32 of the Best Website Designs to Inspire You in 2020

Every once in a while, I'll come across a website that really draws me in. So, I found 32 of them to show you.

These sites push the boundaries of what is known to be possible on the web. Whether it's the design aesthetic, usability, interactivity, sound design, or value that the site provides, each one is a masterpiece in its respective industry, and something to be inspired by.

Not surprisingly, many organizations exist to highlight these sites and the contributions they make to the web. To help surface some of the most inspirational designs, I gathered 32 award-winners that have made their way through several key awards organizations — including Awwwards, UX Awards, The Webby Awards, SiteInspire, Best Website Gallery, and FWA.

Click the links below to jump to a group of website designs that crushed it in the last several years:

• Best Website Designs from 2014 – 2015
• Best Website Designs from 2016
• Best Website Designs from 2017
• Best Website Designs from 2018
• Best Website Designs from 2019
• Other Cool Website Designs 
• Website Design Ideas

Below this list, I also found six more websites whose homepage designs are just plain cool and worth learning from.

As you browse through the list, know that each site excels in its own way and seeks to serve a unique purpose. While one site may be an excellent example of visual design, another may be an excellent example of interactivity. This means that not all of these sites may be "conversion machines" or blueprint ideas that you can easily copy over to your site.

Rather, they're great ways to gain some website design inspiration and see the cutting-edge marketing that's happening in the different corners of the web.

Best Website Designs

1. Virgin America
2. Feed
3. ETQ
4. Mikiya Kobayashi
5. The History of Climate Change
6. Beagle
7. Woven Magazine
8. JOHO’s Bean
9. World of SWISS
10. Rainforest Guardians
11. Protest Sportswear
12. The Teacher’s Guild
13. Inside Abbey Road
14. Simply Chocolate
15. NOWNESS
16. Citrix: The New Mobile Workforce
17. crypton.trading
18. Southwest: Heart of Travel
19. Reductress
20. Overflow
21. Frans Hals Museum
22. Minimums
23. The Octopus: Design Blog by IDEO
24. Nomadic Tribe
25. MovieMark
26. Guillaume Tomasi
27. The District
28. Tej Chauhan
29. Amanda Martocchio Architecture
30. The District
31. Tej Chauhan
32. Amanda Martocchio Architecture

Beautiful Award-Winning Websites

And the awards go to ...

Best Website Designs from 2014 – 2015

1. Virgin America

Award: Most Significant Industry Evolution, 2014 UX Awards

In a world where airline websites are known to be riddled with major usability issues, Virgin America has one of the best websites that pushes usability, accessibility, and responsive design forward. In fact, it's been named as the first truly responsive airline website, a new precedent in the industry.

Featured by UX Awards

2. Feed

Award: Site of the Day (6/6/2015), Awwwards

Not only is Feed an interesting concept, but it also has a stunning execution that challenges our understanding of what is possible on the web. Through a creative blend of animation and video, the site immerses the user into a very engaging experience. As an atypical site, it contains several unique usability elements as well, including a navigation that doubles as a scroll progress bar.

Featured by Awwwards

3. ETQ

Award: Site of the Day (5/19/2015), Awwwards

ETQ takes a very minimalistic approach to ecommerce with their stripped-down site with big, compelling visuals of their product. Simple, flat, color-based backgrounds accompanied by strong typography help to keep the focus on exactly what the user came there to see: shoes.

Featured by Awwwards

4. Mikiya Kobayashi

Award: Site of the Day (7/4/2015), Awwwards

Mikiya is a Product Designer with a minimalistic portfolio that showcases his work through strong photography and subtle animations. His full site was originally created in Japanese and then translated into English, helping demonstrate the international scalability of his design.

Featured by Awwwards

5. The History of Climate Change

Award: Site of the Day (6/23/2015), Awwwards

Follow the footsteps of Luc Jacquet as Wild-Touch takes you along this visual and educational journey about the history of global climate change. A mixture of historical media and unique animations help tell the story.

Featured by Awwwards

6. Beagle

Award: Site of the Day (4/19/2015), Best Website Gallery

Beagle does an exceptional job of visually and progressively telling the story of their product in a simple and easy-to-digest way. This is a major challenge for many startups, especially when they're introducing new concepts to existing markets. People want to know, "What is your product? How does it work? Why do I care?" Beagle answers all those questions while simultaneously showing off their product and compelling the user to purchase. Plus, they're one of few sites that actually implemented "scroll hijacking" correctly.

Featured by Best Website Gallery

7. Woven Magazine

Award: Site of the Day (4/4/2015), Best Website Gallery

Woven is an online publication that celebrates artists, craftsmen, and makers alike. To me, they represent a confirmation that publications can (and should) have beautiful, engaging sites with easy-to-read content. Free of distractions like pop-ups and obtrusive ads, this site all about the experience of the content itself.

Featured by Best Website Gallery

8. JOHO's Bean

Award: FWA of the Day (8/7/2015), Favorite Website Awards

The website for JOHO's Bean has incredible imagery, interactivity, story telling, visual design, and most of all, sound engineering. These all come together to create a compelling, emotional, and engaging site that tells the story of a coffee bean's journey.

