13 Ad Execs Predict Super Bowl Marketing Trends

For brands and agencies, the Super Bowl is still the biggest stage in advertising, but the rules of attention have been permanently altered. Second screen viewing is now part of the ritual, and the competition is playing out across platforms, so what will it take to hold attention when the game isn’t the only screen in the room?

Much of this reality shapes this year’s predictions. For some of the execs we quizzed for this article, it is stories that graft for attention that will prevail. That’s especially true for nostalgia and celebrity, tools that can’t fully soar on name alone. Some suspect the real velocity will come from earned social, while others are sure that silence will be the biggest flex. All this on top of being the first true Big Game of the AI era – where the question is less about whether brands use the tech, and more about what they’re trying to say with it.

Ahead of game day, we asked agency, brand, media, and craft leaders what they think will cut through, and what they’re hoping we’ll still be talking about when the Monday’morning verdicts roll in.

Alli Pierce
Chief creative officer at VML

If the last few years were about hacking the Super Bowl, 2026 feels like a moment to ask: what if we leaned into the magic of the day like we used to?

I hope we see brands remembering why this stage exists. Not just for spectacle or celebrity, but for stories that land in a room full of distraction. Don’t get me wrong; I love the hacks and stunts. When they work, they’re unforgettable. But I wish we’d see more of that same energy channeled into craft and storytelling that really sticks. Snickers’ ‘Betty White’, Chrysler’s ‘Halftime in America’, Apple’s ‘1984’, Wendy’s ‘Where’s the Beef?’, Budweiser’s ‘Wasssup?’.

My wish for this year is a recalibration. Brands leaning into traditional Super Bowl strengths: big ideas, broad humour, emotional storytelling, recognisable celebrities (if the idea calls for it), but executed with the kind of confidence, clarity, and narrative craft that earns attention instead of demanding it.

I’m sure we’ll see a few attempts to bend the rules. And if they work, they will be hard to forget. But in a moment when everything is interactive, personalised, and fragmented, the boldest move might be the simplest one: show up with a great ad and trust the biggest stage in advertising to do what it’s always done best, bring everyone together for the same moment, at the same time.

Either way, a huge shoutout to the creatives who made the ads for the big game. It’s one of the hardest, most high-pressure days in advertising, and making work that lands, especially in a distracted, multi-tasking room, is nothing short of heroic.

Laura Jones
Chief marketing officer at Instacart

Nostalgia will continue to be important. I think in some ways, as things get harder in real time, people look to the past. It’s not that the past was much easier – there was always something going on – but we all go back to those happy memories and try to tap into those. So I think there will be nostalgia, and a part of that is a return to craft.
I think back to the post-production work we had to do last Super Bowl when AI wasn't quite good enough for prime time. If we were doing a similar concept to last year, it would be so much easier with AI and technology making anything possible.

And in a way, that made me want to shoot even more practically and invest even more in the hands-on craft. You even saw that in our holiday campaign using stop motion, and we even released the behind the scenes of that because we wanted proof of craft that showed care and attention to detail in our approach.

I imagine we'll see obviously some brands leaning heavily into AI and I think we'll see a lot of AI companies advertising. So I think there will be that side of the spectrum of ‘AI solves everything’. And then I think there will also be a bit of the focus on craft, and in a world where anything is possible in post, it almost makes what you do with human effort a bit more special.

So I think you'll see nostalgia coupled with craft and things made with real filmmaking technique and intent coming to the forefront. I think we'll laugh, I think we'll cry. Good times will be had by all. I'm bummed that the Niners aren't in it, but you know, can't win them all! I'll take a good laugh instead.

Stevie Archer
Chief creative officer at M+C Saatchi North America

A few years back, we had the year of crypto. I think this year will be the year of AI. But it won’t just be in the ads. We will get our first glimpse of ads for the platforms trying to reign supreme in the burgeoning AI wars. Will they try to entertain us and prove they can hang on advertising’s most creative night? Or will they wax poetic with big brand philosophy?

Scott Bell
Chief creative officer at BBDO North America

At the risk of stating the obvious, AI will be top of mind this Super Bowl. Or more specifically, its absence in the work.

My hunch is we’ll see spots that lean hard into being, and feeling, human: made by real people, imperfect by design, maybe even a little messy. In a moment when everything is getting smoother, faster, and more synthetic, humanity itself becomes the differentiator.

Even AI companies may find themselves trying to prove which one is more human, or at least more for humans.

Your time will most likely come AI overlords, but for now, the ads that break through won’t be made by robots. They’ll be made by us human dumb dumbs. Real, flawed, emotional, intuitive people, doing what we’ve always done best, making work that makes people feel something with our lovable lack of perfection.

