Top 10 Super Bowl 2026 Ads
- Austin Layton
- Feb 17
- 3 min read
Every year when the Super Bowl comes on, I tell myself I am just going to watch it like a normal person, and every year, that lasts about five minutes.
I find myself analyzing the pacing, the casting choices, the product placement, the tone, and so on. I rewind the ones that feel smart, I text friends about the ones that I miss, and I try to watch as both a viewer and a marketer at the same time.
This year, I was genuinely impressed. There were more ads than usual that made me laugh out loud, sit quietly for a second, or think about the strategy behind the execution. I even cried during a few. That made narrowing this list down to ten harder than I expected.
The ads below are the ones I keep replaying in my head. Not just because they were entertaining, but because they made me feel something.
Squarespace was definitely one of my favorites from a pure creative standpoint. Watching Emma Stone repeatedly search for her own domain name only to see it taken felt painfully relatable. The escalation from frustration to full breakdown was dramatic in the best way.
What I appreciated most was how clean the concept was. It was weird, but contained. Visually sharp, but not distracting. It reminded me that sometimes one strong idea is more powerful than a crowded one.
Dunkin’ continues its Ben Affleck era, and I am not mad about it. The “found pilot” concept was smart because it gave structure to the nostalgia. It was not just famous faces for the sake of famous faces.
As someone who grew up watching those shows with family, I found myself smiling more than I expected. It felt intentional, and in a night full of celebrity cameos, that intention stood out.
This one surprised me! Blending Bon Jovi with Katseye choreography could have easily felt forced. Instead, it worked!
It felt like a true generational bridge. Not a brand trying to insert itself into culture, but a brand acknowledging multiple audiences at once. That kind of balance is harder than it looks.
The disappearing donut made me laugh immediately! It was one of the laugh-out-loud moments of the night for sure.
What worked here was the tone. It felt natural for YouTube. The personalities matched the platform. It did not feel overproduced or overly scripted, but clever enough to stick with people.
Lay’s leaned fully into emotion. And I absolutely cried!
In the middle of louder, flashier ads, this one slowed down. It felt grounded and very human. There is something powerful about contrast during the Super Bowl. When everyone is trying to be the funniest, sincerity becomes the differentiator.
The Pepsi versus Coca-Cola rivalry is obviously part of advertising history, and this felt like a confident continuation of that story. The polar bear blind taste test was playful and self aware.
It did not try to reinvent the brand. It simply reminded us of the battle in a way that felt fresh enough to spark conversation again.
This was one of the most relevant ads of the night. It was funny, yes, but it also tapped into something very real.
The hesitation people feel around AI is not abstract. It is cultural. Amazon chose to depict that tension directly rather than gloss over it. By using humor to explore uncertainty, they made the product feel more human instead of more intimidating. That kind of self awareness is powerful, especially in a year where AI is at the center of so many conversations.
When the original Jurassic Park trio appeared, I felt the nostalgia instantly. That could have easily been a gimmick. Instead, the storyline tied directly back to the product.
It is one thing to make people smile. It is another to make them remember why the brand exists.
This one was absurd in a good way! Building a boyfriend out of Pringles should not work. And yet, it kind of did.
It leaned into internet humor without feeling like it was trying too hard. There is a fine line between culturally fluent and cringey. Pringles stayed on the right side of it.
This was one of the most unexpected standouts for me. A prostate cancer awareness ad during the Super Bowl could have felt heavy or awkward. Instead, it used football context in a way that made the message accessible.
It was funny, yes. But it was also meaningful. And that combination is rare, especially for pharma advertising on a stage like this.
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