Bad Bunny’s selection as the Super Bowl halftime performer raises practical questions for brands. Does his presence drive awareness and help sales? Does featuring an outspoken Latino performer during the nation’s largest sporting event, at a time when Latinos are at the center of immigration raids, inject politics into brand marketing? Can a joyful, dance-driven reggaeton performance help change the narrative and connect with the broader market?

To answer that, ThinkNow conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,500 U.S. adults examining awareness, reaction, cultural meaning, and brand implications surrounding Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl appearance.

Download the full report here.

Awareness Is Broad, But Uneven

Awareness of Bad Bunny is solid but not universal. Just over 60% of U.S. adults say they know who he is, with awareness concentrated among Hispanics and Gen Z. Awareness that he is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show is highest among Hispanics, followed by non-Hispanic Whites, with only modest variation by age.

This establishes the baseline reality. Bad Bunny is mainstream, though not evenly so, and his strongest recognition remains rooted in Latino and younger audiences.

Initial reactions to Bad Bunny as the halftime performer are strongly positive among Hispanics and younger generations. Interest in watching the halftime show because of Bad Bunny follows the same pattern.

Culture, Politics, and the Moment We Are In

This Super Bowl lands at a tense cultural moment. Latinos are at the center of the current immigration raids, facing heightened enforcement, fear, and public scrutiny. Visibility has increased at the same time political rhetoric has hardened. Bad Bunny’s reggaeton-forward, dance-focused, joyful energy matters here. While Bad Bunny is skipping the U.S. on his current World Tour schedule because of concerns that ICE would be present outside shows, his music isn’t overtly political. It celebrates Hispanic, specifically Puerto Rican, culture.

The data reflects this reality. Younger audiences and Hispanics overwhelmingly see Bad Bunny’s performance as affirming and forward-looking. Older and non-Hispanic White audiences show more ambivalence. This divide mirrors broader debates about whether multiculturalism continues to expand or whether a narrower vision of American identity reasserts itself.

Cultural Impact Is Widely Recognized

Sixty percent of respondents say Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl is good for Latino cultural representation in mainstream media. Agreement is strongest among Hispanics and younger generations and weaker among older and non-Hispanic White audiences. Nearly two-thirds of respondents agree that his performance reflects the growing influence of Latino culture in the United States.

Brand Impact Is Positive, With Clear Boundaries

Using Bad Bunny in a Super Bowl ad generates positive brand perceptions across most demographic groups. The effect is strongest among Gen Z, Millennials, and Hispanics. Non-Hispanic Whites show a more muted response.

Spanish-language music or reggaeton significantly increases brand recall among Hispanics and younger audiences. Recall gains decline among Gen X and Boomers, reinforcing that cultural specificity drives impact within aligned segments.

Bad Bunny also drives word-of-mouth intent among Hispanics and younger consumers, though overall lift at the total market level is limited.

When asked what values a brand signals by featuring Bad Bunny, respondents most often select youth-oriented, trend-forward, and inclusive. These associations are especially strong among Hispanics, Gen Z, and Millennials.

Language and Creative Choices

In terms of Bad Bunny’s appeal in advertising, English-language ads featuring Bad Bunny are preferred. Hispanics stand out as the only group that shows a stronger preference for Spanish-language or bilingual advertising.

Elements that make Bad Bunny feel most authentic include Latino cultural references, reggaeton or dance-driven music, and Puerto Rican cultural cues. These resonate most strongly with Hispanics, Black audiences, and younger consumers.

A fun, party-focused creative centered on cultural pride emerges as the most appealing ad concept overall. Cross-cultural collaborations resonate more with Black and Asian audiences.

Commercial Risk Is Low

Only about one-third of respondents believe featuring Bad Bunny in Super Bowl advertising carries risk for brands. Concern is highest among non-Hispanic Whites, but remains a minority view even within that group.

Purchase consideration follows familiar lines. About one-third of adults say Bad Bunny in a Super Bowl ad would make them more likely to consider buying from the brand. The lift is significantly stronger among Hispanics, African Americans, Gen Z, and Millennials and much lower among Boomers and non-Hispanic Whites.

