Super Bowl LX: 11 Adland Reactions

The Seahawks may have beaten the Patriots on the field at Super Bowl LX, but the real fight for attention happened during the ad breaks. We asked ad leaders across the United States to share their perspectives on the commercials and what they reveal about the state of the industry.

And to determine which ads ultimately rose to the top, we also assembled a dedicated industry jury to score every spot, in partnership with JSM Music. See the full results here.

NB: We’ve embedded a number of mentioned spots throughout the feature below. If you want to see all of them – and their credits – click here.

To see all of our Super Bowl coverage, including in-depth looks at a variety of the work, click here.

Duc Nguyen

Creative director at VML​

To quote The Simpsons production of ‘Planet of the Apes: The Musical’ and noted thespian Troy McLure, “He can talk? He can talk? I can SING!” And sing lots of brands did on a Super Bowl Sunday that could have passed at times for classic hits station WCBS here in New York. And you know what? It was good. Did everyone hit a high note? No. But singing is still lots of fun. It makes the medicine, and your favourite product’s RTBs go down smoothly. Plus, song parodies are like pizza – it’s hard to find one you truly hate. And while I certainly don’t mind a good tearjerker of a spot (do you remember that time God made a farmer? I do), I like when The Big Game™ embraces fun and stupidity. So thank you Bon Jovi, thank you Neil Diamond, thank you Backstreet Boys, thank you whoever you’re supposed to be Ben Stiller and Benson Boone. And most of all, thank you Mr. Rogers. You helped make the night so good, so good, so good.

Ryan Lehr

Co-chief creative officer at Deutsch​

From malfunctioning robots to all out murder, this year’s Super Bowl ads featured technology, and tech companies getting a lil bit creepy.

​Amazon Alexa hilariously kicked things off by murdering Chris Hemsworth multiple times (with the help of a bear, a snake, automatic pool cover, fireplace, etc.). Sure, it was all part of the Aussie superstar's paranoid fantasy - but also a not-so-subtle reminder that we’ve given control of our TVs, cars, and automatic pool covers to these sentient voices in our homes.


Ring’s spot started with a wholesome ‘We found your dog! but by the end it left viewers asking: what else can you find? Comforting tech quickly gave way to ‘Big Brother’ vibes.


Then Svedka vodka rolled out a pair of AI party-bots that were mixing martinis squarely in Club Uncanny Valley. And of course, in the ad industry’s version of Chekov’s gun, the robots had to malfunction in the final act.


​Claude called out the addition of ads to its competitor’s platform by making super creepy (and funny) ads about its competitor's platform. Then Coinbase surprised everyone by bringing the low-brow aesthetic of a dingy Karaoke bar to everyone’s living room with the night’s second big Backstreet Boys moment. Spooky indeed.


​Meta’s AR glasses ad wasn’t necessarily creepy, but it may have induced motion sickness over your chips and dips.


In one highly entertaining spot, Xfinity internet saved Jurassic Park, and in the process made the de-aging tech used on the actors scarier than the dinosaurs. (And yes, the de-aged stars of Goodwill Dunkin could have scared a T-Rex too.)


And in what many thought was the creepiest thing of the night, Manscaped’s singing hairballs felt downright heartfelt and human by comparison. Its tender hair ballad had honesty, humour and real emotion. A reminder that sometimes the most advanced thing a brand can do is make people feel something.

Pedro Prado

Executive creative director at TBWA\Media Arts Lab​

Emotional messages, tonnes and tonnes of celebrities, AI, AI and more AI, a few genuinely humorous pieces (and quite a few that tried, unsuccessfully, to be funny), a stunning film by Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone for Squarespace, an unusual prostate cancer awareness spot starring the league’s tight ends, and a powerful message from Dove.


Not an extremely surprising or incredible Super Bowl ad season, but definitely not a terrible one, especially when compared to recent years. The biggest standouts for me were Apple Music, with a historic branded entertainment moment at the Halftime Show (alongside the NFL), Levi’s, with a powerful in-stadium message that took over social media (plus a pretty cool spot on air), and, of course, Bad Bunny.

Maury Loeb

Partner and editor at PS260​

I couldn’t believe the sheer amount of AI ads. It felt like an onboarding for our new, inescapable reality living with our robot servants as we serve our robot overlords. And I’m talking about the spots that were promoting AI products as new, incontrovertible necessities in daily life – not the ads that were made utilising it. Although I’m sure the majority of commercials during the Super Bowl used generative AI in some capacity - and generally used it really well – there were actually fewer fully AI generated TV spots than I was anticipating. Or maybe I couldn’t tell!

From a craft perspective, the spots that I responded to the most happened to be the ones that were probably the most analogue. Spike Jonze’s retro pop-duo spot for Instacart was simple, brilliantly stupid and featured the funniest fall I’ve ever seen in a commercial. Tim Heidecker’s e.l.f. spot with Melissa McCarthy hilariously captured that telenovela feel and was another great addition to the night’s sub-theme of Latin culture and pride. I was also really impressed with Kim Gehrig’s Levi’s spot which was conceptually really simple and strong, masterfully executed and just fun as hell.

Bert Marissen

Group creative director, head of innovation at TBWA\Chiat\Day LA​

Nostalgia reigned supreme this year, however it wasn't the usual nostalgia. Millennials are now the key focus for brands and that reflects the type of nostalgia we’re seeing. Instead of ‘70s references, we saw an overwhelming amount of ‘90s and early 2000s nostalgia. From Xfinity's ‘Jurassic Park’, to Dunkin’ using ‘Friends’ and the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’, to two brands using the Backstreet Boys. It's a clear sign that the main audience is now millennials instead of gen X.

