Welcome back. Today, we have survey results on whether brands should take public stands; Disney pivots to domestic visitors; the final days before the Super Bowl promise an onslaught of publicity; and why Five Below tries to keep its brand identity as its prices hit six and above.

Many consumers want companies to take stands on big events, but even more say they’ll try to punish companies that step wrong.

Forty-one percent of Americans say companies should take a public stance when there’s a major social/political event or controversy, according to the latest national poll by TrueDot for the WSJ Leadership Institute. Thirty-five percent said no.

Proceed at your own risk:

• 20% of respondents say they’ll stop buying entirely from a company if they disagree with what it says,
• 30% say they would boycott except when strictly necessary
• and 28% said they’d try to at least cut back.

And when presented with a current, specific situation—the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to two Americans’ deaths at the hands of federal agents—the “speak up” caucus dipped to 39% and the “stay out of it” crowd grew to 43%.

Some survey respondents might overstate their ability or commitment to ditch businesses they disagree with, but the sentiment is still daunting.

You can see why CEOs responding to the deaths in Minneapolis largely settled on vague calls for “de-escalation,” as we recently noted here.

So why make noise at all, if nobody’s threatening to boycott the quiet ones?

• Sometimes events affect a business’s community, employees and customers to a degree that’s hard to ignore.
• And younger consumers in particular want to hear it. Just 23% of baby boomers say companies should speak up about major issues, but that proportion rises to 60% for Gen Z.

Disney is shifting more of its marketing efforts for Disneyland and Walt Disney World to domestic visitors in response to “international visitation headwinds at our domestic parks.”

The company’s latest quarterly results on Monday morning included a surge in streaming profit but fewer foreigners visiting its U.S. theme parks.

There are several reasons for the solid streaming showing, Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston told The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz and Isabella Simonetti:

• strong viewership for older movies like “Avatar” and “Zootopia” that had sequels last year
• general entertainment shows like ABC’s “High Potential”
• and lower cancellation rates from people who bundled Disney+ and Hulu with the new ESPN streaming service.

Johnston declined to detail the reasons for what the company called “international visitation headwinds at our domestic parks”—but they come during the Trump administration’s diplomatic tensions with allies and policies including tariffs and enhanced visa vetting.

Disney’s other big show: The company’s board of directors is meeting this week at its Burbank, Calif., headquarters, where it is expected to vote on who will succeed Bob Iger as chief executive officer.

Speculation about who will get the job has consumed Disney employees and much of Hollywood for the past several months.

It’s Super Bowl Week, which means a seven-day flood of news about the biggest pillar of monoculture still standing.

Super Bowl at the Grammys: Bad Bunny won Grammy awards last night in categories including album of the year—a first for an all-Spanish language release—but he couldn’t perform at the show because of his upcoming date at the Super Bowl.

Host Trevor Noah made a running joke out of the scheduling conflict and eventually got the star to join in on a few lines of his hit “DtMF” with a brass band teed up to join in.

Puerto Rico’s moment: Discover Puerto Rico aims to capitalize on the halftime performance by a Puerto Rican star with a tourism push including a presence in San Francisco before the game, a YouTube livestream during it and a pop-up in New York City the next day, Ad Age reports.

Apple’s pre-game strategy: Bad Bunny’s upcoming halftime show is getting the Apple branding treatment, including a high-polish promotional video, a friendly on-stage interview event and playlists on Apple Music, Jeff Beer writes in Fast Company. Apple took over the halftime sponsorship from Pepsi in 2023.

Returning cast: A wedding goes downhill (in pursuit of a rollaway keg) as Post Malone, Peyton Manning and Shane Gillis make another Super Bowl appearance for Bud Light.

The “We spent the money on something else” publicity play: Want to use the Super Bowl for attention without shelling out millions of dollars on a commercial? Tell everyone what you did with the money instead. Here’s the CEO of group rideshare startup Fetii on LinkedIn:

The ad is a voiceover-dependent product demo that doesn’t exactly scream “Super Bowl,” but here I am talking about it.

Five Below is setting more prices above $5 and moving the pricier items out of the back corners of stores, my colleague Jennifer Williams writes for the WSJ Leadership Institute.

That might seem like self-inflicted damage to an admirably clear brand premise, but many retailers have been raising prices to try to offset tariffs. Even dollar stores aren’t so wedded to that “one dollar” thing anymore.

But Five Below executives seem to believe that their company name stands for “clear value” more than a specific threshold.

That’s why there are now fewer price points, mostly in whole dollars, even as those prices come to include $6, $7, $10 or even $35 in the case of a Halloween skeleton.

“We believe it’s all about relative value,” said Chief Financial Officer Dan Sullivan. “And so we have the opportunity to go above $5 as long as we jam that item with value.”

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