It literally depends on who it is benefitting. If I run a small clothing company ad I want to print Mickey Mouse tshirts becasue it will make me money, I need to pay license fees to Disney to use their IP.

On the other hand if I am the biggest clothing manufacturer in the world and my tshirts are worn organically by loads of influencers, Disney might contact me and ask me to make a tshirt of their character so that they are getting exposure to a certain demographic on a certain platform. This way round it is advertising and so it benefits disney, and so instead of me paying to license their characters, they pay me to advertise them.