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Michael B. Jordan has spent years working in front of the camera, but one of his most important business moves happened behind it.
He co-founded Obsidianworks with Chad Easterling, a culture-focused creative agency built to develop campaigns, experiences, and brand platforms with a stronger connection to modern audiences. In 2026, the agency returned to full independence after buying back the minority stake previously held by 160over90. That move matters because it shows a larger shift taking place in entertainment, marketing, and business. Celebrities are no longer satisfied with appearing in a campaign, collecting a fee, and moving on. More of them want to own the company, shape the strategy, and build something that keeps creating value long after a single ad fades away.
Obsidianworks has worked on major projects connected to Meta, Nike, Frito-Lay, Timberland, YouTube, and other well-known brands. Its work has included creator programs, culture-based campaigns, social strategy, and large-scale brand experiences. The company is not simply using Michael B. Jordan’s fame as decoration. It operates as a real agency with its own team, client relationships, creative systems, and long-term direction.
For San Diego businesses, the story is more relevant than it may seem at first. The city is full of companies trying to stand out in crowded spaces. Tourism, hospitality, biotech, lifestyle brands, restaurants, events, fitness, entertainment, real estate, and professional services all compete for attention from people who see thousands of messages every week. A famous face can still help, but a stronger model is taking shape. The better question is no longer, “Who can promote us for a day?” It is, “Who can help us build an experience, a media presence, or a cultural position that lasts?”
Celebrity Marketing Is Growing Up
For decades, celebrity marketing followed a familiar pattern. A brand paid a well-known actor, athlete, musician, or public figure to appear in an ad. The campaign created attention. The celebrity moved on to the next partnership. The brand hoped the recognition would help sales.
That approach still exists, and in some cases it works. A recognizable person can add instant interest to a product launch, a commercial, or a social media moment. Yet audiences have become more selective. They can tell when a partnership feels shallow. They notice when a celebrity appears to have no real link to the product. They also notice when the content feels designed around the contract rather than the culture around it.
Obsidianworks points toward a deeper model. Michael B. Jordan is not simply lending his image to outside companies. He helped build a business that develops campaigns for others. That places him closer to the creative engine, not just the final photo or video. He has moved from being used by brand systems to helping operate one.
This shift is visible across entertainment and sports. Some athletes launch production companies. Musicians build beauty and fashion brands. Actors invest in drinks, technology platforms, or media ventures. The difference now is that more public figures are thinking in terms of infrastructure. They want control over ideas, distribution, data, creative direction, and sometimes equity. They are building companies that can work with many brands rather than appearing in one-off deals.
San Diego businesses may not be working with Hollywood stars every day, but the principle still applies. A local company can stop treating marketing as a collection of temporary pushes and start building owned systems. A restaurant group can develop a local content series instead of relying only on influencer posts. A tourism company can turn customer stories into a recurring media asset. A real estate firm can create neighborhood-focused video programming that people follow even when they are not ready to buy. A health or fitness brand can build a founder-led platform that grows alongside the business.
The headline is not celebrity for celebrity’s sake. The headline is ownership of the message, the format, and the audience relationship.
Obsidianworks Was Built Around Cultural Fluency
Obsidianworks describes itself as a company focused on “New Money America” and the “New Majority,” language that reflects its interest in multicultural, younger, and culturally active audiences. Its public work also shows that focus. The agency has supported campaigns that speak to creators, Black communities, multicultural audiences, and people whose influence often shapes what becomes mainstream later.
This matters because many brands still treat culture as a surface detail. They choose a popular trend, attach a slogan to it, and assume the work feels current. Obsidianworks has built its reputation around a more informed approach. Its campaigns are often tied to a clear audience insight, a community, and a setting where the idea can live with more credibility.
Its work for Frito-Lay’s “My Joy” campaign included multicultural storytelling and an Art Basel activation designed around creators and expressions of joy. The campaign produced millions of impressions and strong social reach. Its work with Meta’s “We the Culture” program involved creator support, program storytelling, and community participation. The agency also helped shape YouTube’s Avenues program for Black music industry creatives and local content creators across multiple cities.
None of those efforts were simple celebrity shout-outs. They were developed as experiences, platforms, or programs. They created room for people to participate instead of only watch.
