The Wrong Question Brands Keep Asking
Every Super Bowl, brands spend months and tens of millions of dollars, competing for attention during the biggest advertising moment of the year. And every year, once the confetti settles, the same question comes up: Which celebrity ads worked?
That’s no longer the right question. The better one is: Which brands built something that lasts beyond Sunday night? Celebrity remains powerful, but too many brands are still treating star power as a short-term stunt instead of part of a broader entertainment ecosystem designed to compound value over time. In this article, Hollywood Branded discusses why celebrity ads alone are no longer enough and how entertainment partnerships create longer-term brand equity than one-night spectacle.
Nostalgia as Trust Infrastructure
Some of the strongest Super Bowl spots this year didn’t just feature celebrities - they built entire cultural worlds around them. Dunkin’s sequel campaign pulled from decades of iconic television IP, layering recognizable personalities with built-in audience familiarity. That’s not just casting - it’s licensing, approvals, scheduling, and serious production complexity.
What stood out wasn’t the punchline. It was the strategy: nostalgia as trust. Jurassic Park, Friends, Seinfeld, and other recognizable IPs weren’t decoration. They were credibility anchors. In many cases, the intellectual property carried more weight than the individual celebrity. Familiar worlds create emotional shorthand and that reduces friction.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
When Brands Win by Not Leading
The most powerful brand moment of the night arguably wasn’t a commercial. It was cultural presence. Bad Bunny’s performance wasn’t selling a product - it was expressing identity and belonging. Brands benefited simply by being adjacent.
That’s a critical reminder: cultural relevance doesn’t always require messaging. Sometimes it requires restraint. Authenticity cannot be manufactured but it can be aligned with. When brands choose the right moment and partner, they don’t need to dominate the narrative. They simply need to exist within it.
Photo Credit: KC Concerts
Paying Twice for Attention
Super Bowl advertisers pay twice - once for production, once for media. Celebrity talent, sets, custom creative, then roughly $8 million for 30 seconds of distribution. The scale is undeniable. But so is the reset.
Meanwhile, Hollywood already produces global content with built-in audiences. When brands partner early with films or series, production dollars can offset filming costs, unlock talent access, and generate reusable assets. The media is baked in. Streaming, reruns, clips, international releases, impressions compound instead of reset.
That’s not a stunt. That’s infrastructure.
Borrowed Attention vs. Embedded Value
There’s nothing wrong with IP-only licensing. It’s faster. Lower lift. Safer. For many brands, it’s a smart entry point.
But stopping there caps the value curve. Real scale happens when brands integrate inside narrative worlds - where the product becomes part of the story, not an interruption around it. That’s when impressions extend for years, not weeks. That’s when CPM declines instead of restarting.
Celebrity alone is visibility. Integration is longevity.
Photo Credit: LinkedIn
Entertainment Is the Ecosystem
The Super Bowl will always be spectacle. But the brands that win long-term are not the ones chasing the loudest moment. They’re the ones building inside systems that already command attention.
Celebrity isn’t the shortcut. IP isn’t the cheat code. Entertainment is the ecosystem. And brands that learn to operate within it will stop paying for attention and start earning it.
Photo Credit: Freepik
Eager To Learn More?
If you’re thinking more strategically about celebrity partnerships and long-term entertainment integration, these Hollywood Branded insights expand the conversation:
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