Disney+ and agency CALLEN debuted 'Stitch Runs Loose At The Big Game' in February 2025, a Super Bowl spot where Stitch interrupts a live broadcast to tease the
ARCHIVEHow Disney+ Unleashed Stitch on the Super Bowl
"Stitch Runs Loose At The Big Game" is a February 2025 Super Bowl promotional film created by agency CALLEN for Disney+ in the United States, in which the beloved alien character Stitch appears to interrupt a live football broadcast and run onto the field while announcers react in real time, teasing the upcoming live-action Lilo & Stitch theatrical release.
The campaign enters the crowded arena of Big Game advertising with a premise rooted in disruption rather than sentiment. Where many entertainment brands use the Super Bowl to debut trailers or montages, Disney+ and CALLEN constructed a scenario designed to make viewers momentarily question whether what they were watching was real. Stitch does not appear in a conventional advertisement format; he appears to invade the broadcast itself, with commentator reactions treated as in-game audio rather than scripted voiceover. That structural decision — blurring the boundary between commercial and live event — is the campaign's defining creative act.
In the United States, the Super Bowl represents one of the most expensive and competitive advertising environments of any given year, making the choice of creative format as strategically consequential as the media buy itself. Disney+ submitted this work under the alternate title "Disney: Bad Dog" when entering the Clio Entertainment 2025 awards, according to the Clio Entertainment listing, where it was recognised in the Children & Family, Audio Visual: Teaser category. The campaign exists as a single media asset, compact in duration but engineered for maximum contextual impact within the live broadcast environment. Clapboard Score: 78/100.
Disney+ occupies a distinctive competitive position in the United States streaming market. According to data cited by electroiq.com and dataintelo.com, Disney+ held an estimated twelve to fourteen percent of global streaming platform share in 2025, placing it behind Netflix, which dataintelo.com estimates held approximately twenty percent of global platform share with around 310 million subscribers, and Amazon Prime Video, which the same source estimates at approximately twenty-one percent global platform share. In a market where subscriber attention is finite and platform switching is frictionless, the Super Bowl offers Disney+ a rare moment of guaranteed, undivided audience presence.
The strategic rationale behind "Stitch Runs Loose At The Big Game" connects directly to Disney+'s franchise-led advertising lineage. Rather than competing on catalogue breadth — an approach the platform explored as far back as its 2022 "House of Disney" campaign, which positioned the service as home to Disney, Pixar, The Simpsons, and other properties, according to publicly available campaign records — CALLEN chose to concentrate the entire campaign on a single character whose cultural recognition spans generations. Stitch, originating from the 2002 animated film Lilo & Stitch, carries immediate brand equity with both adults who grew up with the franchise and children encountering it for the first time, making him an unusually efficient vehicle for a live-event teaser format. The approaching live-action Lilo & Stitch theatrical release gave this promotional investment clear commercial purpose, anchoring the Super Bowl moment to a near-term box office objective.
The decision to frame Stitch as an intruder rather than a presenter reflects a broader insight about Big Game advertising in the United States: audiences in 2025 are simultaneously watching the game and narrating their reactions across social platforms, creating a secondary media environment where unexpected or absurdist moments travel further than polished ones.
The campaign's creative execution rests on a single structural illusion. Stitch appears not within a clearly demarcated advertisement but within what presents itself as the live game broadcast, with announcers reacting to his presence as they would to any on-field disruption. That formal choice — treating the commercial break as a continuation of the broadcast — required disciplined craft in both animation and sound design to sustain even momentarily.
Director Dean Fleischer Camp is credited on the production, according to publicly available production records associated with the campaign. Fleischer Camp is known for work that operates at the intersection of animation and live-action staging, a background directly relevant to a spot that depends on Stitch feeling physically present within a broadcast environment. The visual integration of an animated character into footage styled as live sports coverage demands a specific calibration: too polished and the illusion collapses; too rough and the character loses its Disney-standard finish. The execution as archived on clapboard.com reflects a balance that preserves Stitch's recognisable design while granting him the slightly chaotic energy the narrative premise requires.
CALLEN, the agency credited with the campaign, operates with a focus on entertainment and franchise marketing, making the assignment a natural fit for their demonstrated capabilities. The choice to submit the work under the title "Disney: Bad Dog" for the Clio Entertainment 2025 awards, according to the Clio Entertainment listing, suggests the internal creative team understood the spot's tonal register — Stitch as loveable menace — as the campaign's central creative thesis. That framing, Bad Dog, distils the character's appeal into two words and confirms that the campaign's humour is intentional and specific rather than incidental. The single-asset format places all creative weight on one piece of film, a constraint that sharpens rather than limits the work.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for "Stitch Runs Loose At The Big Game" is publicly available across trade publications including Ad Age, Adweek, Campaign, The Drum, or Contagious. Spending data, media-placement costs, and audience-reach figures have not been documented in accessible public sources.
What is documented is the campaign's recognition at the Clio Entertainment 2025 awards, according to the Clio Entertainment listing, where it received an award in the Children & Family, Audio Visual: Teaser category — an independent industry validation of its creative merit within the entertainment marketing sector. Audience response surfaced on Reddit, where discussion threads showed predominantly favourable reactions, with commenters describing the campaign in positive terms, according to publicly visible Reddit discussions reviewed at the time of this analysis.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness argument is coherent without requiring quantified proof. A Super Bowl placement in the United States guarantees mass simultaneous exposure to a demographically broad audience. The use of Stitch as the sole creative vehicle concentrates brand recall on a character with fifty-plus years of Disney franchise equity, reducing the cognitive load required for the teaser to land. The broadcast-interruption format creates a moment of genuine surprise that is structurally distinct from the surrounding advertisement inventory, increasing the probability of social sharing and earned media amplification. The Clio Entertainment recognition in a teaser-specific category confirms that industry peers assessed the format choice as purposeful and well-executed rather than merely novel.
"Stitch Runs Loose At The Big Game" is a Super Bowl promotional film created by CALLEN for Disney+ in the United States in February 2025. It features Stitch appearing to interrupt a live football broadcast, with announcers reacting in real time, functioning as a teaser for the live-action Lilo & Stitch theatrical release.
CALLEN created the campaign for Disney+ in the United States. The agency is credited for the work published in February 2025, with director Dean Fleischer Camp attached to the production, according to publicly available production records associated with the campaign.
The campaign received a Clio Entertainment 2025 award in the Children & Family, Audio Visual: Teaser category, according to the Clio Entertainment listing, where it was entered under the title "Disney: Bad Dog." No verified recognition from Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show, Effies, or Webby Awards has been documented.
Dean Fleischer Camp directed the spot, according to publicly available production records. Fleischer Camp's background in work combining animation and live-action staging made him a relevant choice for a campaign built on integrating an animated character convincingly into footage styled as a live sports broadcast.
The campaign continues Disney+'s franchise-led advertising approach, concentrating on a single high-recognition character rather than catalogue breadth. It connects to a near-term commercial objective — the live-action Lilo & Stitch theatrical release — making the Super Bowl placement both a brand moment and a direct promotional vehicle for a specific Disney property.
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