San Diego brands operate in a city where this distinction matters. The city hosts Comic-Con, major sports events, beach culture, tourism, military families, students, cross-border influence from Tijuana, and a growing creative scene. Cultural life is not one thing here. It moves across neighborhoods, industries, and communities.
A campaign that works in a generic national ad may feel flat in San Diego if it ignores how people actually spend time. The Gaslamp Quarter, Barrio Logan, North Park, La Jolla, Little Italy, Pacific Beach, and Chula Vista each carry different rhythms and associations. A company that understands those local layers can speak more clearly than one that applies the same message everywhere.
Consider Comic-Con. It is not merely a convention that fills hotel rooms. It turns Downtown San Diego into a temporary world of fandom, brand activations, media launches, immersive experiences, and public spectacle. Comic-Con 2026 is scheduled for July 23 through July 26, with Preview Night on July 22. The event continues to attract fans, entertainment brands, and experiential marketing efforts from around the world.
Brands that show up during Comic-Con with a lazy photo booth or a generic giveaway often disappear into the noise. Brands that create a memorable setting, tap into fan behavior, and build a story around the experience stay in people’s conversations longer. That difference sits very close to the thinking behind Obsidianworks. Culture is not background decoration. It is the environment where the campaign either feels alive or falls apart.
San Diego Has the Perfect Backdrop for Experience-Led Brands
Many cities are built around offices and highways. San Diego is different. It is a city where people gather outdoors, around the waterfront, at festivals, in neighborhoods with strong local character, and at events that draw both residents and visitors. That gives brands more opportunities to create live moments that feel natural instead of forced.
The San Diego Convention Center hosts major events throughout the year, and the local visitor economy remains closely tied to meetings, conventions, and group travel. A regional tourism report noted that the convention center hosts more than 50 primary events annually, reinforcing the city’s role as a place where brands, organizations, and audiences repeatedly come together.
That environment rewards companies with a strong point of view. A local hotel group may gain more from a thoughtful food and culture series than from another broad discount campaign. A beverage startup might become part of neighborhood gatherings rather than trying to sound like every national drink brand. A surf, wellness, or apparel company can work with athletes, creators, artists, and community figures who actually fit the lifestyle surrounding the product.
Experience-led marketing also matters for industries that do not look glamorous on the surface. A cybersecurity firm, a medical practice, a law office, or a commercial contractor can still create a stronger brand world. The experience may not be a pop-up event. It could be a polished educational video series, a clear founder voice, a local event sponsorship that makes sense, or a customer program that people remember. Ownership applies here too. The company creates something it controls and improves over time.
Obsidianworks’ independence also carries a useful lesson. The agency spent years developing its foundation with an outside strategic partner, then stepped into a more self-directed phase. For growing San Diego businesses, that sequence feels familiar. Early support from partners, agencies, investors, or consultants can help a company develop faster. At some point, though, the business needs its own internal clarity. It needs a distinct way of speaking, a repeatable creative system, and a path that does not depend on borrowing someone else’s voice forever.
From Paid Appearance to Built Platform
The most important line in the original idea is the move from endorsement to ownership. That idea deserves more than a passing glance.
An endorsement is rented attention. A platform is built attention.
A paid appearance can create a spike in views. A platform can create an audience that comes back. A sponsored post may help a product launch. A media series, event format, or recurring community program can keep building interest month after month. A celebrity campaign may run for six weeks. A business system can produce assets for years.
Obsidianworks is significant because Jordan did not stop at promoting brands. He became part of a structure that creates brand value for others. The agency can win work, hire talent, develop intellectual property, and create ongoing partnerships. That kind of company does not rely solely on one person standing in front of a camera.
San Diego businesses can borrow the principle at a scale that fits them. A boutique fitness studio does not need a movie star. It can build a respected local coaching brand around a useful content format and community presence. A marine services company can create a trusted educational channel around boat care, safety, and seasonal preparation. A cosmetic dental office can develop patient-centered before-and-after storytelling with care, consent, and strong presentation. A home services company can turn its crews, process, and local projects into a steady stream of content that keeps working after each job is done.
Each example builds owned material. The company becomes easier to understand, easier to remember, and less dependent on one sudden burst of attention.
That approach also changes the role of partnerships. Instead of asking a creator to simply “post about us,” a brand can bring them into a larger idea. A San Diego fashion brand might partner with a local stylist to help curate an event, produce a short digital series, and shape the brand’s seasonal campaign. A restaurant could work with a chef, artist, or musician on a limited menu, a live night, and a set of behind-the-scenes videos. The partner becomes part of the creative build, not just the person holding the product.