Featured by FWA

9. World of SWISS

Award: Best User Interface, 2015 Webby Awards

Another airline?! What is happening?! Yep, SWISS airlines built an incredibly immersive site that tells their story and describes what it's like to fly with them -- and they simply did too great of a job to be ignored. Strong visuals and animations introduce the user to different sections of the site that are packed with information beyond the usual sales and marketing pitch that is so common today.

Featured by The Webby Awards

Best Website Designs from 2016

10. Rainforest Guardians

Award: Best Activism Website, 2016 Webby Awards

Rainforest Guardians became one of the most immersive nonprofit websites of 2016. Seeking to build awareness around deforestation, the site allows users to "visit" the various villages, natives, and waterways that make up the Amazon Rainforest. The site puts interactivity at the center of its user experience -- a wise choice if your goal is to get people to connect with your cause and convert into volunteers.

Featured by The Webby Awards

11. Protest Sportswear

Award: Site of the Year (2016), Awwwards

The Awwwards calls Protest Sportswear a "shoppable look book," and that's exactly what this site is. As a clothing outfitter, this website has reinvented the way they market their product: Rather than promoting garments of clothing, Protest Sportswear promotes "looks." This makes the company's product the most appealing part of the website itself, using a collage of styles to design a homepage that changes as often as its customer's styles do.

Featured by Awwwards

12. The Teacher's Guild

Award: Best Association Website, 2016 Webby Awards

The Teacher's Guild is a professional community of educators whose website publishes content that addresses today's most critical challenges in education. What makes this website award-winning is how it balances diverse content types -- programs, solutions, approaches, and collaborations -- without overwhelming its visitors. Not only are its background visuals prominently placed, but they also use white space to emphasize the written calls to action at the center, as shown in the screenshot below.

Featured by The Webby Awards

13. Inside Abbey Road

Award: Best Music Website, 2016 Webby Awards

Google knocked it out of the park with this highly interactive site, which allows users to step into the Abbey Road Studios. Brilliant sound design, navigation mechanics, and visuals mixed with the usual "Google flair" all help draw visitors in to this well-made web property.

Featured by The Webby Awards

Best Website Designs from 2017

14. Simply Chocolate

Award: Site of the Year (2017), Awwwards

You'll get a craving for chocolate just looking at this website -- and in a way, that's Simply Chocolate's website working as designed.

This appetizing website is that of a Denmark chocolate maker named Simply Chocolate. Its website uses a variety of colors (and creative product names) to promote each chocolate bar. And as you scroll from one product to the next, they all seem to remain consistent in brand. The three-dimensional appearance of each chocolate bar makes you feel like you can grab it off of your computer screen, while the "Add to Box" CTA to the top-left is ideally placed for users to select the products they want while browsing.

Featured by Awwwards

15. NOWNESS

Award: Best Cultural Blog/Website, 2017 Webby Awards

Nowness is perhaps the coolest crowdsourced video blog on the internet today. That was a mouthful ... what does all that mean?

NOWNESS's "crowdsourced" nature is part of what makes it an award-winner. This means most of its content comes from independent creatives -- an increasingly popular way for businesses to publish content. NOWNESS is also a video blog, meaning all of its blog content is in video format. Together, these qualities help make Nowness a captivating hub for the stories that brands everywhere strive to tell.

Featured by The Webby Awards

16. Citrix: The New Mobile Workforce

Award: Site of the Day (11/23/2017), Best Website Gallery

This website -- dedicated to Red Bull's partnership with Citrix, a cloud-based software company -- is amazing.

The New Mobile Workforce, a site owned by Citrix, uses panoramic photography to show visitors how Citrix is supporting Red Bull Racing's new race car. Even if you're not a car-racing enthusiast, the website's clever animations to explain a complicated automotive technology are hard to ignore.

Featured by Best Website Gallery

Best Website Designs from 2018

17. crypton.trading

Award: Site of the Day (4/3/2018), Awwwards

Meet crypton.trading, your robot accountant.

Crypton.trading is a trading hub for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, using artificial intelligence to predict changes in a currency's value and identify key buying and selling opportunities. The website was rated high for its development and design, as it gradually explains more of the developer's methods the further down visitors scroll.

This award-winning website makes tech-savvy visitors feel right at home the moment Crypton's greeting appears across the homepage, one letter at a time.

Featured by Awwwards

18. Southwest: Heart of Travel

Award: Best Visual Design - Aesthetic, 2018 Webby Awards

When Southwest Airlines wanted to prove its customers were "more than just a dollar sign," the company created a website whose design was assembled using the shapes of their customers' flightpaths.

The website, called Heart of Travel, even allows visitors to create their own artwork out of a trip they might plan on taking. In this way, Southwest's website is a product of their most loyal passengers.

Featured by The Webby Awards

19. Reductress

Award: Best Humor Website, 2018 Webby Awards

It's not that hard to make someone laugh on the internet; so much of what we read and consume online is meant to be entertaining. But it is hard to do it consistently for a large audience. Reductress is a satirical magazine whose headlines and general reading experience are top-tier in the humor department -- making the website itself a quality property.

Featured by The Webby Awards

20. Overflow

Award: Site of the Day (3/20/2018), Best Website Gallery

Overflow is a design tool that allows people and businesses to create story-like flow diagrams of their ideas so they're easier for others to understand. Aside from this being just a good service, the Overflow website practices what it preaches: Along with vibrant red call-to-action buttons for downloading the tool, this website promotes its product the best way it knows how -- using a flow diagram.

