Updated February 9, 2026 at 2:00 AM PST
If you're wondering whether it is truly worth the $8 to $10 million cost per 30 seconds to air a commercial during the Super Bowl, just ask the creative minds behind the pro-Jesus advertising campaign He Gets Us.
According to Come Near, the group managing the He Gets Us campaign, after airing commercials in three previous Super Bowls, they have seen nearly 10 billion video views, more than 70 million visitors to their website HeGetsUs.com and an awareness of the campaign so high that 40% of adults in the U.S. now know about He Gets Us.
And they expect that awareness to only expand with their fourth Super Bowl ad that aired Sunday titled "More," focused on the pressures many feel in modern society to pursue more of everything.
"There's not a lot of moments like this … We're looking for moments where people really congregate," says Simon Armour, chief creative officer for Come Near, which has crafted the "More" ad as part of a campaign called "Loaded Words." "We're constantly asking, 'Are we really meeting people where they're at?'"
Come Near's spot, featuring a dizzy array of flashy images, fit in neatly with the procession of commercials featured in this year's Super Bowl telecast. But even though many ads were flashy and star-studded, brimming with computer-assisted technology and special effects, the spots themselves weren't particularly groundbreaking or compelling.
Even the big trends were extensions of dynamics we've seen before. A.I. companies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude and Genspark focused on the ways technology can help people live better, building up the human element to avoid uncomfortable questions. Betting companies like DraftKings offered takes on football strategy which neatly folded information about betting lines into other data on the game.
New in the mix: A few efforts encouraging fans to build their own Super Bowl commercials, including an option from Uber Eats allowing users to make 1,000 versions of celebrity-filled ads and a contest sponsored by Artlist.io, an AI platform for video creation, offering $60,000 for the best subscriber-created spot.
Few commercials tackled social issues. And when they did, the messaging was subtle, friendly and welcoming – even when used to promote initiatives from the government that might not be clear if you did not know the issues. More on that later.
Here's a look at some of the most interesting commercials unveiled in advance and during the Super Bowl broadcast, showing the bold swings marketers took on the biggest stage in media.
Best covert pushback on political divisions: Redfin x Rocket Mortgage's "America Needs Neighbors Like You"
Sure, some knuckleheads online are complaining about how Lady Gaga recorded a new version of the theme from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, "Won't You Be My Neighbor," for this ad. But the visuals here – where a kid with brown skin helps find a little white girl's missing dog and the dog finder's father helps an old white dude remove a downed tree branch after a storm – seem to send a message of unity at a time when that's in short supply offscreen. (We'll overlook the subtext; that these neighbors may be considered good because they're helping the white people). The tagline, "America could use a neighbor just like you," is a message of inclusion that also feels right on time.
Most ambiguous movie ad: Netflix's "The Adventures of Cliff Booth"
The only reason I know the name of this film, which is a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is because I Googled it after watching the bizarre parade of images in this Game Day ad. Brad Pitt bears a retro-stache supreme, charming his way through situations that look as seedy and dangerous as they are confusing, playing the sturdy stuntman he first portrayed in Tarantino's 2019 film. But I wasn't the only one who was confused – apparently when this project was announced last year, with Seven director David Fincher attached to direct a screenplay by Tarantino, The Hollywood Reporter had to point out it wasn't an April Fool's joke.
Slyest packaging of a controversial government policy: the MAHA Center's Mike Tyson ad
Featuring the former heavyweight champion in a tight, black and white closeup talking about the perils of obesity while eating an apple, this ad gives little clue that it's promoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, beyond urging viewers to visit its website, realfood.gov. Of course, the new dietary guidelines recommended by Kennedy have been criticized by some experts, but that's not obvious from the footage of Iron Mike eating an apple.
Slyest packaging of a government policy, Part 2: Invest America, "Dear America, We Can Change Their Future"
This ad, which aired a bit before the game's kickoff, featured a succession of cute kids across a range of ethnicities and ages, touting "free money" available to "every American child" to fund everything from future college dreams to a couple of trampolines. What the ad doesn't detail is that the kids are referring to legislation signed last year by President Trump that establishes $1,000 from the government to create savings accounts for kids born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028. The ad's lack of specificity about the program, which the president has dubbed Trump Accounts, might be self-defeating – without references to the government or the legislation, the idea sounds kind of suspicious, despite its roots in actual policy.
Most disappointing use of AI for de-aging: Dunkin's "Good Will Dunkin"
Reinventing the dramatic film Good Will Hunting as a sitcom with Ben Affleck taking buddy Matt Damon's role in a bad blond hairdo and cameo appearances from TV comedy legends like Jennifer Aniston, Jason Alexander, Jaleel White and Matt LeBlanc was a cool enough idea. But the de-aging technology used to make all these 40-, 50-and 60-something actors look as they did back in the 1990s was more than a little creepy. And not nearly funny enough. At least Dunkin is stepping up to provide 1.995 million free iced coffees starting Monday (use code GOODWILLDUNKIN in the app).
Weirdest use of a celebrity (TIE): Grubhub's "The Feest" and Pringle's "Pringleleo"
Grubhub's spot, helmed by Bugonia and Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos, centers on a bunch of odd-looking aristocrats seated at a lavish dinner when the question arises of "who will eat the (delivery) fees?" Cut to a cool-looking George Clooney at the other end of the table, who pronounces Grubhub will eat the fees. Um, okaay. Pringle's ad offers Sabrina Carpenter as a lovelorn star who falls for a man made out of Pringle's potato chips. Feels like both of these ads were written by folks on some serious hallucinogens; and the stars must have been partaking when they agreed to appear in them.