Counter-Programming Has Limited Pull

Most respondents were unaware that Turning Point USA plans to run an alternative “All American Halftime Show.” When given the choice, the official halftime show is preferred by a ratio of 5 to 1 by Latinos, 2 to 1 by Asian and African Americans, and by a plurality of non-Hispanic Whites.

What This Means for Brands

Bad Bunny delivers real brand value, though his strongest impact lies with Hispanics and younger consumers, particularly when cultural authenticity is embraced directly.

This moment is a test. It asks whether brands believe cultural progress pauses during periods of backlash or whether it continues through celebration, visibility, and confidence.

The data points to an answer. Latino culture continues to advance. Joy continues to travel. Music continues to move people forward. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance reflects that reality. Latinos are here to stay. The darkness will pass. Celebration remains.

Download the full report here.

Los Angeles is entering a three-year period unlike anything in marketing history. Between the 2026 World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl, and 2028 Olympics, billions in brand investment will flow through a single city. But while the attention and spending will be unprecedented, most marketers are still planning for L.A. using outdated assumptions.

ThinkNow’s new study, The World in One City, challenges those assumptions. The data shows that Los Angeles is not just diverse. It is structurally, culturally, and demographically different from any other U.S. market. And in 2026, brands who fail to recognize these differences will waste significant resources.

Key findings:

• More than half of Angelenos believe their city represents the future of the United States
• Only 37 percent feel accurately represented in advertising
• Nearly 70 percent say everyday diversity defines what L.A. is
• Trendsetting power is strongest in entertainment, food, fashion, music, and fandom
• Civic pride is high, but expectations of authenticity are even higher

If your brand treats L.A. like any other market, you will miss what truly drives cultural relevance and performance here. The city already lives in the demographic future the rest of the country is moving toward.

The complete findings are available in ThinkNow’s new strategic mini-report, including:

• Detailed identity insights
• Representation and authenticity expectations
• Trendsetting categories to prioritize
• Event-year behaviors tied to the World Cup, Super Bowl, and Olympics
• What this means for marketing, media, and creative strategy

Download the report to see the real Los Angeles, and to build campaigns that perform in 2026 and beyond.

For years, multicultural marketing was treated as an add on. Something layered onto a broader strategy. But in a country where diversity is now the engine of growth, that approach is no longer enough.

In this episode of The New Mainstream Podcast, Mario Carrasco speaks with Arnetta Whiteside, SVP, Multicultural Consulting, Publicis Media at Publicis Groupe, about how brands must rethink culture, representation, and who truly holds power in the marketing ecosystem.

The conversation closely aligns with ThinkNow’s 'The World in One City' initiative, which positions Los Angeles as the place where cultural, identity, and consumer behavior shifts appear first, before spreading across the United States.

Representation is not visibility. It is influence.

One of the key takeaways from the episode is the distinction many brands still miss. Representation is not just about who appears in ads. It is about who shapes the insights, who defines strategy, and who makes decisions.

Arnetta emphasizes that when communities are visible but not influential, brands lose credibility. That disconnect leads to weaker engagement and declining trust.

This mirrors what ThinkNow sees in Los Angeles, where only a minority of residents feel brands represent them accurately, despite the city’s outsized cultural influence on the rest of the country.

Culture is not a segment. It is the system.

Another central theme is that culture can no longer be treated as a niche. In markets like Los Angeles, identity is layered, fluid, and contextual. People move between communities, languages, and cultural signals daily.

Brands still relying on rigid demographic frameworks are optimizing for a consumer that no longer exists. Those that treat culture as an operating system, not a campaign, are building lasting relevance.

The cost of misunderstanding the new mainstream

The episode also makes one thing clear. Choosing not to adapt is no longer neutral.

When brands fail to understand the communities driving growth, they lose legitimacy. When lived experience is absent from strategy, attention fades. And when cultural complexity is ignored, competitors move faster.

From conversation to action

The episode closes with a clear message. Inclusion is not just a value. It is a business advantage when backed by structure, data, and informed decision making.