The website delivers this flow diagram in the form of a video. And while embedded videos can look rather clunky sitting in the middle of a website's other design elements, Overflow's is perfectly placed and exactly what you'd want to see when landing on the site for the first time.

Featured by Best Website Gallery

21. Frans Hals Museum

Award: Site of the Year (2018), Awwwards

It can be tough for a museum, whose brand is predicated on a variety of incredible artwork, to bring it all together on a cohesive website. That's what makes the website of the Frans Hals Museum so impressive.

Located in the Netherlands, this museum has created a website that uses a combination of digital design elements and its own exhibits. This mixture helps visitors understand what they'll see, when they can see it, and where else they can get a taste of what this museum has to offer. Speaking of the latter, the museum promotes its Instagram account directly on its homepage -- a brilliant move for a museum looking to expand its audience across its online channels.

Featured by Awwwards

Award-Winning Designs of 2019

22. 1917: In the Trenches

Award: Awwwards' Best Website of the Day

This website, made to promote the film 1917, allows you to walk around the trenches and perform the same mission that the characters did in the film. You can also see their maps or access other tools. 

This is a great example of a site that. went above and beyond with interactivity as well as a site that leverages its own content and prewritten storyline to market its film. This website won Site of the Day by Awwwards which allows designers to vote and nominate great website's they see daily.

23. The Octopus: A design blog by IDEO

Award: Business Blog/Website 2019 Webby award

IDEO, a global design company, won the Business Blog/Website 2019 Webby award for its Octopus blog, and for good reason. The blog features a sleek, black-and-white Octopus drawing as its homepage design, and uses yellow, black, and white to create a cohesive theme as you scroll.

If you hover over a blog post, the title is highlighted in yellow, and if you hover over an image, the image is pulled towards you — two small features that make a big difference in terms of creating a unique and engaging user experience. 

24. Nomadic Tribe

Award: Awwwards' Site of the Year nomination 

This site, which was nominated for Awwards' Site of the Year, is one of the more engaging sites I've seen. The homepage immediately begins playing a stunning video featuring a man walking across a desert, followed by gorgeous landscape scenes and text like, "Are you lucky enough to call yourself an adventurer?". 

The text throughout the website is playful, with colorful pinks and oranges and yellows, and the homepage is logically designed, with CTAs placed throughout that range in commitment-level from "Read More" to "Watch Now" and, finally, "Download the App". Ultimately, the website is beautifully designed with a strong attention to detail, and tells a compelling story throughout.

25. Diana Danieli

Award: Webby 2019

This 2019 Webby winning site shows off imagery of art and architecture with either high contrast or heavy exposure.  As a website visitor, you can click and drag your mouse to change the photos and variations. Each image shows a piece of work that highlights the artist who owns the website.

26.George Nakashima Woodworkers

Award: Webby 2019

This woodworking website emphasizes nature and care for the woodworking trade. It's essentially a slide show of beautiful forestry and farming images. As a new image comes on to the screen, a new quote related to wood or trees also comes up. This is incredibly relaxing to the visitor and shows that the woodworkers recognize the beauty of trees and the environment. This website also won a Webbie in 2019. 

Other Cool Website Designs

27. Minimums

Minimums takes a very bold approach to the way that they display their content, leveraging a grid-based website design, big typography, and full-width, high-quality images. Their site serves as a really nice example for how to properly execute a grid structure while still maintaining a nice visual hierarchy in the design.

28. MovieMark

MovieMark is a growth marketing agency and HubSpot Partner, whose website is covered head to toe in the service it offers: digital storytelling. Located in Colombia, the agency makes video a core focus of its brand, so it's only fitting that MovieMark's website follows this theme. And oh, how visually pleasing the videos on its website are ...

29. Guillaume Tomasi

As a Photographer in Montreal, Guillaume Tomasi has built a portfolio that's truly fit to house his unique and awe-inspiring photography. His surreal photo style is juxtaposed by his simple, flat, empty, and minimalistic portfolio design that places all of the focus on the work itself.

His unique series navigation coupled with art-gallery-inspired work introductions and perfect scrolling interactions yield an experience reminiscent of that of a real gallery.

30. The District

This branding agency takes its imagery seriously, and it should -- it handles all channels of media for their clients. The District's website, alone, is a journey through some of the most beautiful artwork and photography you've ever seen.

These provocative tiles change rapidly as you explore the website, and the wackier they seem, the more interested you become in learning about their past work.

31. Tej Chauhan

Tej Chauhan has turned impressionist artwork into a business model with this intriguing website. Each image on this product developer's homepage slides out to cover the previous image, offering little context around the object you now see in front of you.

But isn't that lack of context exactly what makes you want to learn more? The tagline, "Souvenirs of The Near Future," suggests these objects are a part of their product line -- and an opportunity for you to get these innovative objects into your life.

32. Amanda Martocchio Architecture

An architecture firm might not specialize in web development, but its website should still demonstrate its commitment to visually pleasing design. Amanda Martocchio took that to heart with this gorgeous website.

It's no secret that Amanda Martocchio Architecture loves its work -- each picture on the homepage of its website is an enchanting shot of the houses the company designs. The website labels every house you scroll through with the type of design that was intended, along with numerous angles to each building.

