When it comes to Super Bowl ads, is the ultimate winner the brand on your TV, or the one dominating your feed? Super Bowl commercials remain a massive investment, with brands spending millions on 30-second spots. While many companies stuck to the use of traditional celebrity-driven ads, others leaned on influencer partnerships and digital-first strategies. Some companies even bypassed TV ads entirely during the game, choosing social-led campaigns instead. Here’s a look at what worked and what missed the mark at this year's event.
Super Bowl ads have always been a showcase for A-list celebrities, and this year was no exception. Brands such as Uber Eats, Stella Artois, and Meta featured household names like Matthew McConaughey, David Beckham, and Chris Hemsworth. Many larger legacy consumer brands used this style, hoping to stay top of mind with funny and heartwarming storytelling. For example, the Stella Artois spot brought together David Beckham and Matt Damon for a reunion-themed commercial titled "The Other David."
But while these star-studded campaigns made an impact, we saw social-first brands opting for influencers instead. Take Poppi—a prebiotic soda brand that dominated online conversations by sending branded vending machines to top influencers like Alix Earle, Jake Shane, and Rob Rausch in addition to their Super Bowl TV ad. On the flip side, controversy also arose after some social media users labelled the campaign as tone-deaf, with the brand’s appearance of extravagant gifts to already wealthy and popular creators as opposed to everyday people and customers who may have benefited from it more.
Nike’s "So Win" campaign, marking the brand’s Super Bowl return after 27 years, adopted a hybrid strategy, combining a traditional TV spot with coordination on relevant social channels. The 60-second commercial, featuring prominent female athletes Caitlin Clark, Jordan Chiles, and Sabrina Lonescu was amplified through digital platforms and helped garner over 96 million views on Instagram alone. Not only did they take an integrated approach to how they were distributing their ad, but they humanized it (as they typically do) and made all of their content relatable, stirring relevant conversations taking place in women’s sports
Rather than spend millions on a TV spot, Mercedes-Benz tapped into social media. Partnering with former NFL star Drew Brees, they created a series of short-form digital pieces showcasing the electric G 580. By spreading their content across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Facebook, they stayed in the conversation without the Super Bowl price tag.
AriZona Iced Tea made waves without spending a dime. Their viral X (formerly Twitter) post captioned “I'm not gonna waste millions of dollars on a commercial” followed by a reshared open AriZona can with the Super Bowl on a TV in the background, captioned: "Here’s your Super Bowl ad." was viewed over 8.3 Million times while also racking up over 375,000 likes. While this cheeky tactic may just seem like a cost-saving strategy at first, it ultimately stems from the brand ethos of keeping costs low for their consumers and what better way of doing so by acknowledging the sometimes wasteful spend that brands put on multi-million dollar spots with the hope of recouping their cost from consumers.
This year’s Super Bowl showed us one undeniable truth: brands no longer need to shell out millions for a 30-second spot to win the conversation. Social-first strategies can not only be more cost-effective but can often generate higher engagement, reach, and a lasting impact on your audience — and an integrated campaign is even better.
For brands debating a glitzy Super Bowl Spot vs a pure social-led campaign, it helps to truly understand whether your ideal customer would respond overwhelmingly to one type of distribution over another. Brands like Nike, looking to inspire greatness, may feel a stylized Super Bowl commercial coupled with coordinated social distribution is not only valuable but essential, given how they wish to be perceived to the general public. Versus a brand like AriZona Iced Tea, who align their cult-like following with low-cost cost almost inflation-proof pricing that they wish to be transparent across all marketing channels.
Whether you’re going all in on a 30-second spot or stirring the pot online, the key to a successful Super Bowl ad is knowing where your audience is, and meeting them there with impact.
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