Yesterday’s Super Bowl did not only divide the nation into Bad Bunny lovers and Clan-chella MAGA fans, it also divided marketers: those on a mission to extend their own brand platforms, and others who went for borrowed interest in favour of novelty.
And the jury is officially out. USA Today has published its ranking of all 54 Super Bowl ads, and the results are… telling.
The top three brands all did something remarkably unremarkable (in the best possible way). They didn’t chase novelty. They extended long-term brand platforms and leaned hard into their distinctive brand assets (DBA) and brand worlds.
Budweiser’s Clydesdale horses brought you “Made in America” – an asset and narrative they’ve been compounding for decades. Lay’s continued its farmer narrative. Pepsi reignited the Pepsi Challenge, tapping into a brand platform that has lived in cultural memory for generations. It worked much better than fighting systemic racism with Kendell Jenner one Pepsi at a time, by the way.
Even positions four and five on USA Today’s rankings followed the same pattern.
Dunkin’ didn’t borrow interest by using Ben Affleck – they continued a serialised brand world where he’s become a recurring character. Likewise, Michelob stayed within its established social sports universe, reinforcing the same codes, contexts, and cues audiences already associate with the brand.
Why is this interesting, you ask?
Ipsos data suggests that more than half of Super Bowl ads generate less than 1% brand recall. That is a brutal stat when you consider the investment – roughly $10m for 30 seconds, before you even factor in production costs, talent fees, and internal head hours.
My assumption — and I don’t think it’s a controversial one — most brands favour borrowed interest for short-term entertainment values, in the form of celebrities — the more the merrier is their mantra. Few brands are leaning into or are building on their existing long-term brand platforms and memory structures. Which, frankly, is insane given the economics. At that price point, you’re not buying shits and giggles; you’re buying a shot at mental availability.
The results suggest a pretty clear lesson for all brand owners: those with Super Bowl budgets or less so should lean into familiarity bias — the cognitive, behavioral, and psychological tendency to favour, trust, and choose what’s familiar. Extend your brand platforms. Invest in your brand worlds and DBAs. People will like you more for it, but more importantly, they’ll actually remember you.
In the most expensive media moment of the year, consistency beats novelty hands down.