In this post:
- Common Super Bowl Ad Mistakes
- What Marketers Can Learn from Super Bowl Ads
- The Best Super Bowl Ads of All-Time (in no particular order)
Those of us who remember being in the office after the Super Bowl know the buzz was usually about the ads, the halftime show, and the game (in that order).
The Monday-after recap used to happen in a hallway or over bad coffee. But, the way we consume content and interact with each other has changed. A Super Bowl ad now has to work on TV, in a social feed, as a Connected TV snippet online, and as a headline someone else writes for you.
The water cooler has been replaced by the algorithm.
Even the biggest brands are still figuring out how to deliver on these new realities, and sometimes they miss. For marketers without Super Bowl-sized budgets, there’s plenty to learn if you know what to look for.
Super Bowl Ads Aren’t A Surprise Anymore
There used to be real anticipation around Super Bowl spots. Rumors would swirl about which celebrities might show up, and the occasional leak would hint at which brands were in the game. Before that, we didn’t even know who was advertising at all until the commercials actually aired.
Now, a Super Bowl campaign is a carefully-crafted PR launch with a media buy attached. Brands roll out the ads early, feed it to press, engage influencers to tell the backstory, publish extended cuts, and then ride the post-game wave of reactions, rankings, and breakdowns.
Many of the 2026 big game advertisers have already made their ads available to us early.
Today, sophisticated online tools and measurement firms score the spots on what happens after they air. Adweek works with EDO to track immediate online engagement like searches and website visits tied to each ad. iSpot complements that with survey signals like likeability and brand recognition.
As digital-first marketers, most of us at Tobie are impartial to the ads that have some element of direct response. But the best ads are those that use the TV spot as ignition for a multi-month marketing campaign. Brands that skip the “second act” peak at kickoff and disappear by Tuesday.
Common Super Bowl Ad Mistakes
To their credit, many brands are building Super Bowl ads into more cohesive, multi-channel strategies than ever before. The creative measurement platform, System1, said that 2025 was the best year for creative performance in the past six years. We aren’t in the board rooms when these ads are planned and it’s easy for all of us to play “Monday morning quarterback” while overanalyzing them.
But even with better planning and better measurement, a few familiar traps still show up every year:
The Cameo Trap
Celebrity still earns attention, but it often becomes the story. Kantar’s 2025 post-game analysis showed diminishing impact as celebrity use increases without a clear brand role.
The Sketch Problem
Many spots are funny, polished, and interchangeable. If the joke survives a logo swap, the idea never truly belonged to the brand.
The Brand Linkage Gap
iSpot data shows wide swings in brand recognition by ad. When the brand shows up only at the end, recall between the “entertainment” of the ad, and the brand that purchased it, falls. That is a risky strategy at Super Bowl prices.
No Second Act
The ad ends and the attention goes nowhere. No landing page. No follow-on story. No plan for cutdowns, creators, or amplification. Momentum does not appear on its own. Studies show a 25x improvement in ad performance when 4 channels are activated vs. 3 channels.
Confusing likeability and marketing impact
“Applause” and impact are not the same thing. Some of the most enjoyable Super Bowl spots of all time lacked impact. Likewise, some of the least entertaining ads of all time drove the most marketing success.
Do the metrics match?
Did it drive measurable action such as search lift, site traffic, or a shift in perception? EDO scores ads based on post-airing behaviors like search, site visits and social mentions.
What Can Marketers Learn From Super Bowl Ads?
For those of us who aren’t spending nine figures on Super Bowl ads, the question is simple: What can we steal from the big game to optimize and improve our own campaigns? Businesses with smaller advertising budgets need to do a better job at the fundamentals in order to get “super” results from their campaigns.
Make Your Ads Instantly Recognizable
Match your ad to the rest of your brand so people connect the dots fast, whether that means using the same headline phrase you always use, the same spokesperson, or the same visual layout and format across channels.
One clear point per ad
When budgets are tight, it’s tempting to cram every product and service into one ad. Pick one message and drive that message home. It’s Ok to test different ads and messages, but trying to do that within one ad becomes impossible.
Campaigns, not clips
Your advertising does not live in a vacuum. Treat your marketing like a system, not a single post or video, so each channel reinforces the same core story and supports the same goal with complementary messages.
Separate “liked” from “effective”
The most beautiful creative and the flashiest spokesperson will never substitute for results. Decide what “effective” means before you launch, track it consistently, and hold yourself to it. Do not fall in love with the funny ad. Fall in love with performance.
The Best Super Bowl Ads of All Time
Are these the top Super Bowl ads of all time? Maybe. The better question is why we still talk about them. The list below is presented in no particular order, because it’s too difficult to rank the commercials.
Personal note: these ads pulled some of us into advertising in the first place. They proved a 1-minute idea can change how people see a brand, and sometimes how a future marketer sees the whole job.
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*Creatives with an asterisk may have aired prior to the Super Bowl. They were still selected because of their impact, cultural relevance, or because they are most associated with the Super Bowl. For example, Budweiser’s Wassup ad originally aired on Monday Night Football.