Super Bowl 60 Commercials: The Winners and Losers of America’s Biggest Advertising Stage

The High-Stakes Game Within the Game

Super Bowl 60 delivered more than just an exciting showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. While fans celebrated Seattle’s victory on the field, an equally fierce competition unfolded during the commercial breaks, where some of America’s biggest brands battled for viewer attention and engagement. This year’s advertising landscape proved particularly unforgiving, with companies investing astronomical sums – up to $10 million for just 30 seconds of airtime – in hopes of creating memorable moments that would resonate with the massive Super Bowl audience. But the costs don’t stop there. Beyond the hefty price tag for airtime, brands shell out millions more to produce their commercials, secure celebrity endorsements, and execute sophisticated pre-game marketing campaigns to build anticipation. With such enormous investments on the line, the pressure to deliver a knockout ad has never been greater. This year’s commercials revealed a clear divide between those who understood how to connect with viewers and those who missed the mark entirely, leaving advertising experts and everyday viewers with plenty to discuss long after the final whistle blew.

What Makes a Winning Super Bowl Commercial

According to the experts at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, who conduct their highly anticipated annual post-game advertising analysis, the most successful Super Bowl commercials of 2026 shared common characteristics that set them apart from the competition. The winning formula combined emotional resonance or genuine humor with crystal-clear messaging about the product’s practical value in consumers’ lives. It wasn’t enough to simply make people laugh or cry; the most effective advertisements seamlessly wove these emotional moments together with a compelling demonstration of why viewers should care about the product being advertised. This delicate balance proved challenging for many brands to achieve, as evidenced by the wide range of grades assigned by the Kellogg review panel, which evaluated commercials using a traditional academic grading scale from A to F based on their overall marketing effectiveness. The analysis highlighted a crucial lesson for advertisers: in today’s crowded media landscape, where consumers are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages daily, Super Bowl ads need to work harder than ever to justify their massive price tags by delivering both emotional impact and clear, memorable product messaging that viewers can actually use in their daily lives.

Google Takes the Crown with Heartwarming AI Showcase

This year’s top honor went to tech giant Google for its commercial promoting Gemini, its artificial intelligence service. The ad, titled “New Home,” earned an exceptional “A” grade from the Kellogg panel for masterfully demonstrating how to marry emotional storytelling with practical product demonstration. The commercial follows a mother and her young son as they use the Gemini app to envision the possibilities for their newly purchased home, reimagining spaces with fresh paint colors, redecorated children’s bedrooms, and a beautifully landscaped garden. The advertisement pulls at viewers’ heartstrings with universally relatable elements: an adorable baby discovering their new world, a charming house full of potential, and a loyal family dog completing the picture-perfect scene. What elevated this commercial above the competition, according to Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing and co-lead of the Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review, was Google’s ability to capture what the company has historically done best. “This ad captures what Google has historically done best: pairing genuine emotional storytelling with a clear illustration of how the product fits naturally into people’s lives,” Calkins explained. Rather than simply showcasing technological wizardry in abstract terms, Google grounded its AI capabilities in a deeply human moment – the excitement and anxiety of making a new house feel like home. This approach made the technology feel accessible and desirable rather than intimidating or unnecessary, giving viewers a concrete reason to consider using Gemini in their own lives.

Coinbase Crashes with Confusing Cryptocurrency Commercial

On the opposite end of the spectrum, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase earned the dubious distinction of receiving a failing grade from the Kellogg review panel, illustrating how even major brands with significant resources can completely miss the mark when it comes to Super Bowl advertising. The commercial featured a Backstreet Boys song accompanied by karaoke-style lyrics displayed on screen, creating a nostalgic moment that might have been entertaining in isolation but failed spectacularly at its primary job: communicating what Coinbase actually does or why viewers might want to use its services. This fundamental failure represented a costly missed opportunity for the cryptocurrency company. The Kellogg analysts pointed out that the pared-down commercial left viewers unclear about Coinbase’s core business or even that the company had anything to do with cryptocurrency at all. In an era when many consumers still find cryptocurrency confusing or intimidating, Coinbase needed to use its precious Super Bowl seconds to demystify its services and present a compelling value proposition. Instead, the ad seemed to assume viewers already understood and cared about Coinbase, focusing on entertainment value without building the necessary foundation of product understanding. For a company operating in a relatively new and complex industry that many potential customers don’t fully understand, this approach represented a particularly puzzling strategic choice that ultimately wasted millions of dollars and one of advertising’s most valuable platforms.

The Complete Grade Report: From A-List to Also-Rans

The Kellogg School’s comprehensive review of Super Bowl 60 commercials revealed a competitive field with clear winners, a crowded middle pack, and several notable failures beyond Coinbase. Joining Google in the prestigious A-grade category were several other brands that successfully balanced emotional appeal with clear product messaging: Bosch, Novartis, Anthropic’s Claude AI platform, Michelob ULTRA, the NFL’s own promotional spot, Pepsi, TurboTax, and Levi’s. These commercials understood that Super Bowl viewers want to be entertained but also need to understand what they’re being sold and why it matters to their lives. The B-grade tier included a substantial group of advertisers who delivered solid, competent commercials that effectively communicated their messages without reaching the exceptional heights of the A-rated ads. This category featured brands like Fanatics Sportsbook, Lay’s, Ring, Xfinity, T-Mobile, Uber Eats, Hellmann’s, Microsoft Copilot, Squarespace, Grubhub, Wix, Budweiser, Pokémon, Meta, Liquid Death, and Red Bull. These commercials did their job without necessarily creating the memorable, conversation-starting moments that justify the massive investment in Super Bowl advertising. The largest category proved to be the C-grade group, representing commercials that were mediocre or missed significant opportunities, including ads from Apartments.com, Homes.com, Liquid I.V., Toyota, Dove, Universal Orlando Resort, Pringles, the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, Hims & Hers, Wegovy, Nerds, Base44, Ro, Dunkin’, Bud Light, Gensparkle, State Farm, DraftKings, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cadillac, Kinder Bueno, WeatherTech, Amazon’s Alexa, and OpenAI.

Lessons Learned and the Future of Super Bowl Advertising

The D and F grades assigned to this year’s Super Bowl commercials offer valuable lessons for future advertisers willing to learn from others’ expensive mistakes. The D-rated category included Ritz, The MAHA Center, Poppi, Instacart, Redfin/Rocket, Salesforce, He Gets Us, Svedka, and Volkswagen – commercials that fundamentally failed to connect with viewers or clearly communicate their value propositions despite massive investments. These ads, along with the F-rated Coinbase commercial, demonstrate that simply buying Super Bowl airtime guarantees nothing in terms of advertising effectiveness. The contrast between Google’s successful approach and Coinbase’s failure highlights several crucial principles for effective Super Bowl advertising in today’s media environment. First, emotional resonance must serve the product message rather than replace it; viewers should feel something and understand why the product matters to their lives. Second, clarity trumps cleverness – if viewers can’t quickly grasp what you’re selling and why they should care, no amount of production value or celebrity star power will save your commercial. Third, Super Bowl ads must work harder than ever to justify their costs by creating genuine connections rather than just fleeting entertainment. As advertising costs continue to climb and consumer attention becomes increasingly fragmented across countless platforms and devices, brands can no longer afford to waste their Super Bowl opportunities on commercials that prioritize style over substance or assume viewers already understand and care about their products. The most successful advertisers will be those who, like Google, can craft narratives that feel authentically human while clearly demonstrating practical value – a challenging balance that separates the champions from the also-rans in advertising’s biggest game.