Super Bowl LX saw the Seattle Seahawks control the field to trounce the New England Patriots 29-13, a result lacking the dynamism from the teams’ last championship showdown over a decade ago. Viewers seeking greater variety and a sense of surprise during the commercial breaks on Sunday found little reprieve, as brands showcased the usual pairing of goofy humor and celebrities — several digitally de-aged and seemingly working off of first-draft material — along with a flood of ads focused on artificial intelligence and health and wellness.
“The work this year felt extremely tame,” said Berk Wasserman, executive creative director at BarkleyOKRP, over email. “Given where the country is right now, that’s not a major surprise. But outside of being political, most brands didn’t take many risks with humor or push the boundaries of what’s been done before.”
Star fatigue settled in early at Super Bowl LX, which notched the highest number of celebrity cameos in six years, with 102 famous faces popping up in commercials across the nearly four-hour broadcast, XR data found. Sentiment toward the ad slate was mixed overall, with 38.8% of the social media conversation skewing positive and 42.6% hovering in the neutral zone, according to an analysis by Meltwater. Those stats hardly feel like the kindling for water cooler conversation that can extend the longevity of Super Bowl campaigns into the weeks ahead.
Super Bowl LX ultimately carried a familiar staleness that has crept into advertising’s biggest night over the years as brands returned to the same conceptual wells while emergent categories, including AI, delivered a mixed bag on the quality front. The dearth of diversity and verve ads-wise again leant more attention to the Apple Music halftime show, a medley from Latin superstar Bad Bunny that featured guest appearances from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, bold messaging around unity and more cinematic camerawork than many of the commercials.
“I miss being caught off guard by something so funny or tear-jerking that the text chains instantly light up on your phone,” said Ryan Scott, senior vice president and executive creative director at Innocean, over email. “In an era of huge budgets, the comedy felt small and the emotional work too quiet. Thankfully, a game that really needed great ads was saved by an amazing halftime performance.”
AI takes over Super Bowl LX
AI companies didn’t need to drop the big bucks — as in up to $10 million for 30 seconds of airtime — to dominate the cultural conversation, but they did so anyway at Super Bowl LX. While the technology markets itself as standing on the forefront of innovation, its advertising wasn’t always up to snuff, with AI platforms producing some of the best and most-derided commercials of the night.
“The surprise wasn’t that AI showed up — it was that with this much money and this big a stage, almost none of them went hard enough to actually own the moment,” said Jarie Bolander, general manager and executive partner at Decision Counsel, in an email.
One clear winner did emerge: Anthropic’s Claude, which ran a spot poking fun at a leading rival’s plan to bring ads to its chatbots. The effort, developed with agency Mother, scored the Super Clio award and accolades for switching up messaging beyond reiterating “Isn’t AI great?” Anthropic communicated a distinct brand point of view and coupled it with winning humor, something competitors like OpenAI mostly failed to do.
“This ad breaks category norms by positioning brand philosophy as the concept itself — a Super Bowl commercial that isn’t selling a product, but selling an idea about the future of AI and advertising,” said Omid Amidi, co-chief creative officer at McKinney, over email.
Counter to Anthropic’s savvy execution was a barebones ad for AI.com, a new agentic platform that crashed after pushing viewers to claim a user handle in a vague, 30-second debut that didn’t clearly communicate anything noteworthy about the service.
“Came off as confusing at best and scam-adjacent at worst. Not the kind of trust signal you want in a moment when AI skepticism is already high,” said Dave Rivera, vice president of channel partnerships at Vistar Media, over email.
AI also put in a lot of gruntwork behind the scenes, including for an uncanny Svedka ad resurrecting the spirits maker’s Fembot mascot. While Svedka earned points for being transparent about its use of AI in production, the ad itself didn’t dispel the notion that the technology isn’t yet capable of achieving the needed level of finesse.
“Drinking is at a 90-year low. Consumer mistrust of AI is growing. Svedka missed the moment,” said Nicole Greene, vice president analyst at Gartner, in an email.
Emotional ads buffer AI deluge
Balancing out the AI glut was a handful of ads that aimed to put a lump in the throat, a tried-and-true tactic that nevertheless offered a sparse playing field.
Lay’s, in one of two Super Bowl spots, wove an emotional story about a potato farmer passing the torch to his daughter, with “Last Harvest” reaching the No. 2 ranking on USA Today’s closely watched Ad Meter. Highdive is behind the work. Dove also returned to the big game with another commercial encouraging young girls to stay in sports, one of the few purpose-driven Super Bowl campaigns.
Topping the USA Today Ad Meter was Super Bowl regular and NFL sponsor Budweiser, which trotted out its signature Clydesdale horses for the umpteenth time, with an added twist. “American Icons,” made with BBDO New York, shows the journey of a foal and an eagle chick as they grow up and support each other through rain and shine, set to the soaring anthem of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” The beer maker used the big game to kick off a celebration of its 150th year and embraced patriotism without coming off as overtly political.
“Budweiser continues to own Americana better than anyone, delivering a powerful, emotional spot that felt unmistakably Super Bowl,” said Vistar Media’s Rivera.
Also tugging on the heartstrings was Redfin and Rocket Mortgage in an ad about the powerful bonds that can develop between neighbors. The ad, set to a Lady Gaga cover of the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” theme, was another instance where a brand alluded to the social climate without wading into the murky waters of politics.