Listen to the full episode of The New Mainstream Podcast with Arnetta Whiteside and explore how culture, power, and representation are reshaping marketing in the United States.

Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It starts with people who build intentional systems to understand human behavior. Data and technology may power today’s marketplace, but empathy is the true differentiator that sets brands apart. Knowing what consumers buy and why, how they use it, what challenges they face, and what makes their experience better lays the foundation for strong product development and messaging that resonates.

Like engineers observing how contractors interact with building materials, product marketers must immerse themselves in the customer experience. Real insight doesn’t come from dashboards alone. It comes from listening without assumptions, observing real behavior, and engaging not just to gather feedback but to build empathy deep enough to understand what customers may never say outright.

Equally important is recognizing the cultural and demographic shifts shaping modern consumers. Hispanic representation is on the rise, more women are driving key decisions, and diverse communities are redefining what influence looks like. For product marketers, this is a call to move past stereotypes and build authentic connections with the people who use, recommend, and ultimately champion your products.

In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Agustin Hernandez, R&D Leader at Owens Corning, explores how empathy and cultural intelligence drive innovation and shape products that more effectively reflect consumer needs and solve real-world problems.

Walk through any major city in the U.S. and you’ll see it. Consumer demographics are shifting. From local shops to national brands, multicultural communities are driving commerce and key economic trends. Yet, while consumers are evolving, many marketing strategies are not. Too often, multicultural audiences remain an afterthought rather than the center of business growth.

Brands that succeed in multicultural marketing start by recognizing that inclusion is a business imperative, not optional. Data shows that in many regions, net population growth and the dollars that come with it are driven by Hispanic, Black, and Asian consumers. Failing to engage these audiences is a missed opportunity, putting brands at a competitive disadvantage.

For brands that are investing in multicultural marketing, authenticity is foundational. Campaigns that perform best are rooted in local insight and cultural nuance, often brought to life through relatable storytelling and community-driven engagement. For example, influencer partnerships that reflect real family dynamics, humor, and everyday experiences resonate far more deeply than ads simply translated from English. When creative control is shared with culturally fluent voices, brands earn credibility and build relationships.

Technology powers these relationships, offering new ways to reach, engage, and measure audiences. Artificial intelligence, for instance, can help brands understand consumers, but without culturally diverse data, it misses the nuances that define communities. Human insight is critical to ensuring inclusion and minimizing bias.

On this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Liz Pedraza, Director of Hispanic Marketing at Pinnacle Advertising and President of CIMA Advertising, explores how multicultural insight, data, and authentic storytelling create measurable business impact for brands.

Meet Our Guest:

As a 300%er, Liz’s Mexican, Puerto Rican, and American roots run deep. Growing up proud of her vibrant heritage gave Liz the courage to dream big and find new ways to reach and speak to the Latino consumer. A career spanning over 20+ years of media and strategy experience, including Univision Communications, Telemundo, NBC Universal, iHeart Media and NPR. Liz infuses boldness, drive, and a love for her culture into her work, inspiring others to embrace the beauty, relevance, and opportunity of these key audiences. A thought leader in the industry, Liz continues to weave tales of tradition and forward-thinking into the ever-changing tapestry of Multicultural marketing in the U.S.

When we launched ThinkNow Audiences, our goal was simple: put multicultural data where media gets bought. We saw a gap between multicultural insights and how those insights were being activated in media buys, so we built a bridge.

Now, that bridge is getting wider, smarter, and faster.

ThinkNow Audiences 2.0 isn’t just a refresh. It’s a strategic evolution in multicultural research and programmatic media buying. We’ve doubled down on contextual relevance, expanded private marketplace (PMP) partnerships, and focused on what matters most to buyers – culturally relevant campaigns that drive top-line results.

From Demographics to Cultural Context

Traditional multicultural targeting has often been limited to high-level demographics, like age, ethnicity, and language. While still useful, those markers alone do not fully reflect how people engage with media or express their identities in 2025.

Today’s audiences are fluid. They move between languages, cultures, and platforms depending on their mood, the moment, and the medium. So, our audience strategy needed to evolve to capture the nuances of today’s consumers.

