This Year’s Big Game Is a Cultural Tell for Modern Brands
Every Super Bowl invites early hot takes: winners, losers, best jokes, biggest celebrities.
But the more interesting question for 2026 is different: What is this year’s work teaching us about how brands are evolving?
We stepped back to look at what the work is signaling.Because the early Super Bowl 60 slate isn’t just a collection of commercials. It’s a real-time case study in modern brand strategy; how companies are recalibrating tone, storytelling, and meaning in a culture that’s more fragmented, more skeptical, and more emotionally complex than a few years ago.
With Super Bowl 60 shaping up to be one of the most expensive and most watched in history, creative decisions feel less like stunts and more like statements.
Below are the eight strategic signals we see taking shape, not as predictions, but as patterns forming across the work released so far.
#1 Single-minded ideas are winning
The most striking shift this year is restraint.
Instead of trying to do everything in 30 seconds, brands are committing to one clear idea and protecting it. This isn’t minimalism. It’s confidence.
Examples:
- Squarespace “Unavailable”: (leans into cinematic storytelling rather than feature overload)
- Grubhub “The Feest”: (builds an entire spot around a single promise, “we’ll eat the fees”)
- Kinder Bueno “Yes, Bueno”: (repeats its name and product with disciplined simplicity)
- OIKOS “The Big Hill”: (stays locked to one performance metaphor)
The signal: Brands are prioritizing memorability over maximalism. And in the Super Bowl environment, that discipline stands out.
#2: Celebrities still reign, but as characters
Celebrity still dominates, but the function has evolved.
Celebrity hasn’t lost its power, but it has lost its authority. Audiences no longer accept fame at face value. Celebrities are being used less as aspirational icons and more as characters inside a larger idea. Self-aware, embedded in the narrative, and often playing with their own public persona.
Examples:
- Pringles “Pringlelelo”:(Sabrina Carpenter’s Pringles appearance plays into knowingly absurd fantasy)
- Turbo Tax “The Expert”: (Adrien Brody’s dramatic persona is used to defuse anxiety)
- Dunkin’ “No one can see this”: (Ben Affleck isn’t an icon; he’s a character)
The signal: Celebrity works best when it’s treated as a narrative tool, not a shortcut.
#3: Humor is evolving from slapstick to strategy
Humor is still everywhere. But it’s more controlled and more strategic.
The strongest comedic spots aren’t funny for the sake of being funny. They use humor to make the brand more approachable, the category less intimidating, or the product truth more memorable.
Examples:
- Fanatics Sportsbook “Bet on Kendall”: (uses self-aware comedy to soften a trust-sensitive category)
- Manscaped “Hair Ballad”: (turns discomfort into memorability)
- Instacart “Bananas”: (uses absurdity to mirror modern convenience culture)
The signal: Humor is increasingly functioning as a credibility builder, not just entertainment.
#4: Sincerity is returning as a creative advantage
One of the most notable shifts this year is how often brands are allowing sincerity, emotion and vulnerability to stand unguarded. No wink. No punchline. No irony to relieve the moment.
Examples:
- Rocket & Redfin “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”: (allows Lady Gaga’s “Neighbor” performance breathe)
- Lay’s “Last Harvest”: (treats farming, legacy, and time with reverence)
- Gemini Google “New Home”: (humanizes AI through a family story rather than spectacle)
The signal: In a culture saturated with irony, sincerity feels unexpectedly confident. And when done well, it reads as premium.
#5: Cultural awareness as a brand asset
Some of the most compelling early spots don’t just entertain, they demonstrate cultural literacy. They aren’t escaping the emotional context audiences bring into the game: anxiety, health concerns, AI skepticism, economic pressure. They’re incorporating it.
This kind of awareness functions as emotional mirroring. It tells the audience: we see what you see.
Examples:
- Hims & hers “Rich People Live Longer”: (names health inequity and access head-on)
- Amazon Alexa+ “Alexaaaa+”: (acknowledges cultural unease about AI)
- Oakley x Meta “Athletic Intelligence is Here+”: (frames AI glasses around usefulness rather than disruption)
The signal: The strategic shift here is subtle but important… Cultural awareness isn’t being treated as risk. It’s being treated as credibility.
#6: Competitive banter is playful
This year’s early work favors playful provocation. Brands are poking at rivals with winks rather than punches, more social ribbing than hard confrontation.
Examples:
- Pepsi “The Choice”: (turns cola rivalry into character comedy)
- YouTube TV “Don’t Settle For Meh”: (positions streaming competitors as “meh.”)
- Anthropic Claude “Can I Get A Six-Pack Quickly?”: (leans directly into the AI monetization undercurrent through ChatGPT parody)
The signal: Playful competition signals confidence without defensiveness. Inviting audiences to enjoy the rivalry and laugh with the brand rather than at an opponent.
#7: Shared memory as emotional shorthand
Nostalgia continues to be one of the most reliable levers in the Super Bowl ecosystem, but the strongest uses this year feel less like throwbacks and more like shortcuts.
Examples:
- T-Mobile “The Warmup”: (Backstreet Boys teaser offers instant emotional access)
- Dunkin’ “No one can see this”: (cast and tone lean into ’90s pop-culture familiarity)
The signal: What’s notable is how nostalgia is functioning: not as sentimentality, but as efficiency. In a high-noise environment, memory accelerates meaning.
#8: Patriotism as an undercurrent
Patriotism is present this year, but it’s quieter. It shows up as mood: land, labor, heritage, continuity. Brands are signaling belonging because patriotism is complicated.
Examples:
- Tecovas “True West”: (evokes values-based identity rooted in place)
- Budweiser “American Icons”: (returns to familiar cultural icons)
- Lay’s “Last Harvest”: (frames American agriculture as dignity and legacy)
The signal: Brands are leaning into shared rituals and values as subtle emotional anchors, especially in a fragmented culture.
What’s striking is what we aren’t seeing: a truly modern, multicultural vision of America, even as demographic reality continues to shift. The year’s work leans heavily on familiarity, not futurism.
The bigger signal: These ads are less a competition than a reflection.
The early Super Bowl LX isn’t just a showcase of creative ambition, it’s a mirror. The early slate reflects brands deciding what kind of presence they want to have in people’s lives: comic relief, comfort, credibility, belonging.
And in that sense, the most important shift isn’t about tone or trend. It’s about intention.
Super Bowl LX reminds us that being memorable isn’t simply about being loud. It’s about choosing what you want to stand for in the most crowded media moment of the year, and trusting that clarity, more than spectacle, is what people carry with them after the game.