San Diego Brands Do Not Need Fame. They Need a Stronger Center of Gravity
Celebrity-backed companies draw attention because famous names make the story easier to notice. The deeper value comes from organization. Obsidianworks has positioning, leadership, services, case studies, and a clear cultural frame. Without those pieces, the company would be nothing more than a famous founder with a business card.
Local companies often chase the visible part and skip the operating part. They look for a viral moment, a large following, or a flashy collaboration before the brand itself has a clear center. That usually creates a burst of noise followed by silence.
A stronger center of gravity comes from consistency in the real sense of the word. Not repeating the same slogan forever, but creating recognizable patterns in how the business shows up. The visuals feel related. The message sounds like it belongs to the same company. The campaigns connect to each other. The audience has a growing sense of what the business cares about and where it fits.
San Diego’s competitive mix makes this useful. Restaurants compete with dozens of nearby alternatives. Private practices often sound almost identical online. Marketing firms, contractors, med spas, law offices, and local retailers can blur together when every website opens with a variation of “quality service you can trust.”
A business that builds a stronger brand world gains room to breathe. It can speak with more character. It can choose partnerships more carefully. It can create campaign ideas that feel specific instead of interchangeable. When an event, seasonal moment, or local opportunity appears, the brand has a clearer way to enter the conversation.
Think about a San Diego business trying to participate in a citywide moment like Comic-Con, Padres season, a waterfront festival, or a major convention. Without a defined brand character, it defaults to basic promotions and generic references. With a sharper identity, it can create a campaign that feels more at home. The company knows its tone, its audience, its creative lane, and how far it should go.
The Role of Founders Is Changing Too
Michael B. Jordan’s move also reflects a larger change in founder culture. The founder is no longer always hidden behind the brand. In many companies, especially those built around taste, culture, media, wellness, or design, the founder becomes part of the company’s gravity. Not as a gimmick, and not in a way that turns the business into a personal diary, but as a voice that gives the company more human shape.
San Diego has no shortage of founder-led businesses. Restaurant owners, agency heads, medical entrepreneurs, designers, builders, consultants, and product founders often hold valuable stories that never make it into their marketing. They know why the company exists. They understand what customers struggle with. They can explain tradeoffs more clearly than any stock photo or generic landing page.
When the founder appears with purpose, the business becomes more distinctive. A sober, thoughtful video about how a clinic approaches patient comfort can be stronger than another smiling office photo. A contractor explaining the hidden cost of poor planning in commercial work can say more than a polished but empty slogan. A hotel operator discussing how local travelers behave during major events can turn expertise into content people actually want to read.
Founder visibility needs structure. It should serve the audience, not the ego of the owner. Jordan’s move works because he built a company around a real service model. A San Diego founder who wants to become more visible should think the same way. The personality helps carry the message, but the company must still deliver something valuable behind it.
Local Partnerships Can Be Smaller and Still Matter More
One of the most useful lessons from Obsidianworks is that partnerships work best when they are designed with care. The agency’s projects do not simply attach a famous name to a product. They shape a moment, a setting, or a community around the work.
San Diego companies can do this at a local level. A skincare clinic might work with a wellness studio, local photographer, and event planner to host a small self-care experience for a highly relevant audience. A real estate group could collaborate with architects, neighborhood business owners, and local historians on a content project about how certain areas of the city are changing. A restaurant could partner with a nearby arts organization for a limited series of dinners that support community programming while generating compelling content.
These partnerships do not require massive budgets. They require alignment. The audience needs to make sense. The concept needs enough substance that people want to talk about it. The business needs a plan for extending the value beyond the event through photography, video, short clips, email, press outreach, and website content.
Too many local campaigns end the moment the event ends. The stronger move is to treat the event as one part of a broader campaign. A single panel discussion can become a blog article, three social clips, a recap email, a quote graphic set, a local media pitch, and a landing page feature. That is what owned systems look like in practice. The company turns effort into lasting material.
A City With Creative Energy Rewards Better Thinking
San Diego’s creative economy has real weight. A regional report found that creative industries generated more than $10 billion in economic impact in the San Diego region. The city also continues to support arts, cultural affairs, and public creative work through local programming and institutions.
