The Bad Bunny Effect: Why This Is Good Marketing

By Carla Urdaneta –  fluent360

When the news broke in 2025 that Bad Bunny would be part of the Super Bowl conversation, the reaction was immediate and loud. Not just from music fans, but from brands, marketers, and audiences who don’t always see themselves reflected in America’s biggest sporting moment.

Fast forward to the week of Super Bowl 2026, and the momentum hasn’t slowed. If anything, it’s clarified something many in advertising already know: when culture leads, attention follows. From an agency perspective, this isn’t just pop culture trivia. It’s a masterclass in how cultural relevance, timing, and audience understanding can expand a brand moment far beyond a single game.

Cultural relevance drives attention

American football has long been framed as a traditional American institution, but that framing has been steadily evolving over the past decade. Through international expansion, Spanish-language content, and global partnerships, the league has been actively widening who the game is for. The reality of the audience has been changing for years, and younger fans, multicultural viewers, global audiences, and Gen Z don’t consume culture in silos. Music, sports, fashion, and identity constantly overlap.

Bad Bunny’s involvement cracked that door wide open. As a Puerto Rican, Spanish-speaking global superstar, he brings star power and new audiences into the conversation. Fans who might not tune in for the game itself suddenly have a reason to pay attention. Social feeds light up. Group chats come to live. Coverage extends beyond sports media into music, culture, and lifestyle spaces. That’s cultural relevance doing the heavy lifting.

For marketers, this is a reminder that growth doesn’t always come from doubling down on your core audience. Sometimes it comes from expanding who feels invited into the moment.

Momentum beats one-off moments

What makes this especially compelling as we head into Super Bowl 2026 is that this wasn’t treated as a one-and-done stunt. The initial 2025 announcement created buzz, sure, but the story didn’t end there. The conversation continued across music tours, fashion moments, brand partnerships, and social commentary. Each touchpoint reinforced the same signal: culture isn’t something you tap once. It’s something you build with, over time.

It also matters who’s shaping these moments. Since 2019, the Super Bowl halftime show has been produced in partnership with Roc Nation, with Jay-Z playing a central role in artist selection, helping explain why recent choices feel culturally intentional, not reactive. The smartest brands understand this instinctively. Instead of just reacting to cultural moments to be relevant, they invest in narratives that unfold across months and years. They show up consistently, authentically, and with intention. From an agency lens, that’s where real value is created. Sustained relevance keeps brands in the conversation long after the initial headline fades.

Why this works as marketing

At its core, the Bad Bunny effect works because it’s rooted in understanding and not in trend-chasing. It understands that today’s audiences are multicultural, multi-hyphenate, and deeply attuned to authenticity. They can tell when a brand is forcing itself into culture versus when it genuinely belongs there.

It understands that emotional connection matters more than impressions. Representation matters. Seeing someone who looks like you, speaks like you, and moves through the world like you on one of the biggest stages in media signals inclusion in a way no tagline ever could.

And it understands timing. The Super Bowl stopped being a simple game a long time ago and became a cultural checkpoint. Aligning with artists and voices who already shape culture ensures the moment feels earned and not engineered.

From where we sit, this is what smart marketing looks like in 2026:

• Leaning into culture instead of resisting it
• Expanding the definition of who a “mainstream” audience is
• Building momentum, not just moments
• Creating connection before chasing conversion

The takeaway for brands

The lesson here isn’t “put a celebrity in a big moment and call it a win.” It’s deeper than that. The lesson is that culture is a growth strategy. When brands pay attention to who culture is actually being driven by and give those voices real space, they unlock relevance that no media plan alone can buy. They earn attention, loyalty, and conversation in ways that feel organic because… well, they are.

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl presence became one of the clearest signals of who the league has been building toward. And that’s why it worked. So, to marketers watching from the sidelines, the message is: culture doesn’t wait to be activated, and the brands that understand that are the ones shaping what comes next. Because the strongest cultural moments aren’t manufactured, they’re the result of long-term commitment meeting the right moment at full speed.