“From a dogpile of celebrity punchlines and pratfalls, Rocket Mortgage emerged and won me over with the most human and hyper-relevant question of the night: ‘Won’t you be my neighbor?’” said Bryan Davis, creative director at Mekanism, over email.
Cultural plays hit speed bumps
The Super Bowl ad landscape has been awash with celebrity faces for years, and the tactic shows no signs of receding. What is becoming increasingly clear for brands obsessed with moving at the speed of culture, as the cliché goes, is that having an authentic connection between brand and ambassador has never been more important.
“The biggest surprise for me was the cultural fluency of the advertisements,” said Lucy Robertson, global head of brand marketing at Buttermilk, in emailed comments. “Many ads this year harbored a ‘if you know, you know’ mentality and didn’t try to overexplain why they were relevant.”
That was case with Poppi’s use of it-girls Charli XCX and Rachel Sennott to boost its better-for-you-soda, Pringles’ utilization of love-crazed pop star Sabrina Carpenter for a crisps-made-man and Fanatics’ use of Kendall Jenner to simultaneously satirize a pop cultural phenomenon and pitch sports gambling.
When in doubt, the savviest brands kept it simple: Raisin Bran and Bosch punning on the names of William Shatner and Guy Fieri allowed the brands to have fun selling fiber and appliances, respectively. Contrast that with one of the worst-received ads of the night, Ritz’s spot starring the improbable trio of Jon Hamm, Bowen Yang and Scarlett Johansson.
“Three high-priced celebrities, a fake tropical island, and a script completely detached from how anyone actually thinks about crackers,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder and managing partner at Metaforce, in emailed comments. “If ‘SNL’ parodied a bad Super Bowl ad, this is exactly what it would look like. Somewhere, Don Draper is rolling over in his grave.”
Other “SNL”-style parodies showed the limits of nostalgia as a marketing strategy. While an Xfinity-powered “Jurassic Park” is a novel idea, the de-aging technology — used by that and Dunkin’s sitcom version of “Good Will Hunting” — was more a trip to the uncanny valley than one down memory lane.
Go big or go home
Amid a slate of stale spots, some brands took big swings at conceptually memorable ads that once helped the Super Bowl establish itself as advertising’s most important night. Levi’s returned to the big game after more than 20 years with “Backstory,” a high-concept ad that focused on jean-clad butts in motion, whether belonging to everyday people, cultural icons or rising stars.
“I love when an ad can put product front and center yet still tap into emotion. From the James Brown needle drop to the three-word payoff to the Doechii cameo to at the end, Levi’s was firing on all cylinders,” said Ted Wahlberg, senior vice president and group creative director at Mower, in emailed comments.
High concepts delivered with off-the-wall humor also left an impression, with Manscaped and Liquid I.V. featuring singing clumps of hair and toilets, respectively. And the two ads directed by critically acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos — for Grubhub and Squarespace — used cinematic style to deliver value propositions.
“Both artful and powerful, opening up on a brutalist setting and landing on a brutally simple line, the Squarespace ad was a short-yet-jarring, cinema-worthy experience that reminded us we don’t always need to recourse to slapstick in order to be funny or memorable,” said João Viégas, creative director at GUT New York, in emailed comments.
Even divisive efforts like Coinbase’s Backstreet Boys karaoke demonstrated marketers willing to take risks on a big stage, as opposed to the brands that brought back brand platforms and creative approaches that weren’t particularly beloved to begin with, including Uber Eats, Homes.com and Ritz.
“It was refreshing to see something so unproduced, if only for a minute,” Mike Baron, senior vice president and group creative director at Mower, said of the Coinbase spot in emailed comments. “While this ad may not have hit all the high notes with ad critics, I thought it landed for crypto cynics (me included).”
Celebs step up for health and wellness
AI-related ads dominated the night, but health and wellness brands also made a splash, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who ran an ad for his failed presidential bid at the 2024 Super Bowl — looming large. While the Health and Human Services Secretary’s plan to ban pharma ads has not come to fruition, the “Make America Healthy Again” movement of which he is a major proponent was on full display — for better or worse.
“It was noticeable how dominant health and wellness advertising was this year. Between GLP-1 brands, diagnostics, hydration, and beyond, health messaging occupied more real estate than recent Super Bowls,” said Derek Rucker, professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, in emailed comments. “What stood out was that the strongest health ads balanced entertainment with information.”
Advocacy group MAHA Center drew online jeers with a bewildering ad starring Mike Tyson. And despite high production value and a concept around how the rich approach health care, the ad from embattled telehealth firm Hims & Hers included a cancer test that often fails.
In contrast, Novartis left an impression by punning off “tight ends” — a reference to the football team position — to contrast traditional tests for prostate cancer with its blood test option, while Boehringer Ingelheim enlisted Octavia Spencer and Sofía Vergara for “Mission: Detect the SOS,” a pitch for a health screening fashioned as a Hollywood blockbuster. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk and Ro attempted to tap into GLP-1 hype by roping in a rash of celebrities, including Serena Williams, with less memorable results.
Health and wellness pitches weren’t limited to endemic brands, either: Liquid I.V. scored one of the night’s most memorable ads with singing toilets encouraging consumers to hydrate.
“Health care brands are increasingly recognizing that behavior change starts with emotional permission, not information or clinical data alone,” said Heather Coyle, president at consultancy Triggers, in emailed comments. “This year’s Super Bowl ads weren’t focused on driving immediate conversion, but on building trust and cultural relevance at scale.”
