchandise people actually keep and wear.
Paige Fuller
Paige Cannon Fuller is the Chief Marketing Officer of The Icebox Cool Stuff, an Atlanta-based branded merchandise and apparel agency, where she leads the marketing and creative teams that build merch programs for enterprise clients such as Delta Air Lines and the NYSE. A marketing and brand strategist with a background spanning apparel, e-commerce and consumer brands, she joined Icebox in 2018 as VP of Marketing & Brand Management and was elevated to CMO in 2024. Earlier she founded the advisory shop Fuller Made and held senior marketing roles at Alternative Apparel.
Momentum Worldwide
Momentum Worldwide is a global experiential marketing agency headquartered in New York that designs and produces brand experiences - live events, sponsorships, activations, retail moments and immersive campaigns - for some of the world's largest brands, including American Express, Coca-Cola, Microsoft and AT&T. Founded in 1987 and long part of the Interpublic Group network (now under Omnicom following IPG's 2025 acquisition), it employs roughly 1,300-2,000 people across offices worldwide and has been named a US experiential agency of the year multiple times.
Donnalyn Smith
Donnalyn Smith is the Global CEO of Momentum Worldwide, the experiential and brand-experience agency within the Interpublic Group. She joined Momentum in 1995 and rose through account leadership, managing director and regional roles to President of North America before being named Global CEO in November 2022. Under her leadership Momentum has been named Experiential Agency of the Year by Adweek and Campaign US and Employer of the Year by Digiday. A founding member of the #TimesUpAdvertising movement and a She Runs It Trailblazer Mom of the Year, she is a vocal advocate for diversity, fairness and support systems for working parents in the industry.
DISTINCT Technologies, Inc
DISTINCT Technologies is a Fairfield, Connecticut startup building live data intelligence infrastructure that turns real-time consumer interactions at live events into measurable ROI. Its white-label SaaS platform captures what it calls Actionable Consumer Touchpoints (ACTs) from stadiums, activations, and experiences, then routes that data into brands' existing CRM and MarTech systems for unified measurement, predictive insight, and personalized follow-up. Founded in 2022 by former Major League Baseball and Audacy executive Jimmy McCloud, the SOC 2-certified company has raised $3.5M in seed funding.
Jimmy McCloud
Jimmy McCloud is the Founder & CEO of DISTINCT Technologies, a live data intelligence platform that helps global brands capture and act on consumer data at live events - concerts, sports activations, fan zones, and brand experiences. With a career spanning MLB Advanced Media (where the team built what became Disney+), Entercom/Audacy (as EVP of National Business Development), and Division I baseball at Holy Cross, McCloud brings a rare combination of sports media pedigree and enterprise sales acumen to solving one of marketing's oldest problems: making live brand moments measurable. DISTINCT raised a $3.5M seed round in June 2024 led by York IE.