Super Bowl ads, cultural risk, and what makes a brand statement land

Executive overview

At $8–10M for 30 seconds, the Super Bowl demands more than visibility — it demands clarity. Most 2026 advertisers failed the test: too many celebrities, too little conviction, too much trying to please everyone.

The winning framework adds three filters to the classic ownable/relevant/memorable lens: simplicity, sincerity, and statement-making. Brands that lacked all three should have sat it out.

AI raises the floor, but human ingenuity raises the ceiling — and most Super Bowl ads played at the floor.

The new criteria for Super Bowl success

• Ownable, relevant, and memorable remain the baseline
• Add simplicity: chaos in the world demands clarity in the message
• Add sincerity: inauthenticity is immediately visible at this scale
• Add statement-making: a brand must say something — about culture, category, or itself
• Failing any of these is a reason not to buy the spot

Winners: what they got right

• Rocket/Lady Gaga — insight rooted in business strategy ("own the dream"); Lady Gaga's recording of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" spread on social before the ad even aired; made a cultural statement without passing judgment
• Anthropic — maximised 360 ROI; provoked a response from OpenAI's CEO and CMO; a bold category attack that must now be lived up to
• Pepsi — co-opted Coke's polar bear mascot; self-deprecating tone; revived the brand's fighter persona; made a category statement about who they are
• Squarespace/Emma Stone — simple single message: go get your domain name; cut through across generations
• Levi's — stripped to one visual idea; worked precisely because it didn't overexplain

Celebrity: $250M mostly wasted

• 60% of Super Bowl ads used celebrities; most used them without clear reason
• Over $250M spent on celebrity placements with poor ROI
• Rule: celebrity use should be explainable — if you can't answer "why this person?", don't
• Exception: Goodwill Dunkin' worked because Ben Affleck's association with Dunkin' is culturally established
• When you try to speak to everyone, you speak to no one

AI ads: overcrowded and underdifferentiated

• Roughly one in four tracked ads were AI-related
• Anthropic stood apart; every other AI ad ranged from mediocre to tone-deaf
• Gen AI ads collectively felt like the crypto ad wave — present everywhere, memorable nowhere
• The macro statement landed ("AI is here to stay"); the executions mostly did not

Bad Bunny halftime show: bold, authentic, and globally strategic

• Performed entirely in Spanish — authentic to his audience, not designed to please detractors
• Included cultural touchstones: real-life couple married on stage, Lady Gaga cameo, message of joy and unity
• Said "God bless America" in English; held a football reading "together we are America"
• A win for the NFL and Apple — both are pursuing global audiences, and Bad Bunny is a global superstar
• The NFL kept him despite political pressure; that spine builds more long-term loyalty than retreating would have

Living in the purple: brand integrity under polarisation

• The problem isn't political colour — it's moral decay in how statements are made
• Brands (and leaders) can take any position if done with integrity, not hatred
• Bad Bunny modelled this: strong cultural identity, zero hateful framing
• Trying to be neutral by saying nothing is itself a statement — often a weak one

On Black History Month, fear, and choosing joy

• As a Black Nigerian-American woman, Dara shares she feels genuine fear — comparing it to living under military rule in Nigeria
• Chose to post publicly during the 100th Black History Month because silence from those with privilege compounds the silence of those without
• Racism, anti-Black sentiment, and Black unemployment are at historic highs — under-covered
• Joy as resistance: joy is not happiness; it coexists with fear, sadness, and anger
• Joy is a choice — and in volatile times, choosing joy is a disruptive act