As Disney geared up for its fifth and final season of FX series The Bear on Hulu, State Farm is one brand sponsor saying Yes, Chef.
But the insurance company didn’t simply align with the popular series via traditional 30-second spots. Instead, it cooked up a custom TV advergame, in partnership with Disney Advertising and interactive ads tech provider BrightLine, to bring a little bit of the show’s kitchen intensity into the living room and forge deeper engagement and connection with viewers during commercial breaks.
As we’ve covered before, interactive ads and new formats are making their way to connected TV and streaming.
BrightLine is one of the vendors at the forefront of interactive ads as it works with and is integrated in the mix across major streamers and hundreds of apps, offering a suite of remote control-enabled interactive ad formats that span trivia, product carousels and advergames.
We spoke with BrightLine President Rob Aksman to get the scoop on the custom advergame tied to Disney’s tentpole IP and what the vendor is seeing as streamers and brands aim to boost engagement and brand affinity with a dose of fun via interactive ads.
State Farm x The Bear
First, what was the advergame all about?
The State Farm-sponsored advergame is a custom take on BrightLine’s re-skinnable “Beat the Clock” format.
Viewers, using their remote control to navigate, have 30 seconds to quickly plate various kitchen orders (like steak tacos and pan-seared scallops, for example) as the clock ticks down – aiming to bring some of the show’s high-pressure nature into a fun ad format. State Farm’s colors and logo are prominent above the left-hand side 30-second timer that sits atop the iconic “Every second counts” line from the show.
Get a dish right and a little green check mark appears with another key show line tie-in, “Yes, Chef.” Get one wrong and a “Wrong dish, Chef” message appears.
Viewers see how many dishes they can correctly plate in the time allotted and then a screen appears with their final tally and a relevant message from State Farm that ties into the theme of the game and The Bear (in this case, “When every second counts, State Farm gives you options to find coverage and support that fits your needs”).
See a demo in action here.
Per BrightLine, in its first week alone the interactive advergame was pacing at 4x above the company's standard engagement benchmark of about a 1% action rate.
In general, the vendor finds advergames generate up to 3x more engagement compared to simpler interactive units, while also tapping into the affinity for games among younger crowds as 95% of Gen Z and Alpha identify as gamers.
Tying into IP and what viewers already have on the TV also tends to give a boost.
“When you're tying into the actual TV show, like The Bear in this case, that's we always see significantly higher performance,” Aksman said. “I think playing along with a TV show that you're watching is certainly more compelling than something that's a little bit more generic and product focused.”
But he did acknowledge, “the more popular the show, the higher the results, without question,” and attributed some of the interactive ad campaign engagement success to that factor for The Bear.
And what does more engagement get the brand? Ad engagement or interaction has been shown to drive lifts across five key brand metrics including: Unaided brand recall (+33%), brand favorability (+12%), ad likeability (+8%), brand interest (+4%) and purchase intent (+8%).
Interactive formats enter the conversation earlier, intention is key
BrightLine has been a partner of Disney Advertising for interactive ads for the past few years. In February the pair expanded their collaboration to bring interactive, engagement-led ads to Disney+ and for the first time making them available programmatically across Disney’s entire streaming inventory including Hulu, Disney+ and Fubo.
According to Aksman, interactive and custom formats are becoming part of the conversation with advertisers earlier in the process, including during Upfront discussions and budget allotments.
As for State Farm, it isn’t the company’s first foray into new formats and interactive units.
Aksman categorized the insurance provider as being on “the cutting edge of all the latest formats that we’ve been deploying with partners across the board.” The insurance provider previously tried out formats like quizzes and trivia and it’s also no stranger to aligning them with both tentpole and library IP.
For example, State Farm previously advertised against Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building with branded interactive trivia unit from BrightLine tied to the series. The brand has also tied interactive ads to IP with other streamers such as a State/Farm Batman interactive trivia campaign with Warner Bros. Discovery that also ran against legacy DC content across the HBO Max service and run interactive ad campaigns on NBCUniversal’s Peacock, among others.
“Whether it’s TV shows versus sports they’re always also very eager to try the latest sponsorship extensions,” noted Aksman of State Farm.
Instead of just a logo against a TV series, when the company sponsors, it’s aiming to engage the vier and keep them in tune with the show as well, such as multiple-choice trivia questions tied to IP.
The Bear advergame goes further
However, The Bear advergame “went even further,” he said, adding that the BrightLine team works very closely with the content teams at partners including Disney, as well as the advertiser, to come up with innovative ideas that go beyond the status quo.
While design and development itself can be fairly quick and in a turnkey nature on BrightLine units, this advergame was done well in advance of the season’s June 25, 2026, premiere.
It was part of a larger tentpole sponsorship that State Farm pursued within its Upfront deals with Disney. In that sense, Aksman acknowledged custom advergames aren’t necessarily for all types of advertisers, like DTC brands, but rather bigger budget players that are seeking more out of TV ad investments. (But to be clear, pricing is set by the streaming provider and can vary by platform or package, although interactive units and custom implementations are understood to command a premium).
State Farm wanted to align with the popularity of The Bear as part of its larger sponsorship and Aksman suggested there was confidence in pursuing a new format based on past experience with interactive ads like trivia that “had just massive performance,” in part because a strong focus on making it enjoyable for the viewer.