That environment matters because brands do not operate apart from local culture. They borrow from it, serve it, and sometimes shape it. A company that notices the city around it can make sharper choices. A company that ignores the city often sounds as if it could be located anywhere.
San Diego offers many angles that can influence stronger marketing: coastal life, design, health, innovation, military history, tourism, cross-border commerce, food, action sports, biotech, and live events. The best local brand ideas do not jam all of that into one campaign. They choose the pieces that genuinely connect to the business.
A biotech firm does not need surf imagery to prove it is from San Diego. It may have a stronger local story through research partnerships, innovation, and medical progress. A hospitality brand may have more room to use food, coastal movement, and seasonal travel behavior. A sportswear company might draw from active outdoor lifestyles without sounding like a copy of every California brand that came before it.
Obsidianworks’ work feels relevant here because it is grounded in the belief that strong campaigns come from cultural understanding. San Diego brands can use that idea without copying the style of a Hollywood agency. They can study the people around them with more care. They can create more specific campaigns. They can stop writing as if every customer lives in the same anonymous market.
Ownership Also Changes the Economics of Marketing
The shift from rented attention to owned systems has a practical side. It affects how marketing money works.
A brand that spends heavily on one influencer post may receive a temporary bump, but the value can be hard to extend. A brand that invests in a content library, a strong email funnel, a local event series, a founder platform, or a distinct creative campaign gains assets it can keep using. That does not mean every asset lasts forever. It means the company owns more of the process.
Obsidianworks turned creative knowledge into a business model. Jordan and Easterling did not only participate in the culture economy. They built a company that can sell services, run campaigns, and produce results for clients. That creates a more durable position than appearing in outside promotions alone.
San Diego brands can improve their own economics by thinking this way. A company that documents client success stories well does not need to reinvent its proof every month. A business that builds an effective webinar, event format, or educational series can refine it and use it repeatedly. A brand that turns local partnerships into a recognizable recurring idea gains more than a one-time shout-out.
Even paid advertising improves when the owned material is stronger. Ads perform better when they lead into a brand world that feels credible and clear. A sharp campaign loses force when it sends people to a thin website or an empty social feed. A steady body of good content gives interested people more reasons to stay, explore, and take the next step.
San Diego Businesses Can Start With One Owned Asset
The full Obsidianworks model may feel far removed from the daily reality of a local business. Most companies are not building national creative agencies with celebrity founders. That does not make the lesson less useful. It simply means the starting point should be smaller.
A company can begin with one asset it plans to own and build around:
- A recurring local video series
- A signature annual event
- A founder-led educational column
- A customer story project with strong photography and interviews
- A neighborhood partnership program
- A carefully planned seasonal campaign that returns each year
Each option becomes more valuable when it is treated as a real property, not an experiment abandoned after two weeks. It needs a name, a visual style, a purpose, and enough patience to improve over time.
A San Diego law firm focused on business clients could publish a quarterly “Local Growth Brief” tied to real questions companies face. A dental practice could create a yearly confidence campaign around graduation, weddings, and career milestones. A construction company could document commercial transformations across the city in a polished before-and-after series. A tourism brand could build a guide format around major city weekends and return to it every season.
These ideas are more meaningful than chasing random attention. They create a pattern people can recognize. They also give the business an internal discipline. The team knows what it is building, not only what it is posting.
The Celebrity Economy Is Becoming a Builder Economy
Michael B. Jordan’s work with Obsidianworks reflects a cultural change that stretches beyond entertainment. People with attention are looking for ownership. Businesses with ambition are looking for systems. Audiences are responding better to campaigns that feel built with thought rather than assembled from a quick trend list.
San Diego brands sit in a strong position to act on that change. The city already attracts conventions, creators, travelers, founders, athletes, researchers, and industries with strong stories to tell. It has enough cultural texture to support campaigns with real character. It also has enough competition to punish brands that stay generic.
The lesson from Obsidianworks is not that every company needs a celebrity. It is that brands become more powerful when they build something they control, something that can keep producing value after the first moment of attention has passed.
For a San Diego company, that may begin with a more serious approach to local culture, a stronger founder voice, a partnership that has actual creative depth, or one owned campaign that grows into a recognizable part of the brand. None of those moves require Hollywood scale. They require clearer thinking about what the business wants to own.
In a market where everyone is trying to appear in front of the audience, the companies that build the room may end up with the stronger position.