Best use of a self-deprecating celebrity, Part 1: Raisin Bran's "Will Shat"
One of the coolest things in modern pop culture has been to watch Star Trek icon William Shatner morph from an overacting, self-serious stick in the mud into a goofy celebrity who begrudgingly accepts that it's better to play along with his peculiar kind of fame rather than resist it. The 94-year-old comes full circle with this ad for Raisin Bran that deftly spoofs both the result of eating all that fiber, Shatner's roots in science fiction and the scatological word game people likely have played with his last name for eons, introducing him in the commercial as a character named Will Shat. My favorite moment: when he looks over at a pet and asks, "Is that dog a Shih Tzu?" As a bonus, the Shat-man even made news in real life, when paparazzi thought he was eating a bowl of cereal while driving (he was actually posing for a photo shoot.)
Most touching reference to Big Brother: Ring's "Search Party: Be a Hero"
Tell people that video doorbell company Ring can remotely link a bunch of cameras to look for something, and many may wonder if they've stumbled into a George Orwell novel. But show people how Ring cameras can be tasked to help find some of the 10 million dogs who go missing every year — using its new, free Search Party feature — and you have a teary, sentimental spot for the Big Game that pulls on the heartstrings while downplaying any concerns about Big Brother invading their privacy (fear not, Search Party is a program you have to opt into).
Best argument to Hollywood for using AI: Xfinity's "Jurassic Park … Works"
Cool as it is to suggest that one tech geek from Xfinity could have kept all the dinosaurs from escaping Jurassic Park, the telecommunication company went one better in this ad – basically showing the potential for de-aging and computerized imagery in film by creating new scenes for the 1993 movie featuring stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. In Xfinity's new spot, they're jogging with herds of dinosaurs and posing for pictures with a T. rex instead of running for their lives. Of course, a happy ending invalidates the film's whole "egotistical man shouldn't meddle with natural ecosystems he doesn't understand" message. But it will probably sell an awful lot of Wi-Fi service.
Best use of a self-deprecating celebrity, Part 2: TurboTax's "The Expert"
Adrien's Brody's over the top antics while portraying a TurboTax expert – despite the company's insistence that the program helps keep taxes "drama free" — is a delicious send-up of his own self-serious reputation. (My fave moment is when he screeches "If there's no drama, then there's no Adrien Brody!") It's almost enough to make you forget the record-setting arrogance of his way-too-long best actor acceptance speech at last year's Oscars ceremony. Almost.
Best headfake around men's silly sensibilities: Novartis' "Relax Your Tight End"
What's the best way to let men know there's now a less, um, invasive way of checking for prostate cancer than the old school finger method? This commercial, featuring football heroes like former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians urges men to relax their tight end — complete with shots that seem to depict that relaxation — thanks to the invention of a blood test to check for early signs. It's all a bit of cheeky good fun — OK, I couldn't resist that one — aimed at getting men to get over their hangups and get tested regularly for a disease that has an impressive survival rate if caught early.
Best use of class warfare: Hims & Hers' "Rich People Live Longer"
Fresh off a controversy from last year, which found the telehealth company criticized for not being fully transparent about the side effects of its weight loss drugs, Hims & Hers is back with a spot that declares "the wealth gap is a health gap." Rapper and actor Common provides the voice-over for this spot, which shows wealthy people accessing all kinds of treatments and preventive care as the narration notes, "all that money doesn't just buy more stuff — it buys more time." Watching a big corporation spend millions pitching its products as an affordable way to bridge that gap, at a time when medical expenses are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the U.S., feels a little odd. But it's also a stroke of genius.
Best parody of a competitor: Pepsi's "The Choice"
This spot, starting with a computer-generated polar bear getting confused after picking Pepsi over Coca-Cola in a blindfolded taste test, works in all kinds of ways. It pokes at Coke's longtime use of computerized bears in its own Big Game ads back in the day while indulging a bit of nostalgia. Extra points for a moment later in the ad that references the infamous Coldplay kiss cam incident and a cool cameo from impish director Taika Waititi.
Most questionable joke: DoorDash's "Beef 101"
In the ad, 50 Cent presents the latest iteration of his beef with Sean "P Diddy/Puff Daddy" Combs as an epic exercise in tongue-in-cheek trolling. He reaches into a DoorDash pouch to pull out a bag of Cheesy Puffs, a pack of combs and a bottle of cognac he says is "aged four years … or 50 months. Who's keeping count?" But I bet Combs, now sitting in federal prison after his conviction on prostitution-related charges, surely is. And those who recall the allegations of sex crimes and abuse which surrounded the Combs trial, might not find a commercial seeking laughs by referencing that traumatic situation to be much fun at all.
Most shameless pandering to bro culture: Bud Light's "Keg"
Football legend Peyton Manning, comic Shane Gillis and musician Post Malone seem mostly wasted in a nonsensical ad featuring an entire wedding party tumbling down a steep hill in pursuit of a single keg that fell off a dolly. Gillis gets the punchline, turning to the camera to say, "I give it a week," presumably in reference to the wedding. I'm betting most viewers forget about this uninspired ad even quicker.
Best use of a conspiracy theory I might actually believe: Uber Eats: "Hungry for the Truth"
This spot continues the concept Uber Eats floated in last year's Super Bowl ad, featuring Matthew McConaughey insisting the NFL organized this whole professional football thing as a ruse to sell more food. This time, he's torturing poor fellow movie star hunk Bradley Cooper — who mostly looks like he just wants to be seen wearing gear featuring his beloved Philadelphia Eagles — pointing out all the NFL players named after food. But when he shows Cooper that the NFL Hall of Fame building looks just like a juicer — gotta say, I was nearly convinced.
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