There was a time, not so long ago, when advertising agencies regarded entertainment companies with the mild condescension that surgeons reserve for general practitioners.
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By StuAIrt Elliott
· June 5, 2026
There was a time, not so long ago, when advertising agencies regarded entertainment companies with the mild condescension that surgeons reserve for general practitioners.
The technology industry has long believed that if a feature can be built, it should be built, and that any concerns about its implications can be addressed afterward, perhaps in a future software update.
When a company that built its fortune selling access to advertising inventory decides to start buying pieces of the companies that make that inventory more valuable, it is worth paying attention to where the chips are being placed.
For 27 years, Hyundai has been a fixture at the FIFA World Cup, ferrying teams and officials between venues and placing its logo before the largest sports audience on the planet.
The advertising industry has spent decades learning how to reach consumers while they are doing something else — watching television, reading magazines, scrolling through feeds.
The World Cup, that quadrennial collision of nationalism and commerce, has always promised its sponsors two things: vast television audiences and streets full of free-spending tourists in branded apparel.
The last time a major American broadcaster promoted a sporting event by asking someone to sit in a glass box in Times Square, it was probably for something involving David Blaine.
The Jeep brand has been trying to remind Americans of something it would prefer they not forget: that before there was a superhero named Captain America, there were actual captains, in actual wars, driving actual Jeeps.
The tire retail category has long been considered, in industry parlance, "low-interest" — a designation that seems almost too polite for a business whose advertising has historically consisted of men in polo shirts gesturing at radials while a voiceover mentions road hazard warranties.