Lillie Schwier
The Southern Editor
The cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad can cost upwards of seven million dollars before production. For years, the cost of a commercial was well worth the product promotion to the captive audience of over 100 million live viewers, but that’s no longer the whole story.
Super Bowl commercials are not just advertisements anymore. They are cultural positioning statements. There’s less of a concern with selling a product than there is with buying a moment in the national conversation.
This shift raises a bigger question: Are brands still trying to sell a product or are they just chasing relevance?
For decades, Super Bowl ads followed a predictable formula: big-name celebrities like Sabrina Carpenter, simple messaging or an outrageously entertaining production such as Pepsi. While that approach still defines many commercials, the 2026 halftime performance accelerated a gradual shift already underway.
Brands that had begun weaving broader cultural, political and social themes into their ads suddenly had those issues thrust onto the biggest stage of the year. The most prominent national conversations were no longer background noise, but were instead the center stage, giving companies an opening to align themselves with those messages. In doing so, the role and power of Super Bowl commercials expanded, transforming the event into something far greater than a football game or a high-priced opportunity to boost sales.
The purpose of this year’s halftime performance by Bad Bunny wasn’t just to entertain. It sparked debate about American cultural identity and immigration. The performance opened the door for advertisers to signal where they stand culturally and some brands responded.
For example, makeup and cosmetic company E.L.F showcased comedic actress Melissa McCarthy in an exaggerated rendition of a telenovella where she couldn’t speak Spanish. Telemundo’s ad starred actors Owen Wilson and Sofia Vergara, where they highlighted cultural crossovers, having Wilson asking Vergara to teach him Spanish phrases to celebrate Latin sports culture and bridge cultures and languages.
Other brands leaned into traditional emotional storytelling rather than highlighting product features, a strategy that is hardly new. Some examples include Dove spotlighting women in sports, Ring emphasizing community through AI technology and Norvati promoting getting cancer screenings. However, with the heightened emphasis on the Super Bowl’s cultural relevance and its massive platform, many of these ads began to feel tied more closely to one another with themes of community and collective identity. They were not simply asking viewers to connect with a brand, but to see themselves as part of something larger: a shared cause, a social movement or a broader cultural moment. Emotional appeal has always been a powerful advertising tactic, but this year it carried a different weight. Against the backdrop of the cultural uproar sparked by the halftime performance, those narratives felt less like marketing and more like participation in an effort to do more than sell a product or entertain between plays.
While return on investment is traditionally measured in an increase in sales, that is no longer the only metric that matters. Brand awareness and cultural participation carry a greater weight, now, due to the boosts in brand sentiment and engagement that social media offers. A Super Bowl spot is not just an ad buy, it shows brand relevance. With the game’s massive and growing audience year after year, simply securing a commercial signals that a company has achieved a level of success and influence within its industry and in broader popular culture.
In that sense, Super Bowl commercials can be viewed as an annual time capsule, not just as marketing tools. The brands that can afford to appear, the celebrities chosen to represent them and the social issues woven into their messaging collectively reflect what and who holds power and attention in a given year. Participation itself becomes a statement and invitation to be a part of the cultural moment, far more than selling a product and increasing revenue.
But what happens if a major company chooses not to advertise? Coca-Cola and Ford Motor Co were both absent from the Superbowl this year, but did you notice they were missing? If appearing during the Super Bowl has become a marker of legitimacy and cultural relevance, then absence may speak just as loudly as presence. Choosing not to participate could carry its own message, intentional or not.
The Super Bowl has evolved into one of the last truly shared media moments in America. A brand’s 30 seconds is a symbol of cultural positioning. Companies are no longer competing solely for consumers or immediate sales. They are competing for relevance and for inclusion in the national conversation.
