Three leaders at HAVAS Middle East watched the Super Bowl halftime show and walked away thinking about identity and culture.
Alejandro Fischer, Chief Strategy Officer, HAVAS Middle East; Juan Salazar David, Creative Director, HAVAS Middle East; and Farah Saab, Creative Strategy Director, HAVAS Middle East, speak to Campaign Middle East about what they saw in the half-time performances that felt larger than entertainment – each from different backgrounds and based on their individual perspectives.
Alejandro Fischer
Alejandro Fischer, Chief Strategy Officer, HAVAS Middle East on the Super Bowl half time show.
Alejandro Fischer, Chief Strategy Officer, HAVAS Middle East
I have used the phrase “moving at the speed of culture” many times, and I do believe in applying a cultural lens to our work. But if I am honest, most of the time we are not doing culture. We are doing references. We take a few recognisable cues, clean them up, and wrap them around a brand idea. Less culture, more styling.
What Benito did on that Super Bowl halftime stage was different because it did not feel extracted. It felt intact. Spanish was not a flourish, it was the default. The cadence stayed. The jokes and the rhythm stayed. There was no moment where the show stopped to make sure the wider audience was comfortable.
The set made the same point. The casita was not a design choice, it was the centre of gravity. The sugarcane fields, the jíbaro references, the way the community scenes flowed, it all carried a level of care that you only get when the culture is not being borrowed. It is being lived.
As a Uruguayan, I am not going to pretend I understand every Puerto Rican reference. But I still recognised what I was watching. Not the specifics, the feeling. The family energy. The neighbourhood codes. The way everyday life shows up without being turned into something for outsiders.
This is what depth looks like in communications. Not one big symbol, but lots of small, consistent choices that add up to a world with its own rules. That is also why it travelled. It did not try to be for everyone. It just committed, and people leaned in.
For our market (the one we call home), this matters. In the region we invest heavily in culture through events and platforms, but advertising often plays it safe. We know how to show the aesthetics. We are less confident in letting culture lead the work. Language, rituals, humour, class cues, the messy human details.
Depth requires choices. Which language leads. Which details stay untouched. Which parts you refuse to smooth out.
Speed keeps you busy. Depth is what earns you real cultural credibility.
Juan Salazar David
Juan Salazar David, Creative Director, HAVAS Middle East on the Super Bowl halftime show
Juan Salazar David, Creative Director, HAVAS Middle East
On February 1st, something shifted for me as I watched Bad Bunny accept the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The project was entirely in Spanish, deeply personal and rooted in Puerto Rican identity. It celebrated community, heritage and the richness of a culture expressed without compromise.
His acceptance speech was delivered almost entirely in Spanish. In the middle of it, he paused to say in English, “I want to dedicate this award to all the people who had to leave their homeland to follow their dreams.” Then he returned to Spanish, addressing dreamers, families and artists across generations. It was a powerful moment. It felt honest. It felt human. It felt universal.
That feeling deepened during the Super Bowl halftime show. Spanish was uninterrupted. A modest Puerto Rican casita sat at the centre of the stage. Jíbaro figures in pava hats moved across sugarcane fields. Reggaeton was performed without dilution. A wedding unfolded in the crowd. Domino tables appeared. Nail salons. Bars. Everyday neighbourhood life was elevated without being altered.
And then the details that made it unmistakable. The plastic patio chair. The taquería counter. The boy asleep at the party while adults kept dancing. The kind of scene every Latino recognises without explanation.
As someone who left Colombia in my mid twenties to pursue a career abroad, living across Europe, the United States and now the Middle East has shaped me profoundly. Migration gives you resilience and perspective. It also challenges your sense of belonging. You adapt. You integrate. Traditions soften. Languages blend. Identity evolves.
Watching this performance and the global reaction that followed reminded me how powerful it is to hold on to where we come from. Culture expressed with pride travels. It does not need translation to resonate. It connects because it is rooted in truth.
In cities such as Dubai, where much of the population is expatriate, that feels particularly meaningful. Cultural identity is diverse and shared. Global impact does not require cultural neutrality. It requires cultural confidence.
Farah Saab
Farah Saab, Creative Strategy Director, HAVAS Middle East on culture
Farah Saab, Creative Strategy Director, HAVAS Middle East
I am not Latina. I did not grow up with reggaeton or domino tables or Puerto Rican weddings. And yet, watching that halftime show felt strangely personal.
I have left Lebanon three times in my life. Each time chasing opportunity. Each time hoping for stability. Each time carrying the quiet understanding that building a future sometimes means loosening your grip on the past.
Migration reshapes you in subtle ways. You soften your accent without noticing. You simplify your stories so they travel better. You learn how to explain your culture in ways that feel easier for others to receive. Over time, you become fluent in translation. Not just of language, but of identity, and after a while, this starts to feel normal. Almost expected.
So watching an artist step onto one of the biggest global stages and stay entirely in his own language felt unexpectedly emotional.
Nothing was adjusted or explained. The references and the everyday details stayed intact. The audience simply leaned in.
That really stayed with me.
For many of us from the Middle East, culture is something we carry carefully when we live abroad. We adapt it, contextualise it, smooth the edges so it travels more easily. We learn how to find a more neutral version of ourselves.
This performance felt like a quiet shift in that narrative.
People watched something deeply rooted and deeply local, and the reaction was curiosity, joy and celebration. It was a powerful reminder that culture can travel further than we think. There is space for stories that arrive fully formed, without pre-packaging or simplification. In realising that you do not always have to soften the parts that make you who you are.
Sometimes honesty carries further.
Maybe that is why the show resonated so far beyond Latin America. For anyone who has lived between places, it felt familiar in a very emotional way.
It felt like permission to hold on to where you come from. To stop translating every part of yourself. To believe that authenticity does not make you smaller on the world stage. To be culturally loud, without apology.
If anything, it makes the world feel closer.