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Its been called the AI Super Bowl, thanks to Anthropic and OpenAI launching what (hopefully) might become AIs very own Cola Wars. Its been called the MAHA Bowl, thanks to brands like Novo Nordisk promoting Wegovy pills, while Ro and hims & hers are pitching telehealth services, Novartis got NFL tight ends to relax for prostate cancer checks, and pharma company Boehringer Ingelheim hypes kidney health. But we know it was the Super Bowl because mixed in amongst the trends were Sabrina Carpenters FrankenPringles man, both T-Mobile and Coinbase hit play on the Backstreet Boys, Oakley Meta made connected glasses look pretty good, and Manscaped somehow turned shaved body hair into emotionally-resonant characters. Another distinct sign this was as Super Bowl-y an ad game as any other Super Bowl? Celebrity directors. Taika Waititi took on Pepsi, Spike Jonze went full Italian variety show with Ben Stiller for Instacart, and Joseph Kosinski took all the innovation from his experiences at the helm of last years blockbuster F1 to get Kurt Russell to teach a guy how to ski. Oh, and somehow the award-winning director with the least commercial films had two spots in the gameYorgos Lathimos directed both Squarespace and Grubhub. Apple continued its complete reinvention of the halftime show, turning Bad Bunnys electric performance into a global event. We also saw a respectable number of hit songs get classically commercial reinterpretations. The aforementioned Backstreet Boys were joined by Andy Samberg becoming Meal Diamond for Hellmanns, Danny McBride and Keegan-Michael Key butchering Bon Jovi for State Farm, and both the NFL and Rocket crafting emotional gut punch moments by reinterpreting two songs from the Mr. Rogers catalog. Advertising! It was a feast for the sensesa cornucopia of commercial extravaganza. All with enough choices that everyone watching the game has their own favorites Including me! Here are my picks for the best ads from the 2026 Super Bowl. But first, the worst! Svedka Vodka Shake Your Bots Off Its apparently the first Super Bowl ad known to be produced primarily with AI. I never wouldve guessed This ad so bad Im not sure its fair to make fun of it, even if its somehow purposely awful. This is the kind of bad that should be taught in schools. It looks like it was made by Advertising 101 students in a rush. The AI angle is a gimmick for gimmicks sake, obviously, and doesn’t add anything to the ad at all except the robots’ nightmare fuel faces. What is so disappointing is that vodka has historically been a pretty great place for advertising. For anyone curious about the kind of creativity is possible in the vodka category, just watch Belvedere Vodkas 2022 spot Daniel Craig, directed by Waititi. Or Absoluts Vodka Movie from 2008, made by Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and Zach Galifianakis. Glorious. Svedka, conversely, serves up the advertising equivalent to the most vapid, superficial people youve ever seen in a club. A robot apocalypse as imagined by the Butabi brothers. OK, now lets get to the good stuff. Here are my Top 5 ads from this year… Budweiser “American Icons” As I said in my pregame brand power rankings, Bud was here for the crown. Created by BBDO New York, this takes Budweisers penchant for animal buddies to a new, non-partisan patriotic level. What could possibly be cuter than a horse and a yellow lab becoming best friends? Well, when its Buds 150th anniversary and Americas 250th, the answer, of course, is EAGLET. These are divisive times, with many states feeling less and less united with every news cycle. But here, just for a moment, Bud has served up something that we can all agree on. When that bald eagle spread its big grown wings for the first time from behind that leaping horse, red states, blue states, MAGA, Democratic Socialists, coastal elites, flyover rednecks, and everyone in between were able to say, Oh HELLS yeah. And in 2026, thats something to raise a glass to. Jeep Billy Bass Goes to the River What initially appears to be a pretty run-of-the-mill car ad takes a decidedly epic turn that transforms ths spot into a classic. If you listen to the Super Bowl episode of Fast Companys Brand New World podcast (do it!), youll know I spoke to the folks who made it, Mark Gross and Chad Broude, who are co-founders and co-chief creative officers of Chicago-based independent ad agency Highdive. They have hundreds of Super Bowl ads between them, and this latest piece of work shows the benefit of that experience. Highdive has become synonymous with great Super Bowl work since the 2020 Super Bowl and their fantastic Jeep commercial starring Bill Murray, reliving the classic 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. The level of difficulty here is highno nostalgic soundtrack, no celebrity, no gimmick. Just a straight shot of good ol fashioned copywriting, perfect casting and comedic timing straight into the veins. Rocket x Redfin America Needs Neighbors Like You With the amount of money required just for Super Bowl air timea reported $8 million, plus a required additional matching ad buy across other NBC sports brands need to ensure they get your attention. This year, Rocket and Redfin did that by combining three things that would create a large Venn diagram of interest: Lady Gaga singing Mr. Rogerss Wont You Be My Neighbor?; a heartwarming commercial airing during the