These global brands are building consumer affinity at home and around the world

From groundbreaking renewable energy solutions to innovative software that connects users worldwide, these global Brands That Matter demonstrate a commitment to innovation, creativity, and impact from around the world.

Whether their work is focused in a certain region or internationally, these brands have found their way into the broader culture by creatively fostering meaningful connections with their communities through smart partnerships and clever branding.

Canva

Sydney, Australia’s Canva has made graphic design accessible and intuitive for users from individuals to Fortune 500 companies. Over the past year, the company has focused on expanding its reach to B2B audiences while maintaining engagement with its consumer users through its “What Will You Design Today?” and events such as Canva Create. Canva Create 2024 had a theatrical keynote and a Hamilton-inspired rap battle between a Canva advocate and a CIO, along with sessions from Bob Iger, Mindy Kaling, and Adam Grant. The event drew 3,500 in-person attendees, with a further 2.5 million attendees registered online.

Feeld

Over the past year, London-based dating app Feeld, designed for people seeking nontraditional relationships, has boosted its cultural relevance by positioning itself as a place where users can define themselves to potential matches on their own terms. In May 2024, building on online discussions about celibacy, Feeld added a celibacy profile tag to its list of more than 20 “desire” options—which include everything from texting and friendship to bondage and threesomes. It quickly led to results on social media, where engagement increased by 175% and impressions jumped by around 80%. Feeld’s growth came alongside a rebrand and its first global campaign, “The Feeld Effect,” which highlighted its expansive options for meeting people. More recently, it’s carved out a place among the literary set (reading is a top interest among its users), creating AFM (A Fucking Magazine), with essays, poems, and photos about relationships, sexuality, and desire from notable writers and Feeld users.

Felicia

Italian brand Felicia is leading a “colorful revolution” in the pasta market by creating products that are focused on physical health and the health of the environment. Felicia has three lines—whole grains, legumes, and superfoods—and uses organic, non-GMO, and allergen-free ingredients like buckwheat, spirulina, red lentils, and chickpeas. Over the past year, Felicia launched its “Fatti di un’altra Pasta” campaign in Italy to present itself as an agent of change in the deeply rooted, traditional Italian culture that is often associated with pasta. The campaign allowed consumers to engage directly with a brand voice that addresses Italian cultural norms, which increased brand awareness by 11 points in Milan and boosted consumers’ intent to buy from 44% to 57%. As well as promoting sustainable and healthy pasta consumption, Felicia follows circular-economy practices, such as reusing the water used in pasta production for the cultivation of the spirulina algae, and its manufacturing plant has achieved carbon neutrality.

Flutterwave

Operating in more than 30 countries, Flutterwave, based in San Francisco and Lagos, Nigeria, provides payment solutions and infrastructure that connect people and businesses to the global economy and African diaspora via its flagship money transfer product, Send App. Since mid-2023, Flutterwave has been partnered with music streamer Audiomack, allowing fans to send their favorite artists money directly through Audiomack’s platform on a one-time or recurring basis, fostering a stronger connection between creators and their audiences. As a result of the partnership, mobile money from the likes of Send App now makes up 35% of payments on Audiomack.

MacPaw

Ukraine-based software company MacPaw has built a global user base of 30 million with its Mac-focused apps that include including CleanMyMac and ClearVPN. Over the past year, the company has built out its cybersecurity division, Moonlock, with educational content and security reports focused on the security needs of Mac users that have racked up more than a million views. The company also partnered with European tennis stars Elina Svitolina and Gaël Monfils in 2024 to promote its products to an expanded audience. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, MacPaw has donated over $9 million to support Ukrainian soldiers via the MacPaw Foundation, with more than $900,000 coming from users and supporters worldwide. To benefit the foundation, in June, MacPaw published the English-language book Innovation in Isolation: The Story of Ukrainian IT from the 1940s to Present on the impact of Ukrainian development of cybernetics on the world.

Octopus Energy

As the U.K.’s largest renewable home energy provider, Octopus Energy is working to make energy more accessible in the midst of the country’s energy crisis. Much of that has been done through Octo Assist, a £30 million fund to support customers during the height of the energy crisis in 2023. Octo Assist has disbursed more than £7.1 million in financial aid to customers so far. The brand is also focused on green innovation, partnering with the U.K.’s largest homebuilders to create houses that cost nothing to power. By combining air-source heat pumps, home batteries, and roof-mounted solar panels, the homes are guaranteed to cost residents nothing in energy costs for at least five years. To demystify clean energy, in 2024 and 2023, Octopus Energy powered all the food trucks at Glastonbury Festival via an on-site 91-foot-tall wind turbine (dubbed “Gusty Springfield”).

This story is part of Fast Company’s 2024 Brands That Matter. Explore the full list of honorees that have demonstrated a commitment to their brand’s purpose and cultural relevance to their audience. Read more about the methodology behind the selection process.