Website Design Ideas

Now that you've seen a number of beautifully designed and award-winning platforms, keep these potential ideas in mind as you create your own.

• Consider ways that you can make your website interactive, like the 1917 example.
• Make a website that emphasizes the mobile experience, even while it still has a good UX on desktops.
• Create a website that tells a story about your brand with photos, text, or video. 
• If you can't create a heavily interactive site, consider drawing in eyes with a site that presents a slideshow of your photos. 
• Ensure your call-to-actions are easy to see, and encourage visitors to continue exploring your site 
• Keep navigation clean. Ensure your visitors always know how to get back to the homepage.
• Integrate your social media sites via social embed buttons, so site visitors can easily follow you on your various social channels. 
• Keep each of your web pages consistent in design — including font, colors, images, and messaging. 
• Test your website's usability with a heat map, which will show you on which web pages your visitors are most likely to bounce. 
• Include a live chat or chatbot to give visitors the option to engage with you directly on your website if they prefer live chat to phone calls. Live chat can automate functions for your sales and service reps and create a better communication experience for the customer.
• Get an SSL certificate to ensure your website is secure. SSL is part of Google's search ranking algorithm, so an SSL certificate can help you rank higher in search. 

Want more website design examples? Check out these amazing product pages you'll want to copy immediately.

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13 Businesses With Brilliant Global Marketing Strategies

Guess what? Global marketing is no longer reserved for brands with deep pockets, nor is it a huge hassle for already over-burdened marketing managers.

In fact, a global presence is possible for any business with a creative strategy and an understanding of world markets.

What Is Good Global Marketing?

Global marketing is the act of focusing a product on the needs of potential buyers in other countries. 

Like most types of marketing, though, a global marketing strategy comes down to one thing: audience. Knowing who needs your product, in what form to deliver it to them, and how to do it in a way that strengthens the brand are core ingredients of awesome global marketing.

Typically, a global marketing strategy requires a business to do new market research, identify countries where the business's product might be successful, and then localize the brand to reflect the needs of those communities. However, localization is not always necessary. Some brands adopt a global standardization strategy instead.

In contrast to localization, where there's a more differentiated marketing approach to each market, global standardization provides significant cost benefits as a result of less messaging and fewer campaigns.

However, the key is in knowing when a global standardization strategy will be effective. Because it banks on a universal appeal despite cultural or locational differences, you'll need to research whether customers use or think about your products differently depending on their market. If there's no difference between the usage and understanding from country to country, a global standardization approach is practical.

Choosing localization or global standardization is one aspect of creating a great global marketing strategy.

 

To give you an idea of what a great global marketing strategy looks like, we've compiled a list of brands that totally "get it."

From adapting their social strategies to translate across multiple languages to adjusting their menus to appeal to the cravings of a diverse group of people, these brands are taking positive steps toward creating a solid presence across the globe.

So, if you're looking for inspiration on how to craft a successful international marketing strategy and expand your business' reach, check out these examples from these successful companies.

Global Marketing Strategies

1. Red Bull
2. Airbnb
3. Dunkin Donuts
4. Domino's
5. Rezdy
6. World Wildlife Foundation
7. Pearse Trust
8. Nike
9. McDonald's
10. Innocent Drinks
11. Unger and Kowitt
12. Coca-Cola
13. Spotify

1. Red Bull

Austrian company Red Bull does such a great job with global marketing that many Americans assume it’s a local brand. How?

One of its most successful tactics is to host extreme sports events all over the world. From the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix to the Red Bull Air Race in the United Kingdom to the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Jordan, the brand's powerful event marketing strategy takes them here, there, and everywhere.

Aside from events, Red Bull's packaging also plays a part in its global appeal.

"Red Bull really looks like a product from a global economy. It doesn't look like a traditional American soft drink -- it's not in a 12-ounce can, it's not sold in a bottle, and it doesn't have script lettering like Pepsi or Coke. It looks European. That matters," explains Harvard Business School professor Nancy F. Koehn in a 2001 article. Though it's since diversified its product selection since that article was published, the fact remains that Red Bull's consistent packaging has helped this brand go global.

2. Airbnb

Airbnb, a community marketplace for people to list and book accommodations around the world, was founded in 2008 out of San Francisco, California.

Since then, Airbnb has grown to 1,500,000+ listings in 34,000+ cities worldwide. A large contributor to the company's explosive global success? Social media.

In January 2015, Airbnb launched a social media campaign around the hashtag #OneLessStranger. The company referred to the campaign as a "global, social experiment," in which Airbnb asked the community to perform random acts of hospitality for strangers, and then take a video or photo with the person and share it using the hashtag.

Just three weeks after the launch of the campaign, over 3,000,000 people worldwide engaged, created content, or were talking about the campaign.

3. Dunkin Donuts

In case you missed it, National Donut Day was last June. And while we were getting our hands dirty with a Boston creme (or two) here in the states, Dunkin Donuts China was serving up a fresh batch of dry pork and seaweed donuts.

With over 3,200 stores in 36 countries outside of the U.S., Dunkin Donuts has evolved its menu to satisfy the sweet tooth of its global customers.

From Korea's Grapefruit Coolata to Lebanon's Mango Chocolate Donut to Russia's Dunclairs, it's clear that Dunkin Donuts isn't afraid to celebrate cultural differences in an effort to strengthen its international presence.