game; and, most crucially, giving viewers the chance to win a million-dollar house. But everything revolves around the spot, which was a well-crafted, heartwarming vibe shift from all the comedy and celebrities. I spoke to CMO Jonathan Mildenhall about this triple threat approach. “The only way to win at the Super Bowl is to win a disproportionate share of conversation pregame, as well as during game, and, increasingly, the progressive brands are talking about postgame conversation, Mildenhall says. For us the pregame was Lady Gaga behind the scenes, then during the game there is the spot, and were announcing the Great American home search for people to participate in over the days after the game. Hellmanns Meal Diamond The Boston Red Sox, and every karaoke bar on the planet, utilize Neil Diamonds Sweet Caroline effectively to bring a crowd together, put an arm around one another and scream SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD! in unison. Here we get that 1969 hit remixed for mayo thanks to Andy Samberg as Meal Diamond. Of course this looks and sounds ridiculous. But it actually continues a strategy Hellmanns started in 2024. Mayo Cat starred Kate McKinnon and was able to put one word into the mouth of every cat: Mayyo. Its ambition to embed itself in our brains in such an insidious way that we hear it every time a cat meows was commendable. Clearly, that ambition remains. Now when youre making lunch, you may find yourself humming a familiar tune and whisper-crooning to yourself, Haaaam, touching ham.. until it hits a crescendo, Sweet Sandwich Time! Bah-bah-baaaaah. Bud Light Keg Bud Light was in a dark place not that long ago. It was unfairly punished for its one-off partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, which turned into an unlikely lightning rod for anti-trans weirdos and fans of Kid Rock. Thankfully, with Shane Gillis, the brand has been building back its beer advertising pedigree by making commercials that are funny as hell. His impressive run includes Confessions, Wrong Commercial, and last years big game ad BMOC. Now Gillis, Post Malone, and Peyton Manning return, this time at a wedding. When the keg gets knocked over and rolls down a hill, the entire wedding party does its best Princess Bride As you wish impression. Dumb, fun, and exactly what you want from a Bud Light ad.
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E-Commerce
In Southwest Airlines new Super Bowl ad, boarding looks more like the Hunger Games than an orderly process. Set in an airport thats been reimagined as a dense jungle, passengers rush to secure their preferred seats before its too late: a woman swings on a giant vine to cut her fellow travelers; a grandma shoulder-checks a passerby; and a man creates a dummy seatmate out of twigs to convince other fliers that his aisle seat has already been snagged. The ad is a parody of Southwests former open boarding policy, which, since the airlines official founding in 1971, allowed passengers to choose their own seats in a system that aimed to reduce the hierarchy of tiered seating. In January 2024, Southwest announced that it would be nixing open seating in favor of a more standard assigned seating system, citing the time pressure involved in the open seating process and a new focus on premium seating options as the main reasons for the change. Assigned seating officially rolled out across the airlines operations on January 27. Southwest describes its new spot, Boarding Royale, as a self-aware clap-back at its former boarding policy. And, at surface value, the ad is funny, well-executed, and accurate for anyone whos ever traveled with a nervous flier (or is one). But, taken alongside Southwests brand moves over the past two years, the ad feels less like a light-hearted self-own, and more like the hypocritical creative output of a brand thats seriously lost the plot. “Boarding Royale” pokes fun at open seating Boarding Royale was directed by the creative agency GSD&M, Southwests longtime agency of record. According to Julia Melle, director of brand and content at Southwest, the ad is designed to introduce assigned seating in a way that recognizes we understand its a category norm” and “feels authentic to our brand. [Photo: Southwest Airlines] Within the spot, there are nods to the various traveler behaviors associated with Southwest’s open seating, such as the traveler who checked in too late, the one who creatively saves seats, and the young families with children who will do anything to ensure they sit together, Melle says. Our most loyal customers have probably witnessed these behaviors more than anyone, so we believe the exaggeration will give them a chuckle. Indeed, the ad does a good job at poking lighthearted fun at the kinds of exasperating, head-scratching behaviors one tends to encounter at the airport. This strategy mightve worked perfectly well if it was, say, making a silly joke at the expense of a rival airline. But it falls flat when its directly making fun of a feature that was a pillar of Southwests brand for decadesand was, until recently, a system that the company touted again and again in its own marketing materials. Southwest’s boarding about-face From its inception, Southwest cultivated a reputation as a quirky, low-cost airline for the everyman. Three key features sat at the heart of that brand positioning: open seating, a staunch stance against hidden fees, and an iconic Bags Fly Free