ThinkNow Audiences 2.0 introduces a new layer of cultural context built around behaviors, affinities, and signals that reflect this complexity, including:

• Spanglish fluency segments
• Cultural content affinity, such as regional music fans, Latin American sports loyalists, or bilingual comedy watchers
• Crossover consumers who blend multicultural identity with general market tastes in streaming, shopping, and social media

By mapping these signals, we’re creating segments that reach not only Latino, Black, and Asian consumers, but also those from other diverse backgrounds. They speak to who they are and what they care about in the moment they’re engaging.

Why Contextual Targeting Matters Now

The loss of cookies has made contextual data more valuable than ever. While much of the industry is still catching up, multicultural audiences have always been more effectively engaged through context, not just identity signals.

We’ve leaned into the shift to contextual by:

• Partnering with publishers that offer culturally-aligned content environments
• Layering survey-based insights into PMP strategies so inventory reflects not just who the user is, but how and where they consume content
• Building cultural contextual bundles around moments like Hispanic Heritage Month, Día de los Muertos, or Black Music Month

In short, we’re shifting from basic audience targeting to authentic audience connection.

PMP: The Quiet Power Play

A big part of our 2.0 rollout has been focused on private marketplace deals, where we’re seeing serious traction. The agencies and brands we work with are looking for:

• Efficiency with better performance per dollar spent
• Trust through inventory with verified cultural alignment
• Customization through the ability to match creative with context

PMPs allow us to deliver all three. They provide our partners with an easy entry point into multicultural activation, eliminating the need to overhaul their entire media strategy.

We’ve seen success working with Hispanic-focused agencies, Black-owned publishers, and general market programmatic buyers who want to reach growth audiences with more intention.

Built with Cultural Integrity

What makes ThinkNow Audiences different isn’t just the multicultural data. It’s how the data is created. Our segments are built on:

• Zero-party data from ThinkNow’s proprietary research panels, real people voluntarily sharing their perspectives
• Cultural nuance layered in by humans, not just algorithms that assign generic labels
• Validated behavioral signals that reflect lived experiences rather than broad modeled assumptions

ThinkNow Audiences is not repackaged, generic data with a multicultural label on it. It’s original and culturally grounded, the result of over a decade of working at the intersection of culture, data, and media.

Looking Ahead

As we move into 2026, we are committed to making it easier for brands to meet multicultural audiences where they are in ways that are important to them.

ThinkNow Audiences 2.0 is a step forward, but it’s also an invitation to the industry to make multicultural marketing, central, not secondary, to data strategy to drive relevance in marketing and media. The future of audience targeting is not just more diverse, it’s more human, and that’s what we’re building for.

Storytelling has long been recognized as a powerful way to bridge differences and build empathy across communities. To advance health equity, stories that transform complex medical terms and statistics into human experiences can break down barriers and even save lives. When people hear from survivors or caregivers who share their culture, language, or background, it fosters trust, a crucial step in opening access and promoting advocacy within historically marginalized communities.

Health equity means people have access to resources specific to their needs, not simply offering the same solution to all. Equality may give everyone a bike, but equity ensures each bike is suited to its rider. In breast cancer care, this distinction is life-saving. Black women in the U.S. are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than White women, despite similar screening rates. Latina women are often diagnosed later, when treatment options are fewer. These disparities stem not from personal choice but systemic barriers such as language gaps, misdiagnoses, and limited access to culturally competent care.

Addressing these inequities requires intentional, culturally relevant programs that provide wraparound support. Initiatives like patient navigation services, bilingual resources, and financial aid assistance help dismantle barriers and guide patients through overwhelming diagnoses, ensuring they are not left behind. Partnerships with faith communities, advocacy groups, healthcare providers, and media allies are also important in expanding the reach of resources while demonstrating a commitment that extends beyond awareness months.

The future of storytelling in multicultural marketing within healthcare requires authenticity and accountability. Communities expect organizations to listen, act, and show up consistently in ways that align with their values.

In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Nikki Hopewell, Director of Multicultural Marketing at Susan G. Komen, shares how storytelling, equity, and authentic partnerships intersect to advance breast cancer awareness and care.