AW Playmaker Award: Molly Battin, CMO of the Year

For Molly Battin, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at The Home Depot and CMO of the Year at the Advertising Week Playmaker Awards, the most powerful brand partnerships go far beyond logos and celebrity endorsements. From ESPN’s College GameDay to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Battin has helped position The Home Depot at the intersection of sports, culture, and creativity, turning shared passions into meaningful brand experiences. In this exclusive Q&A, she explores the evolution of modern fandom, the importance of authentic creator partnerships, and why lasting cultural impact is measured not simply by attention, but by the connections and actions that attention inspires.

Q: AWPlaymaker Awards celebrate the collision of sports, culture, and creativity. How do you see yourself playing a role in shaping that intersection today?

Sports aren’t just about what happens on the pitch, on the field or on the court, they represent a shared passion that brings people together in their homes, backyards and communities. For our team at The Home Depot, that creates an incredible opportunity to connect our brand directly to how people live, gather and celebrate.

Live sports remain one of the last true communal experiences in media. Instead of watching broadcasts passively, fans are co-creating the experience in real time, and the second screen experience has completely transformed how fans engage with the game. With over 80% of sports fans actively using a secondary device to engage with creator content and cultural conversation while watching a game, fandom has expanded far beyond the television screen. Our team blends storytelling and media to create experiences that meet our customers where they are. Whether we are transforming a backyard into the ultimate match-day watch party with David Beckham, hitting the road with Men in Blazers, or hyping up fans on Saturday mornings with ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot, our presence feels like a natural extension of how people express their passion.

Q: What does authentic collaboration between a creator and a brand look like to you?

A strong partnership starts with a genuine fit: shared values, a natural audience connection, and a clear role for the brand that makes sense. Reach is only part of the equation. The creator has to be able to tell the story in a way that feels authentic to them and relevant to their community. The magic happens when brands and creators can build this together.

This summer, during FIFA World Cup, we brought over 100 creators to Atlanta for an event called Unmatched. We immersed them in our brand, gave them hands-on product experiences, and hosted them at a match, it was an experience uniquely Home Depot. By building real human connections first and trusting creators to guide the narrative, we unlock partnerships that truly resonate.

Q: Modern fandom extends from locker rooms to living rooms — and now to social feeds and beyond. How do you build and maintain that kind of genuine community with your audience?

Fandom and DIY culture share the same DNA — neither is passive. Whether fans are crafting a custom tailgate setup for game day or transforming their backyards to host friends for the World Cup, it takes real pride, preparation and a sense of community to bring those moments to life.

To build genuine community, you must think beyond a single broadcast or isolated activation – it’s more of an ecosystem. With younger demographics spending over 60% of their sports engagement on short-form video and social feeds, our team focuses on bridging the physical and digital worlds. Around FIFA World Cup 2026, for instance, our teams activated across every touchpoint — from sweepstakes and shoppable DIY guides on social feeds to hands-on soccer Kids Workshops in our stores and special-edition orange aprons for our associates.

Q: We’ve seen athletes become full-blown media brands and creators become cultural voices in sports. Where do you see that evolution heading next?

Athletes and creators are building their own media platforms and direct relationships with fans, which gives brands exciting new ways to participate in culture — but it also raises the bar. A partnership has to bring something meaningful to the community, not just a logo. For example, when our team brought Sabrina Ionescu into our NCAA March Madness campaign alongside Shaq for Tips from the Tool Shaq, we didn’t just ask her to be a featured athlete—our teams collaborated with her on content like “Sabrina’s Three Pointers,” blending her elite playmaking with fun, practical DIY advice for our customers.

As technology makes content creation and distribution easier, trust and authenticity become the ultimate differentiators. Our team sees the future in building long-term creative platforms with athletes and creators that connect their voices with tangible experiences, products and ideas people can actually use.

Q: There’s a difference between influence and impact. How do you measure success beyond views or engagement when it comes to shaping culture?

Views, impressions and engagement tell our team if we captured someone’s attention for a brief moment, but that’s just the baseline metric. Our team defines true cultural impact by behavior change, long-term brand affinity and tangible business outcomes. Reach matters, but our team is focused on understanding what people actually do as a result — whether that’s taking part in an experience, engaging deeper with our brand or becoming a customer.

For example, for more than 24 years, College GameDay has become so much more than a broadcast. Our brand has shaped a Saturday morning ritual for fans everywhere. “Built by The Home Depot” has become part of the vocabulary of college sports culture, defining how fans tailgate, make signs and celebrate every fall weekend. That’s real impact.

Q: When brands approach you for a collaboration, what convinces you that the partnership will feel natural to your audience?

At The Home Depot, literally everything we do starts with thinking about the customer first, from the slightest in-store change to broader partnerships. The question isn’t about sticking a logo somewhere and hoping it resonates with fans, its whether the activation gives the audience something worthwhile and whether it fits with what the brand already stands for. That’s why sports has been such a powerful platform for The Home Depot. We view live sports as opportunities to create experiences that bring people together and show up in places our customers already care about.

Becoming the Official Home Improvement Retail Supporter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a great example. Soccer is one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S. and deeply connected to the communities we serve. Beyond the matches themselves, the 2026 FIFA World Cup gave us an opportunity to engage customers, associates, Pros and partners through everything from fan experiences and creator collaborations to in-store Kids Workshops and community programs. It has helped us connect with younger and more diverse audiences, create meaningful experiences at scale, and position The Home Depot at the center of one of the world’s biggest cultural moments. That’s when you know a partnership works: it strengthens the business, creates value for customers and feels like a natural extension of your brand.