Super Bowl ads, Bad Bunny, and the business of cultural risk, with Autodesk’s Dara Treseder

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl ad didn't divide America , it healed it. While pundits braced for backlash over the Puerto Rican superstar's halftime moment, Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder saw something else entirely: a masterclass in cultural positioning that every brand should study.

"I disagree. I think that Bad Bunny united us," Treseder argues. "There are things that he could have chosen to say or chosen to do that would have been divisive. Instead, he says, god bless America in English. He has a football that says, together, we are America." The performance worked because it made a statement without picking sides , exactly the kind of principled stance that cuts through today's polarized marketing landscape.

Most Super Bowl advertisers failed this test spectacularly. AI companies, despite dominating the commercial breaks, delivered what Treseder calls "a huge disappointment." The exception? Anthropic. "It almost felt like anthropic was over here and everybody else was over here. So there was a huge gap," she observes. While competitors leaned into generic AI hype, Anthropic made a clear, differentiated statement about their technology's purpose.

This gap reveals why traditional marketing frameworks are breaking down. Treseder's team at Autodesk , which powers the design software behind Olympic stadiums and Super Bowl venues , has evolved beyond the standard "ownable, relevant, and memorable" criteria. "Given the context of where we are at, I think we have to add the lens of simplicity. So was it simple enough? Because there's so much chaos happening in the world. I think it had to also be sincere. There is so much insincerity and inauthenticity in today's context. And the last thing I would say is it had to be statement making."

The new formula matters because brands face an impossible choice: stay silent and become irrelevant, or speak up and risk alienating customers. But Treseder rejects this binary thinking entirely. The real question isn't whether to take a stand , it's how to take the right kind of stand.

"What is honestly running in my head a lot of the time is, are we saying the things we need to say to the people we need to say them to in a sincere way?" she explains. "And I think sometimes that might be a statement that is red. It might be a statement that is blue. It might be a statement that is purple. I think that that's actually not the problem. The problem that we are facing or seeing is moral decay."

This insight cuts deeper than political positioning tactics. Treseder argues that brands obsess over partisan perception when they should focus on moral clarity. Companies can advocate for innovation, creativity, human dignity, or excellence without triggering culture war reflexes. The key is grounding statements in genuine business purpose rather than performative activism.

Bad Bunny succeeded because his message aligned with football's unifying power while honoring his cultural identity. Anthropic succeeded because they focused on their technology's genuine capabilities rather than abstract AI promises. Both avoided the trap of trying to be everything to everyone while still appealing broadly.

The lesson extends beyond advertising creative. In an attention economy flooded with noise, brands must choose between being forgettable or being meaningful. Treseder's expanded framework , simple, sincere, statement-making , provides a roadmap for cutting through without cutting off potential customers.

Watch for brands that master this balance in 2024. They'll take clear positions on issues that matter to their business and customers, but they'll ground those positions in shared values rather than partisan talking points. They'll be simple enough to understand instantly, sincere enough to trust, and bold enough to remember. Most importantly, they'll stop asking whether their message is red or blue and start asking whether it's true.