4. Domino's

Similar to Dunkin Donuts, Domino's has prioritized menu innovation as a means of increasing international interest and awareness.

“The joy of pizza is that bread, sauce, and cheese works fundamentally everywhere, except maybe China, where dairy wasn’t a big part of their diet until lately,” explains Domino’s CEO J. Patrick Doyle.

“And it’s easy to just change toppings market to market. In Asia, it’s seafood and fish. It’s curry in India. But half the toppings are standard offerings around the world.”

By making a conscious effort to gain a better understanding of the preferences of the markets it's trying to break into, Domino's can deliver pies diverse enough to gain international attention.

5. Rezdy

Some companies may not be trying to attract global markets directly, but if their clients are, they better know how. Rezdy is an Australian-based reservation software designed to make online booking smoother for tourists and agents alike.

Though Rezdy's clients are Australian-based, the company needs to cater to its clients' international visitors. Click on the screenshot to check out this fun video on Rezdy's homepage:

The first feature the video spotlights is "Internationalisation." The video walks us through how easy the service is for users, but is sure to emphasize the language and currency customization tool upfront. Even if your company is marketing to other regional companies, consider their global customers as if they were your own.

6. World Wildlife Foundation

WWF took its Earth Hour initiative -- a voluntary worldwide event where participants turn off their lights for an hour to show how easy it can be to battle climate change -- and brought it to Norway's mobile audience.

Scandinavian countries like Norway experience extreme daylight hours in different seasons, making the country a prime candidate for WWF's Blackout campaign. Using digital agency Mobiento, the nonprofit placed the Blackout Banner across Norway's top media sites to promote Earth Hour. With one tap of the banner, the screen went black. Finger swiping the black screen slowly revealed the Earth Hour countdown. The banner attracted roughly 1,000,000 impressions and the campaign received three MMA Global Mobile Marketing Awards back in 2012.

Image Source

Have a cool idea? Don't be afraid to try it out on one international market -- just make sure it's the appropriate audience. (Also, don't be afraid of the dark.)

7. Pearse Trust

With offices in Dublin, London, Vancouver, Atlanta, and Wellington, Pearse Trust has grown to be an international authority on corporate and trust structures. But it takes more than offices all over the map to reach an international audience.

That's why Pearse Trust keeps content flowing on its Facebook page that engages its various markets. In this screenshot below, you can see Pearse Trust posts lots of content featuring international affairs relating to the company's practice.

It also levels out external articles with Pearse Trust content, featuring news from places like Germany, Ireland (where it has a Dublin office), and the U.K. (where it has a London office). This is a great example of focusing on common interests shared among your company's various markets while also making the content relatable to customers by region.

8. Nike

Nike has been able to evolve its global presence through the careful selection of international sponsorships such as its previous long-standing relationship with Manchester United.

Although sponsorship spending can be fairly unpredictable -- demand costs tend to surge due to triggers like championships and tournaments -- these partnerships have certainly helped the brand capture the attention of a global audience.

Nike's NikeID co-creation platform serves as another strategy that the company is using to appeal to international markets.

By putting the power of design into the hands of the consumer, Nike is able to deliver customized products that align with different cultural preferences and styles.

9. McDonald's

We all know McDonald's is a successful global brand, so unlike its menu, I'll keep it light.

While keeping its overarching branding consistent, McDonald's practices "glocal" marketing efforts. No, that's not a typo. McDonald's brings a local flavor, literally, to different countries with region-specific menu items. In 2003, McDonald's introduced the McArabia, a flatbread sandwich, to its restaurants in the Middle East.

McDonald's has also introduced macaroons to its French menu:

And added McSpaghetti to its menu in the Philippines:

This "glocal" approach has helped put McDonald's at #9 on Interbrand's Best Global Brands 2014.

10. Innocent Drinks

Innocent Drinks is the leading smoothie company in the U.K., but that's not the only place you'll find its products. In fact, Innocent products are now available in 15 countries across Europe.

And despite its widespread reach, the company's "chatty branding" remains consistent across the board. For instance, the website is very bubbly, with contact information that reads "call the banana phone" or "visit the fruit towers."

While global expansion and rapid growth can sometimes distract a company from consistent branding, Innocent Drinks has managed to remain true to itself. By ensuring that the brand's voice is interpreted the same way around the world, Innocent is able to create a more recognizable brand.

11. Unger and Kowitt

The phrase "glocal" can be defined as "Think Globally, Act Locally." But what happens when you switch the two around.

Whoa, fasten your seat belts -- literally. Unger and Kowitt is a traffic ticket law firm based in Fort Lauderdale defending drivers in the state of Florida. Not very global, right? Well, Unger and Kowitt understands that America is a melting pot and that Florida is bursting at the seams with different cultures and languages.

Though a domestic service, the firm's website is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Creole. With these options, Unger and Kowitt can cater to Florida's nearly 3.5 million Floridians who speak Spanish, Portuguese, or Creole. Don't miss out on expanding your client base -- sometimes you don't have to look far to attract international business.

12. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a great example of a brand using international marketing efforts. Though a large corporation, Coca-Cola focuses on small community programs and invests a lot of time and money in small-scale charity efforts.

