Lay's Draws Tears, Kendall Draws Jeers, and Site Gags Get the Most Cheers
Our panelists found this year's Super Bowl LX Ad review to be both fun and challenging. Challenging, because picking a winner was a bit more difficult than in the recent past. While going the comedic route would have been easy since this was the Year of the Site Gag, our panelists chose Lay's as the overall favorite. It scored the highest in creativity, storytelling, overall brand execution, and post-spot recall. And it also brought a few tears to some of our panelists' eyes. Hopefully some of our readers took advantage of the Lay's Challenge to get a fresh bag of chips.
There were well fewer duds this year, which made our advertising hearts happy. Outside of a few DIFM AI ads (Wix and Google Gemini) and several leaving us disappointed in the payoff (covered below), there were many more cheers than jeers! So let's get to the review.
Best Teaser (pre-Super Bowl drop):
Dunkin' — With a cast of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Alexander, and Matt LeBlanc, it's hard to go wrong. But what we appreciated most about this teaser ad was the lack of site gags, a good script, and just a hint of what was to come on Sunday at the Super Bowl. Affleck promised cringe, and...
The payoff ad was less exciting as more actors and actresses were introduced in a mashup of Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, Goodwill Hunting, and ... Tom Brady in a wig?!? Cringe, indeed! Too much going on, and why should we remember the line, "Good Will Dunkin'?" Cringe x2!
Winners:
Lay's – We already glowed over this ad, but let us add that pulling off a generational hand-off story like this isn't easy. The cinematography, casting, and delivery was flawless. Kudos to the production team, scriptwriters, and cast. And kudos to Lay's for keeping it pure.
Pepsi Zero Sugar – This is the boldest of the ads this year. Directly stealing the iconic Coke polar bear! Wow. With the gutsy move, Pepsi does a throwback to its Pepsi Taste Challenge which hadn't been widely referenced since the mid-1980s, with only periodic references in Pepsi's advertising. Now at #3, #4, or #5 in market share, Pepsi needed a strong move to gain back a few hearts and tastebuds, and we think it delivered with a direct ripoff of Coke's "spokesbear." Coke remains strong at upwards of 20% market share, Diet Coke is a strong #2, and then there is a kerfuffle for #3-5 with Dr. Pepper, Sprite, and Pepsi all clamoring to move up. Will this ad advance Pepsi in the "market share" race?
Ramp — Who would have thought that The Office's Brian Baumgartner (character: Kevin Malone) would pull off one of the best ads of the Super Bowl? Why did this hit a strong chord with our panelists? Because it sticks to the character's persona, habits, and chili drops while delivering a clear position about Ramp and its capability to multi-task, organize, and prioritize. A big thumbs-up to the Kevins ... er, Brian ... for not dropping the chili!
Budweiser – We didn't think we'd bring this brand back into the winner's circle anytime soon, but the Clydesdale foal and little eaglet won our hearts. As the two struggle and grow together before "breaking free," the Americana in this ad was on foal ... er, full ... display! Budweiser has re-found its way into the hearts of Americans by sticking to its knitting and avoiding cultural statements and outlandish site gags. Well done, Bud. Now, hold my beer... while we list our honorable mention winners.
Honorable Mentions:
Dove — Continuing on its positive body image campaign, Dove pulled it off again.
TurboTax — Adrien Brody makes it clear (in a reverse psychological way) that TurboTax is designed to make taxes easy.
Nerds – Nothing new from last year, but the consistent Clusters campaign has skyrocketed sales.
Uber Eats – Forgive us if we get Uber Eats, DoorDash, and GrubHub confused, but we have to give Uber Eats credit for continuing its campaign since the last Super Bowl.
Google Gemini — Great use of AI in both message and function. Fortunately there were no sentient interactions with machine.
Best Newcomer Award:
We only counted six new brands debuting ads on the Super Bowl, and that might be one too many. The only winner, and one that could be listed above in the Big Winners category, is Xfinity.
Xfinity — This extended cut of the ad is worth watching to take in all the site gags. You probably need to watch it several times to pick up on all the connections to Jurassic Park and its cast. And Xfinity pays off the ad with a great position: "A whole new species of Wifi."
Cringiest Award:
These ads didn't connect with us. We mostly cringed, or worst, cried.
Hellmann's — Meal Diamond?!? Really??? After last year's hit remake of When Harry Met Sally, this is a poor follow-up. We felt like this will age like warm bologna.
Ritz Crackers — We gagged on this site gag. Is it much different than Pringles? Yes. One was the star of the show (Pringles) and the other was an afterthought (Ritz). Product focus is key, and the site gags were focused on other things besides the crackers.
Fanatics Sportsbook — This might be the cringiest of the cringiest. While it landed here, it could have also landed in our Meh! awards below. Watching Kendall Jenner's relationship-destroying habits didn't really connect us to the betting platform, entertaining as they might be.
Meh! Fun Site Gags or Entertainment but Little-to-No Brand Connection:
SquareSpace — Why are we discussing domain name registration in 2026?!? Of course all the great domains are taken.
Toyota — While we typically find Toyota ads well done, we were left wondering, "Why are they focused on seat belts??" We get the "super hero belt" concept, but it left us wondering if there wasn't a more creative way to make the generational connection of riding in a reliable car.
And last, but not least, our LOSERS.
Wix Harmony — Boring is bad business. But even worse is bad web design. At least have a good page design being built - but what they showed was horrible UI and UX. We think they left the designers at home for this commercial.
Manscaped — This could have also been included in our Cringe Awards, but this ad was so bad it had to land on the Losers list. What in the world?! How does a talking clump of hair make anyone buy your product?! All we could figure is that the audience is intended to be middle-school boys who just hit puberty. This ad left us "bare!"
For those who haven't had enough, here's a list of a few other Super Bowl spots and a one word adjective describing our take:
InstaCart - Overproduced
Novartis - Brand-tense
Bosch - JustAnOddSuperBowlSpot
Michelob Ultra - Landed (sort of)
Bud Light - Bros
Oikos - #ProteinPower
Him & Hers - GoodAdvertising
Skechers - MoreGoodAdvertising
Frank's RedHot - Ludacris
Jeep - Fishtale
Ring - BigBrotherish?
Alexa - MoreBigBrotherish?
GrubHub - Overproduced
So we opened and closed with overproduced spots with site gags that obfuscated their brands and messages. If you're ready to build your brand but don't have $8 million to do so, contact Innis Maggiore and we'll show you why brand-building still works!
Oh, and one final comment: Congrats to all of our Seahawks fans!