“When you really focus on viewer the viewer experience and keep it fun for them and let them kind of play along with their favorite program, [State Farm] saw that that works, and I think there was an opportunity to come up with something new,” he said.
Content tied to IP consistently performs better on engagement for BrightLine’s formats versus those not (up to 70% higher engagement), but the popularity of The Bear likely helped on the engagement front for this specific campaign, Aksman acknowledged.
Another key element to success for custom interactive campaigns tied to IP is thinking about the advergame and brand/show tie-in early.
“To do them right, they should feel more intentional. Not like a spur of the moment, last second, ‘here’s my brand brief, let’s figure out how to make a game.”
BrightLine is the tech enabler, but he described a collaborative process with Disney content teams and brand advertiser to develop the game.
The vendor’s Beat the Clock format has a general structure, but the campaign from State Farm was a little bit more of a bespoke concept.
“It just fit the bill so well and it just fit the audience of what they were watching that we were all super excited to see that take shape,” he said.
Interactivity offers mid-funnel assist
Some interactive formats are designed and meant to drive lower-funnel actions like a purchase with shoppable formats and QR codes. But with advergames and State Farm’s custom work around The Bear, it’s more about engaging the viewer with something fun that taps into content they’re already passionate about.
“The best brand experiences start with something people are already passionate about,” said Alyson Griffin, Head of Marketing at State Farm, in a statement. “The Bear has built an incredibly engaged fan base, and this gave us an opportunity to connect with audiences through the energy and intensity of the kitchen they’ve come to love. By bringing that experience into an interactive format, we’re creating a fun way for fans to step into the action rather than simply watching it.”
As Aksman noted, for advertisers like insurance companies or automakers, odds are viewers aren’t going to go out and buy coverage or a vehicle via a TV ad or necessarily even soon after seeing one.
It goes back to the appeal of TV advertising with its sight, sound and motion – but taking it up a notch via gamification to help with mid-funnel consideration and intent so that brands stay memorable when they may be in the market for those services or products at a later date.
“It just reinforces what we’re seeing out there of mid-funnel engagement being really powerful,” he said. “The majority of purchasing is still happening in physical locations. And I think discounting that...is doing us a disservice because we can make more of every impression through all of this mid-funnel engagement, whether it’s polls and trivia, or choosing what ad experience you want to have, [or] advergaming.”
And while not a final purchase, engagement via a remote control click provides data and is one more input that a brand wouldn’t otherwise get from a traditional 30-second spot, letting them know a viewer is there and paying attention.
“They're not just seeing the ad. They are purposely picking up their remote control and clicking not once but several times to engage with it,” Aksman said. “As an attention metric, it's a pretty strong one.”
Other types of formats like in-stream ads have emerged alongside interactivity, but Aksman believes that placing advergames in the typical 30-second ad break pod, rather than in the midst of content, is key to encouraging engagement and maintaining a positive viewing experience. Consumers are already conditioned and accustomed to typical ad pod breaks, he noted, and therefore the advergames and interactive may feel less intrusive then.
From a Disney perspective, advergames not only drive ad revenue but also stand to help reinforce and forge deeper connections among viewers and key programming like a final season for its hit scripted show.
Upticks in demand, BrightLine platform updates on the horizon
From a BrightLine perspective, Aksman said the company is seeing an uptick for interactive ads including quizzes, beat the clock, and bespoke formats tied to IP.
“We’re seeing a big increase in usage and demand for those,” he noted of quiz show style formats, as well as increases around more custom implementations around IP.
Separately, we heard sentiments from Andrea Pohlman, SVP of PMX Lift at Publicis Media, in June at the StreamTV Show regarding interactive ads more broadly, where she noted particular interest and upticks in demand among the ad agency’s clients for new formats like Pause Ads and home screen ads – but emphasized the need for ones that can scale across a fragmented CTV ecosystem.
And during the panel discussion Pohlman said she thinks we’ll see a lot of the more interactive, “custom test and learn type stuff…grow as well,” as these formats continue to iterate and evolve.
One challenge we’ve covered previously with interactive and custom advergame formats is the need by brands and advertisers for something that’s repeatable and relatively low-lift.
With that in mind, BrightLine for its part has plans to take advergames further by making its formats more templatized and turnkey, and therefore easier to execute and deploy at scale.
Aksman shared that a platform update is slated for the coming months, including the ability for advertisers and streamers to more easily design custom advergame formats using conversational or natural language prompts via the help of AI and their brand brief.
“That’s where we’re headed and I think once we make it even more turnkey, we’ll see a lot more because the demand is there.”
The BrightLine platform also learns from each campaign and interaction, whereby it can then optimize off of the data. For example, creating a longer array of options for the types of meals plated and more ways for viewers to play along, keeping the advergame fresh for viewers after multiple exposures.
The vendor will also introduce capabilities for optimizing frequency of interactive units and potential sequencing, where a series of formats are served at different intervals to further move consumers along the funnel or ultimately towards an advertisers’ goal.
“We’re unlocking a new era of interactive storytelling through formats like advergaming that redefine what’s possible at the intersection of premium content and interactivity,” said Jamie Power, SVP of Addressable Sales at Disney Advertising, in a statement. “As technology evolves, so does how we connect with consumers – and with partners like BrightLine, we’re scaling immersive experiences that deepen engagement and accelerate measurable impact for advertisers.”