policy. Over the past several years, the company has shaved away all of those commitments. Some of Southwests earliest ads tout the airlines unique boarding process, which it promised at the time would take less than 10 minutes total. In the 80s, a series of print advertisements promised, Unlike assigned seating, youre free to sit next to someone just like you. For years, the brands unofficial slogan, oft repeated by flight attendants, was You can sit anywhere you wantjust like at church. In 2007, backlash to the concept of Southwest eliminating open seating was so strong that the company published a blog titled, You Spoke and We ListenedSouthwest Says Open Seating is Here to Stay! Southwests marketing often used its open seating modelwhich meant no ticketed class divisions in the cabinto tout its lack of hidden fees compared to competitors. In the early 2000s, many of the brands ads parodied other airlines by showing passengers getting charged additional fees for small luxuries like using the overheard compartments, reclining their seats, or enjoying a snack. In one 2015 campaign titled Transfarency, the company promised, Transfarency means we dont dream up ways we can trick you into paying more. A brand that’s lost the plot To say that these spots have aged poorly would be an understatement. When it announced its new assigned seating policy in 2024, Southwest also introduced a category of premium seats which come with extra legroom, faster Wi-Fi, and larger overhead binsfor an added cost. Its currently in the process of renovating its cabins to make room for these seats, which will take up one third of each aircrats total seating. In August 2025, it also announced a new policy that requires travelers who dont fit within the armrests of their seat to pay for an extra one in advance. [Photo: Southwest Airlines] The brands most egregious move by far, though, came in March 2025, when it announced that it would kill its Bags Fly Free policy, which allowed travelers to check two bags without added costs. Bags Fly Free was a mantra that Southwest repeated in its marketing for decades, including spots in 2009, 2011, and one in 2023 that has since been made private by the company on YouTube. As recently as September 2025, the company said on an earnings call that ending the signature program would be a destructive step too far. Southwest has also removed a 2024 study from its website which found that eliminating Bags Fly Free would destroy value. This isnt to say that brands arent allowed to change their minds or their business strategies. But Southwest hasnt just evolved with the times; its sacrificed some of its most closely held brand attributes values in pursuit of profit. With just a bit of context on Southwests repeated capitulations to market pressure, Boarding Royale starts to feel less like a silly ad, and more like a betrayal of the companys purpose.
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E-Commerce
This weekend, a showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, some star-studded commercials, and a Bad Bunny concert are taking place. Regardless of which part of Super Bowl LX is most important to you, it is all going down on Sunday, February 8, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Heres a quick recap before kick-off. How did the Seahawks and Patriots get to Super Bowl LX? This isnt the first time that the Seahawks and Patriots have faced off in the championship game. In 2015, Seattle was defeated by the Patriots 28-24 after an eleventh-hour interception on the one-yard line. New quarterbacks Drake Maye and Sam Darnold may not have chips on their shoulders, but they are still determined to lead their respective teams to victory in this rematch. Speaking of new, according to CBS Sports Research, this is the first Super Bowl that features two teams with both head coaches and QBs all in their first or second season with their respective teams. The Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel, led his team to a 14-3 season in the American Football Conference. The last obstacle to securing their Super Bowl LX spot was the Denver Broncos, whom they defeated 10-7 in blizzard-like conditions. This marks their 12th Super Bowl appearance and the first since former QB Tom Brady left the team in 2020. If New England winds up victorious, the franchise will break the record for most Super Bowl titles. Both the Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers are currently tied with six titles. Mike Macdonald, Seattles head coach, is doing everything in his power to prevent history from being made. He led his team to a franchise record 14-3 season in the National Football Conference. Seattle defeated the Los Angeles Rams 31-27 to earn their spot in the big game. They are on a nine-game winning streak and dont want to see that end. The franchise has been in the Super Bowl three times prior, but they have only won once, in 2014. Dont let their lack of titles deceive you, though: The Seahawks are currently favored to win because of their strong defense and stellar scoring abilities. Who is performing at Super Bowl LX? If you are in it for the music, three diverse artists are ready to put on a show. Green Day will open up the festivities and honor NFL MVPs. Continuing the pre-game momentum, Charlie Puth will tackle the national anthem. Brandi Carlile will perform “America the Beautiful,” then Coco Jones will croon “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” At halftime Bad Bunny, known as Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio on his birth certificate, is ready to rock the house. Hot off his three Grammy wins just one week prior, the BAILE INoLVIDABLE singer made sure to save his voice on musics biggest night so he could sing out for football fans. (This was despite host Trevor Noahs best efforts to get him to crack.) The Puerto Rico native says he couldn’t be prouder. “What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” he said when his involvement was announced, according to People. