📭 Breaking Down The Creativity Behind This Year's Superbowl Ads
Hello hello hello!
What’s a thing you know absolutely nothing about but still pay attention to?
For me, it’s American football
aka Super Bowl
aka the halftime show with a side of sports.
I don’t really know what a quarterback is or what a tight end is.
But what I do know?
Super Bowl is MASSIVE.
👉🏻 For culture
👉🏻 For conversation
👉🏻 For caaash ($7M for 30-sec ads!)
I’ll spare you the whole why the Super Bowl is brands’ Super Bowl speech (you get it).
What I want to do is get into this year’s marketing inspo. Because there’s loads. So lessgo?
Inspo #1: Strange can be a powerful tool for recall
Liquid I.V.’s ad featured a lot of… singing commodes.
Yes, commodes. Belting it out.
The song was catchy (don’t @ me), but the ad itself was sorta unhinged?
It basically encouraged folks to look inside their pots.
You can watch this and think:
Why are they doing this?
On the Super Bowl?
For millions of dollars?
It’s simple:
💡 Unhinged can still work.
Let me unpack that.
➡️ Every brand was doing safe, on-brand communication.
➡️ Some brands started to do unhinged.
➡️ People loved it, loved the authenticity.
➡️ So then every brand started to do it.
➡️ Unhinged started to feel… hinged.
➡️ So people sorta got over it.
➡️ And now we see brands reverting to safe, on-brand communication again
BUT.
If your true, on-brand voice is unhinged? Mama mia you’ve struck gold!
Think Liquid I.V. Or Duolingo. Or RyanAir. You get the drift?
That’s why this hella bizarre ad worked so well for Liquid I.V.
Inspo #2: How to use celebrities in 2026
Pringles got Sabrina Carpenter onboard.
And they nailed it.
Not just because they got Sabrina.
But because of how they went about it.
What is Sabrina’s whole shtick?
She’s playful.
She’s in her era where she’s tired of men who refuse to grow up, or - to quote her - a “manchild”
So Pringles created Pringleleo - a “true man” made out of Pringles.
It works so seamlessly.
But peel back another layer and it gets more intentional.
1️⃣ Pringles is rebooting and they’re coming for Gen Z
2️⃣ That meant finding someone who could pull off playful and unhinged
3️⃣ Someone whose wit is sharp enough to hold her own
Enter Sabrina Carpenter. Perfectly cast, perfectly timed.
Oh and she’s apparently a genuine Pringles fan too. And there’s no subtitute for that. Gen Z loves, and spots, authenticity.
Inspo #3: You do you, unabashedly
Can’t talk Super Bowl this year without talking about Benito aka Bad Bunny!
First, context:
Before this performance, there was a LOT of noise. Hot takes. Debates on debates on debates.
Basically, America’s political climate doing what it does best: being loud. 🙃
Pre SuperBowl, Bad Bunny did the “ICE out” speech at The Grammys.
And the skeptics got… more skeptic.
They had already written the headline:
👉🏻This will be divisive
👉🏻This will be anti-American
Except he showed up and did the exact opposite!
He brought love. He brought culture.
It was a rich and spirited celebration
👉🏻Of Puerto Rico
👉🏻Of family
👉🏻Of just… joy
All pulled off with so much heart it made critics look silly!
Which, frankly, is its own kind of statement.
Food for thought #1:
When you have a platform, the boldest statement you can make is staying true to who you are. 💡
Food for thought #2:
There’s something so electric about artists repping their cultures, right?
Bad Bunny this year, Kendrick Lamar last year.
Just goes to show: art is, and always has been, political.
My only complaint? DtMF deserved more. Justice for that banger! 😤
Screenshot your favourite bit of today’s chitthi and share it on IG! Or Linkedin! Don’t forget to tag us. So we can like it share it love it get all our validation from it thank you very much in advance ❤️
Quiz Time!
This 2018 Super Bowl ad has pretty much gone down in advertising folklore.
It featured a chaotic little lineup: Gordon Ramsay, Cardi B, Rebel Wilson and Anthony Hopkins.
Which brand pulled this iconic ad off?
- The Mommys 2026 is here! If you work at a brand or agency, this is for you :)
- If this e-mail was forwarded to you and you liked what you read, you can subscribe to ‘The Chitthi’ by clicking here. It’s free, and we send only one mail per week.
- The quiz answer - Amazon! This was an ad for Alexa. Watch it if you haven’t, it’s so fun.
- Did you reach here? Here’s a little reward for reading all the way to the end: bonus content! Some more fun ads from this year’s SuperBowl:
👉🏻For Brooklyn99 fans: Hellmann’s
👉🏻The ad everyone’s loving: Bosch
👉🏻FRIENDS meets Good Will Hunting: Dunkin’
See you next week,
Sid