Jordan Carroll
Head of CG and VFX supervisor at Framestore

I expect many of the big, traditional Super Bowl advertisers to lean heavily on celebrity star power and broad comedy to appeal to a wide audience. I also expect both new and well-known AI companies to show up with more grounded, relatable stories, using everyday scenarios to build familiarity and trust with viewers.

I’m especially excited to see how brands extend their ideas beyond the TV spot itself, with more intentional multi-platform engagement before, during, and after the game. And, as always, I wouldn’t be surprised if one brand takes a completely unexpected approach, doing something we haven’t seen before and creating the ad we’re still talking about this time next year.

Jimmy Spano
EVP at dentsu Media Sports

This year, we expect brands to extend their Super Bowl campaigns beyond the big screen more than ever before. With over 70% of viewers engaging on a second screen during the broadcast, brands will activate across big, small, and emerging screens to capture consumer attention before, during, and after the game in highly engaged environments. Additionally, while 2025 marked AI’s arrival at the Super Bowl, 2026 is poised to be the year AI truly dominates. As major AI brands compete for attention, credibility, and category leadership, AI will be deeply woven into Super Bowl 2026, from the brands buying in-game inventory to the creative itself, where AI-driven storytelling and messaging take center stage.

Damien Escobar
Global chief music officer at Havas and CEO of Art of Sound

In 2026, don’t expect a full breakup with borrowed sound. Big records, familiar hooks, and cultural shorthand will still dominate the Super Bowl. They work. They scale. They signal fast. That’s not changing overnight.

What is changing is intention.

More brands will start showing up with sound that actually belongs to them. Not instead of borrowed music, but alongside it. You’ll hear legacy tracks paired with evolved mnemonics. Custom themes woven under recognisable songs. Sonic signatures that quietly train the audience while the spotlight stays on the headline track.

Think less revolution, more maturation.

The smartest brands will treat borrowed sound as the entry point, not the identity.

Familiar music pulls you in. Ownable sound makes you remember who pulled you in.
Silence will still be a flex. Timing will still separate funny from forgettable. Voice will still trend human over heroic.

But the real signal of sophistication will be this: brands that understand sound is not a campaign choice, it’s a long game. The 2026 Super Bowl won’t crown the loudest brand. It’ll reward the ones that sound consistent, confident, and unmistakably themselves.

Greg Greenberg
Executive creative director at TBWA\ Media Arts Lab

The game is in Silicon Valley so I expect a bit more of a tech presence in the advertising this year. I’m sure we’ll get a requisite few ads made with generative AI (not necessarily made better), some big budget celeb fests, at least one manifesto, and of course the obligatory confusing ad you’re watching quizzically wondering ‘what is this for?’ then get to the end and realise it’s for the Church of Scientology. In the end the work that will stand out are the brands that remember why people want to see the ads during the Super Bowl. Because they want to laugh. The winners of the night will keep it simple, keep it stupid and keep it funny.

Steve Horn
Executive creative director at Translation

The Super Bowl is one of the last bastions of hope for the idiom ‘good ideas rise to the top’.

It’s a test of whether you can win the day with a memorable thought or statement that’s authentic to your brand (or risk being overshadowed by another famous face).

With a truly massive, general-population audience who might stick around during a commercial break to be entertained, you need to cut through with something simple that isn’t bogged down in strategy or a multiple-page dissertation explaining ‘why’.

The audience on Super Bowl Sunday has no clue what a deck is, they don’t know how long it took you to sell a concept, and they likely don’t care who directed the thing – but maybe, just maybe, they’ll appreciate a great idea still. In our view, the brands that stand out are those that respect simplicity and resist over-explaining the magic.

Jackie Cox Battles
New York consumer brand practice lead / North America consumer brand practice growth lead at Weber Shandwick

This year’s Super Bowl marks a clear evolution in how brand moments are created, consumed, and amplified. The spotlight is shifting from ad-only dominance to reaction-led storytelling. While commercials still debut the narrative, it’s the micro-moments such as unexpected cameos, plot twists, tonal choices or even awkward lines that are now driving headlines and social chatter. Fan reactions, not just creative intent, are shaping the cultural takeaway in real time.

We’ll see the ‘Media Network-Effect’ fully activated. Legacy outlets will continue publishing long-form breakdowns of ads, celebrities and brand activations, but the real velocity will come from earned social. Editorial social handles and newsfluencers are no longer just distributing stories, they’re adding commentary, humour and critique.

This layered POV creates new opportunities for brands to extend campaigns by responding to, remixing or even spotlighting fan and creator reactions as part of the story itself.

