American Discovery Capital

11 Favorite Licensed Super Bowl Ads (2015–2025)

David Born published an editorial on State of Streaming (Feb 11, 2026) listing his 11 favorite licensed Super Bowl advertisements from the past decade. The article highlights brand × intellectual-property pairings and describes why each licensing choice worked creatively or culturally. Notable campaigns called out include Facebook x Rocky (2020), Jeep x Groundhog Day (2020), Mountain Dew x The Shining (2020), Pringles x Rick and Morty (2020), Doordash x Sesame Street (2021), Cadillac x Edward Scissorhands (2021), Rakuten x Clueless (2023), Pepsi x Zoolander (2023), Popcorners x Breaking Bad (2023) and Booking.com x The Muppets (2025). Born notes his firm Born Licensing managed Facebook’s Rocky Super Bowl campaign and references prior experience working with The Muppets on a Barclaycard Entertainment campaign.

WBD's Studio Success Fuels Planned Split

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q2 results showed a sharp divergence between its growing studios and streaming businesses and its shrinking linear TV networks, strengthening the company’s plan to split. Studio revenue rose 55% to $3.8 billion, helping swing the company to a $1.6 billion profit, while the linear networks group saw a 9% revenue decline to $4.8 billion. The streaming division posted $2.8 billion in revenue, an 8% increase, and a $293 million profit driven by 3.4 million net subscriber additions that brought HBO Max global subscribers to nearly 126 million. The company is preparing to spin its profitable studios and streaming units into a new 'Warner Bros.' entity and leave legacy, debt-laden linear assets under 'Discovery Global.' The report also notes recent studio layoffs (~10%), new leadership planning, and experiential IP initiatives such as a Wizard of Oz experience at the Las Vegas Sphere.

WBD Split Called 'Corporate Organ Rejection'

Warner Bros. Discovery’s high-profile demerger is framed as a structural verdict on the conglomerate model rather than a mere financial correction. Hemant Soni, Product Management Leader at Capgemini’s Telecom, Media and Technology practice, argues the merger combined incompatible operating models—Discovery’s low-cost unscripted focus and Warner/HBO’s high-budget premium IP—resulting in what he describes as “corporate organ rejection.” The separation gives each business sharper strategic focus but creates new dependencies: content owners will rely more on external distributors, while distributors lose exclusive-content differentiation. The article places the split in a wider industry trend toward specialization (with exceptions like Netflix and Amazon doubling down on vertical integration) and highlights that meaningful AI adoption requires redesigning operating models, robust data infrastructure, internal testing, and ethical governance.