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown.” What commercials have already dropped? If you are in it for the commercials, several were teased or released ahead of the big game. This makes bathroom breaks so much easier. Among the early arrivals is a Grubhub spot featuring George Clooney in his first-ever Super Bowl ad directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. He is far from the only celebrity getting in on the action. Dunkin’ is utilizing the talents of four movie stars in its spot: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, and Jason Alexander. Budweiser went in a different direction, relying on nostalgia and its signature Clydesdale horses. This is just the tip of the iceberg of ads, which according to the Financial Times, cost on average about $8 million for a 30-second spot. How can I watch or stream the 2026 Super Bowl? The party gets started on Sunday, February 8, at 6:30 p.m. ET./3:30 p.m. PT. You can catch it on NBC, Telemundo, and Universo. This means that you are covered if you have a traditional cable subscription or over-the-air antenna. As a reminder, watching NBC live with an OTA antenna is free. NBCUniversals subscription-based streaming service is Peacock, which will also stream the big game live. If you cut the cord, you can also utilize a live-TV streaming services such as Hulu + Live TV, Fubo, or YouTube TV. Just be sure to double check it carries NBC in your area. NFL+ is also an option, but it only works on phones or tablets.
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E-Commerce
With ever-shrinking attention spans, film students today are struggling to make it to the end of a feature-length movie without getting distracted by their phones. Thats according to a recent article by The Atlantics Rose Horowitch. In a snippet that has since circulated on X, gaining nearly 2 million views since it was posted last week, one of the film studies professors interviewed by Horowitch recalled asking his students about the ending of the 1962 François Truffaut film Jules and Jim. The attention crisis is so dire at schools right now that film professors can't even get their students to finish movies, and the kids don't even look up the plots of the movies they skip, so students fail basic in-class quizzes like "what happened at the end of the movie?" pic.twitter.com/e09bN5ia8J— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) January 30, 2026 More than half of the class picked one of the wrong options, saying that characters hide from the Nazis (the film takes place during World War I) or get drunk with Ernest Hemingway (who does not appear in the movie), the screenshot read. The film has a run time of 1 hour and 45 minutes. Naturally, much hand-wringing ensued online. Im so confused. You kind of have to go out of your way to take a film studies course, right?, one X user asked. Imagine not doing the homework, and the homework is watching a movie. Thats crazy, a Reddit user wrote. Im so confused. You kind of have to go out of your way to take a film studies course, right?— Joseph Guarino (@RoninJoey) January 30, 2026 Others called it a crisis of attention. This bleeds into everything. Can’t pay attention to or finish a novel. Need cues to watch a movie because they are on second screens, another X user wrote. The rise of second-screening and the resulting genre of casual, background-friendly TV shows and movies has been well documented. Many, myself included, will admit to putting on a film only to scroll TikTok with one hand and place an online order on a laptop with the other. In a recent n+1 magazine article, Will Tavlin reports that screenwriters are now being told to have their protagonists announce what theyre doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along. Film studies professors interviewed by The Atlantics Horowitch say they have even resorted to assigning students only portions of films. One compares his students to nicotine addicts going through withdrawal. Short-form content on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have rewired the brain to expect a dopamine hit every few seconds. The closest thing we had to doomscrolling back then was channel surfing, one Reddit user pointed out. Could they play the movies on 2x with Minecraft footage? one X user suggested. could they play the movies on 2x with minecraft footage?— halogen (@halogen1048576) January 30, 2026 Long films arent the problem here. If anything, they might be the solution. Im actively trying to break my phone addiction, and a big part of that has been using movies as a guaranteed two hours a night off my phone, one Reddit user admitted. Its therapeutic, and Id encourage anyone trying to click less screen time to give it a try. Homework assignment: Sit and watch The Brutalist without once touching your phone, and see how difficult it can be.