This also becomes the first true Big Game of the AI era. Expect ads built with AI, ads parodying AI and ads openly questioning its role in creativity. Beyond creative, AI will quietly reshape measurement and amplification helping brands optimise earned media to influence ‘best of Super Bowl ads’ searches and decode sentiment at scale.

The ability to analyse and even predict audience reaction will increasingly inform post-game strategy.

Finally, the fourth wall of marketing will continue to break. Gen z’s influence ensures a more self-aware, candid discourse where audiences openly acknowledge they’re being marketed to and comment accordingly. Brands that lean into transparency, humour and cultural fluency will win not just attention, but credibility.

Steven Saenen
Category president, savory snacking at Mondelez International

I think we’ll see a conceptual shift around the Big Game, which is that cultural relevance can’t be treated as a moment – it has to be a mindset. Consistency, authenticity, and a holistic approach can elevate campaigns from ‘one-and-done’ stunts to meaningful connections that extend well beyond game day.

I expect brands will increasingly move towards ideas designed to live before, during and long after the big game. The strongest work today is built as a platform, not just a punchline, allowing brands to participate in culture consistently over time rather than briefly capturing attention.

We’re also seeing talent partnerships become even more intentional. Audiences are incredibly savvy, and they can tell when a celebrity pairing makes sense versus when it’s purely about star power. Authenticity and brand alignment will matter more than surprise alone; whatever a brand does has to feel right and like a natural extension of that brand to its consumers.

Finally, we believe bold creative moments need to be matched by an equally strong product experience. Fun, entertaining brand acts are not enough; they have to be anchored in your product truth, and you have to delight consumers across the entire journey.

These principles have guided our work on the RITZ brand: we want to show up in a way that casts the brand in a more modern light but still feels unmistakably RITZ. That’s why our creative platform is rooted in what consumers love about the product, and we have evolved our tone while staying true to what the brand stands for. Our work around Big Game is also part of a bigger push to steer the brand in a new direction, which includes broadening occasions, delivering bolder innovation, and offering more convenient formats – in short, providing value to our consumers in the real world.

Josh Green
Chief creative officer at House 337

Super Bowl advertising is the future of advertising

The conventional take is that Super Bowl advertising is outdated – bloated, self-indulgent, and increasingly irrelevant. But the more uncomfortable truth is different:

Super Bowl advertising is the future of advertising. Not because of the budgets, celebs, or scale, but because for one night a year, brands actually try. They attempt cut-through, and are generous, giving people something worth their attention. Then

Monday morning, they go straight back to saying to the most dangerous phrase in advertising: ‘Well, this isn’t a Super Bowl brief.’

The tragedy isn’t that Super Bowl ads cost too much. It’s that brands act like creative generosity only makes sense when £7 million is on the line. Generosity isn’t related to budget size. Never has, never will be.

So what will actually work?

The most effective brands will lean into what the Aardman effect has proven: emotion beats information, character beats messaging, and showmanship beats precision.

• A brand will challenge the very nature of the format itself - what is a TV ad anymore? - leading to totally unexpected work.
• A brand will launch a franchise, treating it as the first chapter of something that can live, evolve and return.
• A brand will back character over celebrity, choosing someone (or something) we’ll want to spend time with, rather than someone we simply recognise.
• A brand will deliberately under-sell itself, creating something genuinely entertaining that barely mentions them, trusting enjoyment over attribution.
• A brand will embrace slowness, letting a single idea breathe rather than cramming everything into 30 seconds.

If brands applied the same level of attempted cut-through and generosity to everyday campaigns as they do to one night in February, the industry would look very different.

Braver. Funnier. More effective.

In the future, Super Bowl advertising will just be what we call ‘good advertising’.

Mina Mikhael
Executive creative director at Translation

The past few years, celebrity cameos are no longer a creative shortcut, they’re becoming a creative crutch. Brands have been playing from the same playbook: insert a celebrity (or five!) speaking ambiguously about the product in a humorous tone. But recently, the post-Super Bowl chatter centers more around the cameo versus the company; even worse, there’s a lack of attribution to the brand, given all of the ads feel the ‘same’.

In 2026, rather than assessing the risk of a specific celebrity, brands need to assess if that cameo will overshadow the ad’s point. With everyone rushing to book a famous face, brands need to ask themselves: are you bold enough to skirt the celebrity altogether? In a sea of sameness, in an avalanche of AI-chatter, are you, as a brand, confident enough in your storytelling? Is your message more breakthrough than who’s delivering it?

Yes, that’s a bold move to make at the Super Bowl, but one that can allow you to stand out from the pack and prove your brand supersedes the superficial.