These longstanding brands have grown their audiences while making an impact over at least 15 years

The honorees in the 2024 Brands That Matter enduring impact category are continuing to innovate and have kept consumers interested for more than 15 years.

From Ancestry linking Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson ahead of her Tortured Poets Department to Electronic Arts working to authentically add women soccer players to one of its flagship video games, these brands are continuing to demonstrate measurable impact year after year.

Allagash Brewing

Maine-based Allagash Brewing is one of the largest independently owned craft breweries in the country. As it has grown over its 30 years in business, the company’s focus on sustainability and making an impact in its home state have shone through in its advertising approach. In 2024, the company worked directly with the Boston Celtics and Red Sox on in-game ads, rather than using programmatic advertising on a broader scale, to reduce the carbon impact of its ads. And as it experimented with out-of-home ads for the first time this year in Los Angeles, it targeted sports fans outside Dodgers Stadium as well as eco-conscious drivers with billboards facing the charging stations at Whole Foods. Since 2020, the company has grown its local Allagash Recycling Co-op to 20 members and recycled more than 264 tons of materials.

Ancestry

Family history and genetics company Ancestry is using its expertise to help historically marginalized groups—and one very famous pop star—connect with their roots. In fall 2023, the brand partnered with the Museum of the American Revolution to release a collection connected to Black and Indigenous soldiers who served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. It also partnered with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and other organizations to make over 2.9 million Holocaust-related records available for free. It further released more than half a million Chinese Exclusion-era records available for free to families of Chinese descent to learn about how the Exclusion Act impacted their family tree. It wasn’t all heavy, though. Ancestry also grew its recognition among Swifties: Ahead of the release of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, Ancestry found a family connection between Swift and the OG tortured poet Emily Dickinson.

CARE

Humanitarian aid and development nonprofit CARE, founded in 1945, works globally to support local communities disproportionately impacted by global crises, particularly women and girls. In 2023, CARE reached almost 167 million people across 109 countries with its campaigns, including its International Women’s Day campaign, #WomenKnowHow. Its 2024 iteration, #SheLeadsThe World, saw the organization work with photographer Nigel Barker to document female leadership worldwide. These and other efforts have garnered hundreds of millions of impressions while helping CARE grow its social media following by more than 100,000 across channels as it unveiled a brand refresh. That growth built on its efforts, starting with COVID-19, to use social media as a way to drive social and behavioral change—an approach it has used to reach more than 800 million people through campaigns about gender-based violence, vaccine acceptance, and maternal health education.

Electronic Arts

As a leading developer of sports video games, Electronic Arts is translating the women’s sports boom into the virtual world. For the first time ever, EA Sports FC Ultimate Team 2024—which lets players build their dream soccer teams—integrated women’s teams in the game. To ensure the players weren’t just re-skinned models of male players, EA invested in its Sapien character technology to develop authentic movements for female athletes. With the new players, more than 357 million online Ultimate Team squads have at least one women player in their lineup. To fuel interest in soccer IRL, EA built and refurbished 11 soccer fields and provided 12,000 soccer balls and essential equipment to underrepresented grassroots clubs, coaches, and children, reaching more than 170,000 people.

Kendra Scott

Customizable jewelry brand Kendra Scott, known for its funky colors and signature shapes, has been worn by Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, and Gwyneth Paltrow, but its consumer base is really Gen Z women. To better reach them—and capitalize on sorority rush season’s popularity on TikTok—the brand launched a six-college tour called Hey Elisa! after its popular Elisa pendant. Throughout 2024, the brand has grown its profile among fans of Western and country aesthetics with its Southwestern-inspired Yellow Rose brand, launching collections with Lainey Wilson and Dolly Parton. It even unveiled Yellow Rose brick-and-mortar stores in Austin, Dallas, and Houston.

Nora Fleming

To mark its 20th year, tabletop decor brand Nora Fleming—which has built broad consumer affection for its line of minis—has spent 2024 focusing on activism and benefiting local and national charitable organizations. To cap a six-year partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the brand unveiled its ninth mini, “Color Me Happy,” which helped surpass the $1 million mark in donations to the hospital. That wouldn’t be possible without Nora Fleming’s status as a cult brand among miniature aficionados. To bring the community built on scores of mini-obsessed Facebook groups IRL, founder Nora Napientek regularly holds mini signings at independent retailers that stock the brand. That has translated to growth on social media, where Nora Fleming has added more than 5,000 new followers. The brand also positions itself as a partner to small businesses, closing its online shop on Small Business Saturday this year to encourage visits to local stockists.

OpenTable

OpenTable has been helping users make reservations at their favorite restaurants for more than 25 years. The brand went into 2024 with more than 50 new features and enhancements to boost restaurant revenue, including a “notify me” tool that lets diners set alerts for last-minute table openings. But robust as the company is, OpenTable’s diner tools are only part of why it has cemented itself as a restaurant-industry favorite. In fall 2023, it inaugurated its Gold Chef Prize alongside AAPI nonprofit Gold House, promoting these diverse chefs to more than half a million diners. It also celebrated women-run restaurants alongside Cherry Bombe with a dinner series that had four installments in 2024.

Pfizer

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer celebrated its 175th anniversary by adjusting how it advertises its products. Rather than build brands around various treatments, the company refocused on the Pfizer parent brand, launching its “Outdo Yesterday” brand platform, which emphasized its overall efforts to build on its legacy by creating innovative treatments. A crucial first effort with this positioning was its “Here’s to Science” Super Bowl ad, which went beyond the big game when Pfizer showed a longer cut on streaming platforms, in airports, and even in movie theaters. Midyear, Pfizer tapped High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale for a video in which the actress and singer talked about her experience with autoimmune disease alopecia areata—underscoring a personal story without mentioning Pfizer’s treatment for the illness, Litfulo, approved in 2023.

Thrivent

Thrivent let its customers speak about their experience with the company and its broad range of financial products. At the end of 2023, the brand unveiled a campaign with ads that starred some of its clients who talked about the financial advisory role Thrivent played in helping them overcome financial obstacles. The effort helped interest in Thrivent explode—Google searches for Thrivent totaled 2.7 million after the campaign versus some 461,000 in 2022. And it didn’t stop growing its profile there: Early in 2024, the brand unveiled a multiyear partnership with the Minnesota Twins that, alongside standard naming rights for club seating, established a $200,000 community impact fund every year that will be directed by the team and Thrivent and informed by fans, who can vote at every home game for the organizations they want to support.

Zipcar

A big part of Zipcar’s positioning has been reducing the number of private cars on the road. In the past year, the car-share company re-upped that messaging, investing in electric vehicles for its fleet and focusing on college students who want to make an impact on their communities. On the EV front, as part of the White House House EV Acceleration Challenge, Zipcar pledged 25% of its EV fleet to focus on disadvantaged communities. Since then, it has used a $1.7 million grant to bring EVs to underserved areas of New Jersey and expanded EV availability to Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and more. Over the course of 2024, it worked to double the size of its EV fleet. This year, it also funded projects from college students via its “Students with Drive” contest, which gave out $25,000 in scholarships, donations to student groups, and Zipcar credits.

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.