Despite flight to fame, celeb talent isn’t as sure a bet as CMOs think

Benson Boone and Ben Stiller for Instacart. Adrian Brody for Intuit TurboTax. Emma Stone for Squarespace. Odd-couple pairings between celebrity talent and consumer brands aren’t a novelty for Super Bowl ads, but the sheer number of brands relying on a famous face to help them cut through with viewers at home this year was notable. 

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Super Bowl ads featured one or more celebrity talents this year, according to data from TV measurement company iSpot. Back in 2011, only around a quarter of ads included an A-lister, but a reliance on Hollywood names has been typical of Big Game ads since the start of this decade.

It’s part of a broader pattern. The “built-in affinity” a top name can bring means it’s “an easy place to go,” said Mike Hayward, chief creative officer at agency Copacino Fujikado.

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Media Briefing: Turning scraped content into paid assets — Amazon and Microsoft build AI marketplaces

This week’s Media Briefing examines how Amazon is the latest tech giant trying to turn the problem of AI scraping publishers’ content for free into a structured marketplace — if it can get LLMs to pay up.

  • Amazon joins Microsoft in race to build AI content marketplaces
  • European news publishers file complaint against Google for AI Overviews, Washington Post CEO steps down after layoffs, and more.

Amazon joins Microsoft in race to build AI content marketplaces

The race among tech companies to scale AI licensing infrastructure is officially underway.

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