The Seattle Seahawks took home the Lombardi trophy at Super Bowl LX, but the real bloodbath happened during the commercial breaks.
Brands shelled out an average of $8 million for just 30 seconds of airtime—a 0% increase from last year. In exchange, they got access to a projected 128 million viewers.
But in an era of programmatic ads, fragmented attention, and algorithms, the fundamental question remains: Is dropping $8M on a TV commercial actually worth it?
Let’s look at the data, the winners, and the brands that set their marketing budgets on fire.
Is it really worth running a Super Bowl ad nowadays?
If you look at the raw numbers, the scale is unmatched: the broadcast generated $550 million in earned media value and 764 billion potential impressions.
However, the overall engagement rate across social media was a microscopic 0.19%.
Here is the hard truth: If you treat the Super Bowl as a direct-response play, you will lose. Look at AI.com. They drove a massive 9.1x spike in engagement compared to the median ad, but it was largely transactional. The brands that actually saw an ROI treated their $8M spot not as a standalone commercial, but as the kickoff to a multi-platform ecosystem.
They didn't sell features; they sold identity. The Super Bowl is a branding play, and the ROI comes from cultural relevance, not click-through rates.
The Winners of Super Bowl Ads
The brands that won the night ignored the shiny new tech and leaned entirely into narrative, emotion, and nostalgia.
Lay's ("Last Harvest"): Lay’s skipped the celebrities and told a genuine story about potato farming. Marketing experts praised it because it "activated persuasion without triggering persuasion knowledge". It was a masterclass in brand authenticity that didn't feel like a sales pitch.
Budweiser ("American Icons"): Budweiser went back to the basics: Clydesdales, heritage, and emotion. It secured the #1 spot on USA Today's Ad Meter with a 4.00 rating. Sometimes, you just need to play the hits.
Xfinity ("Jurassic Park... Works"): Xfinity reunited the original Jurassic Park cast to reimagine the 1993 classic with modern Wi-Fi. It successfully transformed nostalgia into narrative authority.
The Losers of Super Bowl Ads
The losers of the night suffered from "cognitive friction" ads that were too confusing, too creepy, or tried too hard to explain complex features.
Svedka Vodka: The biggest loser of the night. They ran a fully AI-generated ad featuring dancing robots. It left viewers puzzled and was heavily criticized for creating a "creepy feeling" that entirely mismatched the brand's emotional appeal.
TurboTax: They brought in Oscar-winner Adrien Brody to play a tortured version of himself trying to find the "drama" in taxes. It was funny, but experts noted the core message was way too complex for a Super Bowl party, failing to translate enjoyment into actual sales.
Coinbase: They scored a failing grade from Kellogg's ad review panel for a confusing, karaoke-style sing-along ad set to a Backstreet Boys track.
The "AI" Cliché: Artificial intelligence dominated the conversation, but many viewers felt the tech was forced. While brands like Anthropic played it smart by poking fun at ChatGPT, too many companies tried to shove AI features down viewers' throats, resulting in chaos without charm.
The Bottom Line: You can buy 30 seconds of attention for $8 million. But you can't buy cultural resonance. The brands that win in 2026 are the ones that make people feel something first, and understand something second.