For example, in Egypt, Coca-Cola has built 650 clean water installations in the rural village of Beni Suef and sponsors Ramadan meals for children across the Middle East. In India, the brand sponsors the Support My School initiative to improve facilities at local schools. Not to mention, the brand sticks with selling an emotion that can't get lost in translation: happiness. Now, tell me this doesn't look like fun:

13. Spotify

As of 2018, Spotify was newly considered one of the best global companies in the world, according to Interbrand. We've all heard of Spotify (no pun intended), but how did it suddenly, and so quickly, expand from Sweden into other countries?

Spotify's business model is focused on helping you find something new.

It's one thing to select a genre of music to listen to -- it's another thing to select a "mood" to listen to. The screenshot above is part of Spotify's "Browse" page, where you can listen not just to "country" and "hip-hop," but also music that caters to your "workout" or "sleep" preferences.

By changing how they describe their content, Spotify gets users to listen to music that goes beyond their favorite genres, and instead satisfies habits and lifestyles that people share all over the world. This allows international artists to access listeners from other countries simply because their product is being categorized a different way.

Spotify now has offices in 17 countries around the world.

If you have global aspirations for your business, you need to find out what customers in different communities have in common -- and how to localize your product for these different markets. Your first step? Take inspiration from one of the businesses above.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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What Video Marketers Can Learn from 5 Memorable Australian Commercials

By September of 2019, nearly 60% of Australia's population was on YouTube.

With internet and social media usage increasing in Australia, the percentage above is likely to grow.

Like people in many other countries, Australians embrace video when it comes to learning new things, entertaining themselves, or even researching new products. Now, with growing access to the web, mobile data, and all sorts of online video platforms, video is more readily at Australian fingertips than ever before.

At this point, if you're a marketer for an Australian company or an international brand looking to gain awareness in the region, video content or video ads could be solid tactics for you.

But, if you've never made a commercial or marketing video for your brand before, you might ask yourself, "Where do I even start?"

One of the best ways to learn how to effectively sell your brand or product through video could be watching commercials from your region's most successful brands.

By looking at some of the most iconic Australian commercials, you can learn about storytelling styles and other video marketing tactics that nurture national or global audiences from the TV or computer screen to stores.

And, even if you don't have the same video budget as a big brand, you can still use their content to consider similar, but more scaleable video strategies.

To help Australian or international marketers in their quest to create compelling video marketing content, here are five great Australian commercials that you can use for inspiration.

5 Iconic Australian Commercials Marketers Can Learn From

"Big Ad" - Carlton Draught (2006)

Carlton Draught's biggest commercial, produced by Young & Rubicam -- formerly George Patterson & Partners, places the viewer in the middle of a blockbuster movie war scene with the mountainous Australian landscape in the background.

As Big Ad begins, one large group of men in red robes walks swiftly towards an incoming group of men in yellow robes. As they get closer to each other with a quickening pace, they sing the words, "It's a big ad. Very big ad. It's a big ad we're in," to the tune of Carl Orff's epic work, "O Fortuna."

As the ad and song reach their climax, the men run towards each other at full speed as they loudly sing, "It's a big ad! For Carlton Draught! It's just so freaking huge! It's a big ad. Expensive ad. This ad better sell us some bloody beer!"

As the thousands of men run closer to each other, viewers see that they're not actually rushing into a huge battle. Instead, from a sky view, viewers can see that the men wearing red are shaping the image of a man drinking beer, while the men in yellow are shaping the beer glass and the beverage going into the man's stomach. The ad ends with close-up shots of the robes men in the group holding out Carlton Draught beer.

The Carlton Draught commercial so memorable because it hilariously and tastefully mocks the ridiculously high-budget commercials, as well as the advertising world, while still spreading huge awareness for Carlton Draught.

When reflecting on Big Ad and the ad industry, a post from O'Reilly notes the epic TV commercial style has "been a central feature of advertising for decades. Its defining characteristics are a dramatic setting, a huge cast, significant dollops of post-production, and a rather po-faced disposition. All of which makes it ripe for satire."

The spot was also part of a broader spoof campaign that mocked the grandeur and masculinity in beer industry advertising. Two other ads within the campaign, titled "Made From Beer," told stories of how science, technology, and horses were involved in the brewing process as well as how all men needed a canoe to seem masculine.

Big Ad, which might be the most memorable commercial in the George Patterson campaign, went on to win a Gold Lion and was nominated for the Grand Prix at the 2006 Cannes Lions Festival.

"Not Happy, Jan!" - Yellow Pages Australia (2000)

Before the internet, brands around the world relied on the Yellow Pages, a book filled with local business ads and phone numbers of individuals with landlines in the immediate area. And, even though some regions don't rely on the Yellow Pages to find all the local contact information we need any more, we can still get an idea of just how important it was to local businesses from the ad below.

In the commercial, a frustrated boss played by comedian Deborah Kennedy flips through the Yellow Pages and calls a scared employee named Jan into her office. Kennedy's character asks Jan why their company's ad isn't featured in it. Jan panics, runs out of the office, and down the street realizing she forgot to order the Yellow Pages ad.

Kennedy tries to remain calm, counting to ten until she runs to the window bursting with anger. She stares out the window at Jan running away and yells, "Not happy, Jan!"