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E-Commerce
As Valentines Day approaches, finding the perfect words to express your feelings for that special someone can seem like a daunting taskso much so that you may feel tempted to ask ChatGPT for an assist. After all, within seconds, it can dash off a well-written, romantic message. Even a short, personalized limerick or poem is no sweat. But before you copy and paste that AI-generated love note, you might want to consider how it could make you feel about yourself. We research the intersection of consumer behavior and technology, and weve been studying how people feel after using generative AI to write heartfelt messages. It turns out that theres a psychological cost to using the technology as your personal ghostwriter. The rise of the AI ghostwriter Generative AI has transformed how many people communicate. From drafting work emails to composing social media posts, these tools have become everyday writing assistants. So its no wonder some people are turning to them for more personal matters, too. Wedding vows, birthday wishes, thank-you notes, and even Valentines Day messages are increasingly being outsourced to algorithms. The technology is certainly capable. Chatbots can craft emotionally resonant responses that sound genuinely heartfelt. But theres a catch: When you present these words as your own, something doesnt sit right. When convenience breeds guilt We conducted five experiments with hundreds of participants, asking them to imagine using generative AI to write various emotional messages to loved ones. Across every scenario we testedfrom appreciation emails to birthday cards to love letterswe found the same pattern: People felt guilty when they used generative AI to write these messages compared to when they wrote the messages themselves. When you copy an AI-generated message and sign your name to it, youre essentially taking credit for words you didnt write. This creates what we call a source-credit discrepancy, which is a gap between who actually created the message and who appears to have created it. You can see these discrepancies in other contexts, whether its celebrity social media posts written by public relations teams or political speeches composed by professional speechwriters. When you use AI, even though you might tell yourself youre just being efficient, you can probably recognize, deep down, that youre misleading the recipient about the personal effort and thought that went into the message. The transparency test To better understand this guilt, we compared AI-generated messages to other scenarios. When people bought greeting cards with preprinted messages, they felt no guilt at all. This is because greeting cards are transparently not written by you. Greeting cards carry no deception: Everyone understands you selected the card and that you didnt write it yourself. We also tested another scenario: having a friend secretly write the message for you. This produced just as much guilt as using generative AI. Whether the ghostwriter is human or an artificial intelligence tool doesnt matter. What matters most is the dishonesty. There were some boundaries, however. We found that guilt decreased when messages were never delivered and when recipients were mere acquaintances rather than close friends. These findings confirm that the guilt stems from violating expectations of honesty in relationships where emotional authenticity matters most. Somewhat relatedly, research has found that people react more negatively when they learn a company used AI instead of a human to write a message to them. But the backlash was strongest when audiences expected personal efforta boss expressing sympathy after a tragedy, or a note sent to all staff members celebrating a colleagues recovery from a health scare. It was far weaker for purely factual or instructional notes, such as announcing routine personnel changes or providing basic business updates. What this means for your Valentines Day So, what should you do about that looming Valentines Day message? Our research suggests that the human hand behind a meaningful message can help both the writer and the recipient feel better. This doesnt mean you cant use generative AI as a brainstorming partner rather than a ghostwriter. Let it help you overcome writers block or suggest ideas, but make the final message truly yours. Edit, personalize, and add details that only you would know. The key is co-creation, not complete delegation. Generative AI is a powerful tool, but its also created a raft of ethical dilemmas, whether its in the classroom or in romantic relationships. As these technologies become more integrated into everyday life, people will need to decide where to draw the line between helpful assistance and emotional outsourcing. This Valentines Day, your heart and your conscience might thank you for keeping your message genuinely your own. Julian Givi is an assistant professor of marketing at West Virginia University. Colleen P. Kirk is an assistant professor of marketing at New York Institute of Technology. Danielle Hass is a Ph.D. candidate in marketing at West Virginia University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce