Brands And Radio Can Learn From Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX Halftime Storytelling

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX performance wasn’t just entertainment for the more than 128 million people watching. It was an example of how to tell a story without relying on language.

My professional background includes working with a few Spanish-language-themed brands, but I don’t speak Spanish. However, I understood most of the performance’s storyline based on the visual narrative. The sets, the props, the scenes, the transitions and the symbolism created a storyline and engagement.

If the performance were Mr. Ocasio on stage with a band singing reggaeton songs from his four Grammy-winning albums, the non-Spanish-speaking audience would have been at a disadvantage in understanding what was happening. But the performance wasn’t just songs.

Bad Bunny and his team created visuals to bring the audience into the story. You didn’t have to like or agree with the story, but there was an effort to share the story beyond language barriers.

Below are seven takeaways and applications for brands and radio stations based on the Super Bowl LX halftime show, each drawn directly from the seven main scenes of the performance. Did I go back and make notes to formulate these takeaways? Sure I did. But I’m struck by how each scene creates a memorable storyline with my first-watch impression in the living room.

Bad Bunny opened the show by walking through a tall sugar cane field while people harvested cane, played dominoes, boxed, and sold piraguas, a shaved-ice drink. Within seconds, these scenes introduced the audience to some cultural markers of Puerto Rico.

Brand Takeaway: Symbolism and imagery create identity before a word is spoken. Think about logos, photos, colors, and decorations. Bad Bunny wanted his heritage to set the scene for the next six acts.

Radio Application: Is your station’s heritage in the story? Maybe the format has changed five times in the last 40 years, but many of your audience members remember those changes and the talent. Can it add texture to the storyline to create emotional connection with an audience that listened to your Country station when it was a Top 40 format?

The field transformed into La Casita, the iconic pink Puerto Rican house from his residency, complete with a porch full of guests and dancers filling the “neighborhood.”

Brand Takeaway: Create environments, not just content. Can your brand’s values be felt and communicated through non-verbal imagery? The values are much deeper than the slogan.

Radio Application: If it doesn’t make sense to share it over the air, remember the expanded content opportunities you have with podcasts, blogs, apps, websites, streams and social media to build a world with your audience.

The celebrities on the porch of La Casita were part of the house party storyline. There weren’t any celebrity cameos, creating a distance and difference between the other party guests.

Brand Takeaway: When your world is authentic, audiences will step into it.

Radio Application: Social Media influencers can make us feel like we’re interacting with someone we’ve never met. It’s not real. Radio talent, you’ve always been a “celebrity” to your fans. It’s a difference-maker in the impersonal AI age. Get on the porch and create human interaction with your audience.

The courtyard wedding ceremony, we learned later, was a real couple, really getting married. But even if the scene were completely staged as acting for the moment, everyone watching would know what was happening. Love, and so many other emotions, are universal.

Brand Takeaway: Love, devotion, commitment, kindness, and fellowship are emotions that often don’t require words. What universal emotions do your stories communicate?

Radio Application: Is your on-air content balanced to systematically include your brand’s universal emotions into the presentation? Do you think about “playing the emotional connection hits” when you’re talking over that 17-second song intro or promoting the $1,000 giveaway for the 100th time? Radio programmers, think of talent and promotional content the same way you would the classic “hub and spoke” music clock.

Lady Gaga’s salsa version of Die With A Smile didn’t distract from the wedding. It continued the love-arc storyline.

Brand Takeaway: Use unexpected moments to enhance the storyline’s meaning, not distract from it.

Radio Application: Predictable Unpredictability is a phrase attributed to the late programming legend Bill Tanner. The Super Bowl audience knew an unexpected celebrity would be featured during the halftime show. Is there an opportunity to create the cadence of unexpected content?

Ricky Martin made an appearance near the end of the show, creating a generational bridge between the Puerto Rican icons.

Brand Takeaway: If your brand has a proud lineage (some don’t), then take advantage of the storyline possibilities. Continuity builds trust.

Radio Application: The original electronic social media platform (radio) has a problem mentioning past presenters and hosts. Two quick reasons:

• 1) We’re a competitive, but insecure group, and we don’t like to reference the previous players. We’re the morning show now. Or, management thinks it confuses the audience.
• 2) Radio has this illness of just letting its talent go after their last show, never to be heard from again. Let these people say goodbye to their audience. Bring them back when it makes sense. Your brand will gain trust and appreciation for continuing the story.

“The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” was displayed across the stadium screens at the end of a performance largely about unity, community and cultural pride.

Brand Takeaway: Brands have a better chance of communicating the values of the product and organization when the content and execution demonstrate those values. Another way to say it might be, actions speak louder than words.

Radio Application: If your community involvement goal is to care about the community, then get out there. Saying it on the air is only the start. Create a style guide for your brand and include values and purpose.

Language is the first entry to understanding any message. However, we have more access to storytelling aids such as video, print, outdoor marketing, direct mail, websites, and social media channels.

How can we improve audience connection with visual storytelling? Radio and audio industry—how can we use the ancient power of creating pictures with words and sounds?