The ad, produced by Clemenger BBDO, wasn't just funny and entertaining to viewers. It also became iconic in Australian culture. Shortly after airing, the phrase, "Not happy, Jan" became heavily used in vernacular when Australians wanted to jokingly show disappointment related to someone's incompetence.

In a Daily Telegraph interview, Kennedy explained that the phrase "Not happy, Jan," was "like swearing at your kids without swearing. It just took on a life of its own … it was everywhere."

Although people in some areas barely use the Yellow Pages, this ad's storyline still feels timeless and entertaining. Why? Because it cleverly uses humor and relatability to show a need for its product.

Odds are many people have dealt with a bad boss, forgetting to do something important at work, or a need to use the Yellow Pages to learn more about a local business. Similarly, many entrepreneurs and marketers in the 1980s through the early 2000s considered or purchased ads in the Yellow Pages. This ad tells a story that most of its viewers could relate to.

"I Can See the Pub from Here" - XXXX (1988)

Before it was rebranded as XXXX, Castlemaine XXXX's early beer commercials often showed rural Australian residents, farmers, and construction workers getting into humorous, but dangerous, situations just to get ahold of XXXX beer.

After a wild scene, a narrator would read the edgy tagline, "Australians Wouldn't Give a Castlemaine XXXX for Anything Else." Since the tagline was a play on a commonly used phrase curse word, the ads insinuated that Australians wouldn't care so much about any other beer or thing.

Below is one memorable 1986 ad where two cowboys are riding through the Australian landscape when one's horse gets spooked by a snake and tosses him off a cliff.

The cowboy's friend jumps off his horse and clumsily falls down the cliff trying to find his friend who's loudly calling out to him. After the friend continues to fall dramatically down the cliff to reach the other cowboy, he gains his footing and yells, "I'm coming, Snowie!" He then falls down a hill, faceplanting into a tree. At that point, the cowboy who fell off the cliff first yells "Up here!" as the other cowboy looks up confused.

In a funny turn of events, the cowboy who first fell off the cliff is shown nearly unscathed, pleasantly holding on to a tree. He looks at his disheveled friend who's just fallen hundreds of feet down a cliff to save him, smiles, points, and says, "I can see the pub from here."

The camera then points to a middle-of-nowhere pub as Castlemaine's iconic tagline appears:

This campaign, conceived by the agency Saatchi & Saatchi, is effective because it tells an exhilarating story that pulls viewers in, makes them laugh, and ultimately ties back to the main product: beer.

This is a great example of how marketers can use creativity to produce a fairly simple add that gains memorability and awareness all around the country.

"Louie the Fly" - Mortein (1962)

For years, Australians have followed Louie the Fly, an insect who constantly gets killed off in Mortein bug spray commercials. But, decades before the fly was modernized as a full-color cartoon, he was just a basic, hand-drawn animation in the classic black and white ad that introduced him below.

In the commercial, Louie the Fly introduces himself with a fun jingle. He sings, "Louie the Fly, I'm Louie the fly. Straight from rubbish, tip to you. Spreading disease with the greatest of ease. Straight from rubbish, tip to you."

As the fly sings, he also digs through garbage and dances around a messy house.

In the climax of the ad, he sings, "I'm bad and mean and mighty unclean. Afraid of no one, except for the man with the can of Mortein." Then, he turns around to see a can of Mortein spraying him. He looks scared, fades off-screen, and then dies as another singer enters the jingle with, "Poor dead Louie. A victim of Mortein."

After the jingle, Mortein's products are shown as the spokesperson explains that its ingredients safely and effectively kill pests in the home.

While this ad's animation and jingle might feel pretty basic today, it was innovative for its time -- and incredibly risky due to large production expenses. To bring Louie the Fly to life, Mortein's agency, McCann-Erickson, needed help from musicians, sound engineers, animators, and voice actors.

Luckily, audiences enjoyed Louie the Fly -- enabling him to be a notable fictional character in advertising. Even in recent years, Mortein has created ads that continue to show him getting killed off by bug spray products. They even dedicated a page of their website to him in the early 2000s.

Most recently, Louie the Fly's jingle was inducted in the National Film And Sound Archive of Australia's Sounds of Australia registry,

"Mortein ads still feature the unmistakable tune of the original jingle. And while everyone’s favourite gangster fly shows no sign of disappearing ..., the fact that the jingle is now part of Sounds of Australia means it will live on at the NFSA for future generations to enjoy," states a post on NFSA's site.

While Mortein's ad required a high-budget decades ago, marketers with smaller budgets can still take a note from them today. The commercial above is a great example of how a creative storyline or simple jingle can highlight the value and need for a product.

"Happy Little Vegemites" - Vegemite (1956)

Although Vegemite was invented and sold in Australia as early as 1922, it didn't get its first commercial until the 1950s, after it had already become a common Australian ingredient eaten by residents and members of the Australian military during World War II.

While many of the commercials on this list use humor to draw audiences, Vegemite's iconic 1956 ad, produced by Wunderman Thompson (formerly J Walter Thompson), thrived on circus entertainment. In the commercial, children dressed like animals, clowns, and "little Vegemites" sing, dance, and do light circus stunts to Vegemite's original jingle. Behind them sits a large jar of Vegemite.

Vegemite's jingle explained how commonly Vegemite was used as a meal spread and the health benefits it could provide to children. Here's just one excerpt.