Simon Dolsten

Founder and CEO at Dolsten & Co.​

The best AI ad of the Super Bowl didn’t use AI at all. Claude knew that to earn the trust of consumers in an AI platform, the smartest approach wasn’t generated content, but great human performances. At a time when audiences are increasingly sceptical of synthetic media, the brand chose restraint and positioned AI as a thoughtful partner rather than the focus.

Maggie Winters

Co-founder and CCO at This January​

Watching the Bosch x Guy Fieri campaign evolve from a social teaser to a Super Bowl spot was such a fun ride, so seeing the full payoff on Sunday was incredibly satisfying. Total winner in building hype. Also, shoutout Novartis for actually making us laugh. It definitely landed with the guys in the room. Then we had the tear-jerker NFL ‘Champion’ ad, which I loved. But Lay’s ‘Last Harvest’ fell flat for me — it just seems flat-out unbelievable that such a mass brand would claim to be such a mom and pop small business.

Heather ‘McT’ McTavish Perez

Executive creative director at VIRTUE Worldwide​

First off, congrats to all the creatives and teams who worked tirelessly to get to the Super Bowl; an amazing achievement for anyone and everyone in the industry.

To be honest, I feel like the Olympics had better commercials. I thought this year’s Super Bowl ads felt a little contrived, borrowed IP, and just missed some of the nuanced cultural conversation. For originality, the Squarespace Yorgos Lanthimos x Emma Stone piece was phenomenal – the cinematography, the location, the details, the colour of it all was *chef’s kiss*. The call-to-action at the end was hard-working. It’s nice to know Emma Stone is just like us, and has to go through various iterations of first and last name combos to get the URL. The Levi's commercial was another standout. It just felt like a really good denim ad, one that didn’t involve only dancing. Including icons like Woody alongside construction workers alongside Doechii and the Boss was smart and showed breadth. And the music was equally as iconic. No notes.

Alex Baghdjian

Partner at FUNDAY​

The Super Bowl ads that won were entertaining, weird, uncomfortable, or entirely absent from the broadcast. Manscaped was the clear standout. The ad made you stop, wince, and laugh. Then there was DoorDash, which proved that the best Super Bowl ad might be the one that doesn’t air during the Super Bowl. A relevant moment that extended organically into social feeds. Typically, Super Bowl celebrity cameos can feel forced, but this was just great casting and scripting. They didn't try to sanitize 50 Cent. They let him be 50 Cent. The spot was funny and genuine.

Debi Rubbani

Executive producer, freelance

The Super Bowl ads were fine, and that's the problem. Watching this year’s Super Bowl commercials, I couldn’t shake the same feeling I had once the game was over: nothing really stayed with me. That’s not to say it was a bad year. The work was polished, well-produced, and undeniably expensive. But compared to truly iconic Super Bowl eras, the kind that gave us Apple’s ‘1984’, Budweiser’s Clydesdales, or Old Spice at its cultural peak, this year felt unusually cautious. Many spots leaned heavily on celebrity appearances without fully integrating them into the idea. Others tried to do too much in too little time, resulting in concepts that were visually loud but emotionally thin. There was also a noticeable saturation of tech- and AI-driven narratives, often presented without a strong human anchor. In a 30-second format, that lack of clarity becomes a real problem.

What did work was unsurprising, yet telling: emotionally grounded storytelling, simple ideas, and brands that stayed close to who they actually are. When those elements were present, the connection followed. So why does it feel harder than ever to create a standout Super Bowl ad? Layers of approvals, cultural risk aversion, and a growing focus on post-game performance metrics may be sanding down the edges that once made this stage so powerful. This wasn’t a forgettable year, but it wasn’t a defining one either. And for the Super Bowl, that distinction matters.

Ty Stafford

Founder and CEO at Hello Party​

Raisin Bran
Raisin Bran might have had the most interesting move of thenight. The cereal we use as shorthand for ‘boring’ opened with a straight-up poop joke. Nonetheless, if 2026 is the start of the Fibre Wars, they just fired the first shot. Who would have thought sh*! could be strategic.


Poppi
If your tagline is ‘Vibes’, you better bring them. Poppy did. Casting Charli XCX was a no-brainer, and MIRIMAR continues its streak of not missing when they get the Super Bowl call. Perfect example of the right team, bringing the right idea, to the right brand.


He Gets Us
Every other brand came to move their product. He Gets Us came to question the premise of the night entirely. Any spot willing to critique consumerism while surrounded by it earns my respect.


Bosch
A-tier Super Bowl math. Funny setup + celebrity who makes sense = clean payoff. I don't know if anyone recognised Guy Fieri in the beginning, and the pun was so simple it makes you mad you didn't think of it. The ad world will say it’s cheesy. The audience will remember it. Guess which one matters.

Svedka
At best, this was a well-intentioned spot sanded down by too many notes until it became content-shaped air. At worst, someone genuinely believed ‘this is good enough’ for the biggest stage in advertising. This wouldn’t earn a passing grade in an intro advertising class, let alone a Super Bowl slot.

Coinbase
The strategy was there. Turning your viewing party into a karaoke moment was smart. The issue was this was the second Backstreet Boys ad of the night, and I genuinely thought it was an extension of T-Mobile. A cautionary reminder for brands to check where their talent shows up.

Keep up with Super Bowl LX here.

See every 2026 Super Bowl ad so far here.