"We all enjoy our Vegemite for breakfast, lunch, and tea. Our mummies say we're growing stronger every single week. … We all adore our Vegemite. It puts a rose in every cheek."

As the children finish singing the jingle, a girl sings, "It puts a rose in every cheek." The camera cuts from a close up of her in costume to a close up of her at the dining table eating a meal covered with Vegemite. Then, a narrator explains that Vegemite is a great source of vitamin B12, adding, "Be sure you put Vegemite next to the pepper and salt whenever you set the table!"

Today, Australian marketers still look back at this commercial for how iconic it was. While middle-aged Australians might know parts of the song by heart, others have adopted the term, "Happy little Vegemites" as an ironic way to describe a group of people who are satisfied with something.

Although Vegemite's ad was made nearly 70 years ago, it's still timeless and effective.

First, it pulls a viewer into the action by showing them a fun circus-like song and dance. Then, it educates viewers on the health and taste benefits of the product. Finally, it ends with a clip of a happy girl enjoying Vegemite with her meal, which might have been relatable to the many Australians who had already eaten or heard of Vegemite by this point.

Creating Memorable Content

Whether you're a marketer in Australia or any other country, you can learn a thing or two from all of the iconic Australian ads above. Even if you don't have an agency or a huge video budget to produce content, here are a few tips you can scalably follow:

• Be relatable: One thing Australian commercials do well is create situations that viewers can relate to, such as a pesky fly in the house or the stress of an angry boss. Consider content or video storylines that will allow your audience to identify with your brand.
• Leverage humor: One great way to develop a sense of relatability, while also entertaining your audiences is with humor. This is why many Australian marketers emphasize it within their content.
• Present a value proposition: An ad is no good if people don't understand your product or what it does. Although the ads above place viewers in entertaining scenes or storylines, they still weave in descriptions of what their product is, why people need it, and what makes it unique.

Want to see more effective examples of Australian advertising campaigns and marketing tactics? Check out this post which highlights some of Australia's recent award-winning campaigns.

To learn more about video marketing, you can also download the free resource below.

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What Are The 4 P's of Marketing?

If you've been a marketing professional for years now, learning about the four P's of marketing might seem like a throwback to you.

However, for those of us who work in the industry but didn't study marketing in college, it's entirely possible you haven't heard of the marketing mix.

Below, let's learn about the four P's of marketing and how they're still relevant in today's marketing landscape.

The four P's are meant to help marketers consider everything about a product or service when they're deciding how to market something for their business. Framing your marketing around the four P's will help you learn what the competition is doing and what customers want from you.

You can use the four P's to answer questions about the product, price, place, and promotion of your product or service.

For example, you can ask yourself:

• How does your product meet your customer's needs?
• Where are customers looking for your product?
• What is the value of your product?
• How can you differentiate your product from competitors?

Thinking about your marketing in terms of the four P's will help you strategize how to reach your customers.

Featured Resource: Marketing Mix Templates

Need a way to visualize your marketing mix to share it with your employees or investors? Use these four marketing mix templates to organize your initiatives and activities by the right section. Click here to download them now.

Let's dive into the details below.

1. Product

When you think about your product, consider exactly what you're selling. Is it a specific product? Or is it a service? Your product can be a physical product, an online app, or a service such as house cleaning. Really, anything that you're selling is the product.

Then, think of your brand messaging, the services you offer, and even packaging. When you define your product, think about what problem your product solves for your customers. Consider how your product is different from competing products. What features are unique to your product?

It's important to know your product intimately so you can market it.

2. Price

When it comes to price, you have to consider how much you're going to charge customers for your products or services. Of course, you need to make a profit. But you also need to think about what competitors are charging for the same product or service and how much customers are willing to pay.

Additionally, you can think about what discounts or offers you can use in your marketing.

When you decide on a price, you want to think about perception. Do you want to be known as a cost-effective option in your industry? Or perhaps you're a luxury brand and the price is slightly higher than competition on the market.

Either way, the language you use to market your product will be greatly impacted by the price of your product.

3. Place

When it comes to place, this might mean the physical location of your company, but it could also be defined as anywhere you sell your product, which might be online.

The place is where you market and distribute your product.

Remember, that not every place makes sense for every product. For example, if your target market is seniors, then it won't make sense to market on TikTok. It's important to choose the right places to market your product and meet your customers where they're at.

Think about possible distribution channels, what outlets you could sell your product, whether you're B2B or B2C, etc.

At this point, you'll need to think about how to market your product on all the various channels that make sense for your company.

4. Promotion

Promotion is the bread and butter of marketing. This is when you'll think about how to publicize and advertise your product.

Additionally, you'll discuss brand messaging, brand awareness, and how to generate leads and revenue.

When it comes to promotion, keeping communication in mind is of the utmost importance. What messages will resonate with your target market? How can you best promote your product to them?

Think about where, when, and how you'll promote your brand.

To develop a marketing mix, you'll need to think about how you can uniquely position your brand amongst the competition. The most important part of thinking about the four P's of marketing is to understand the customer, the competition, and your company. You'll evaluate your product and how to promote it.

Even though marketing has changed since the four P's were developed, the foundational elements of the industry haven't. You can apply the concepts of the marketing mix to any type of marketing.

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