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Ever seen an ad that just fits perfectly that ctag? Their Neuro Contextual technology combines AI and neuroscience principles to place brands exactly where they belong. It's privacy first advertising that taps into the user's interests, emotions and intentions, making every interaction feel natural and relevant. Seed Tag where context becomes intelligence. Welcome everyone to in the Game any marketer sports marketing podcast made possible by Seed Tag. This is a conversation today about Super Bowl 60, where the Sam Darnold led Seattle Seahawks beat the newly resurgent New England Patriots. Hello folks, I'm Marcus and today I'm alongside based in Maine, so not really, but virtually VP of Content Paul Werner.
B
Hey, thanks for having me. And I guess right now we could say I'm based in Patriots nation because that's, that's what all of New England is, unfortunately. People feeling kind of glum around here.
A
I know. Well, you had your run.
B
Okay, we did.
A
Living in Westchester, a little further south, Senior digital advertising analyst Ross Benish.
C
Hey, Marcus.
A
Hello fellow. Also probably feeling glum because as you can see for viewers, he's Nebraska fan.
C
We got nothing to be glum about right now. What are you talking about?
A
Oh, all right, never mind, never mind. We start with the pregame show. This is where we discuss why this game matters, this game being the super bowl, and the stories surrounding the event. So what happened? Well, if you didn't watch or if you did, quick recap. The Seattle Seahawks pulled away slowly but surely from the struggling New England patriots in the 29 to 13 win for the Seahawks, even though New England quarterback Drake May, who finished second in regular season MVP voting, had the higher pass rating QB pass rating than Sam Darnold in. It was the three turnovers forced by historic defensive performance from Seattle that helped Sam Darnold, the QB of the Seahawks, and kicker Jason Myers, who hit a Super Bowl Super bowl record. Five field goals helped them crawl towards 29 points. More than enough against just 13 for New England. But Ross, I'll start with you. Any stories surrounding this game that jumped out to you?
C
What's interesting is the game itself wasn't really any good. Like it wasn't ever close. Yeah, it felt like a much bigger deficit than what we actually ended up getting. Like. It felt like it was like a 30 point game. But for people watching a lot of them, it doesn't matter. They're going to watch a Super bowl either way. So the super bowl is still this huge cultural event. Even if you don't get like a fantastic super bowl, you're still going to have over 100 million people in the US watching it and talking about it for the next week.
A
Yeah. Yes. New England didn't score to the fourth quarter, and it did feel like a game that if you told me the score was 1310, I'd have believed you. But somehow there was a kind of avalanche of point points. Kind of late to give it this 2913 score. It was interesting.
C
I mean, New England, I think, had like less than 100 yards of offense before the fourth quarter.
A
Yes, they did. They did. I think. Sam. Oh, sorry. Jake May had 50 yards passing and negative 30 just by getting sacked. So it wasn't a great start. But, Paul, these teams was interesting to me as well. They shouldn't have been in the Super Bowl. I don't mean that to be. I don't say it to be mean, but the betting market said the Seahawks were a 66, 0 to 1 to win at the start of the year. The Patriots, 80 to 1.
B
You characterized it as a historic defensive performance by the Seahawks, which it was. That kind of makes for a boring game in some ways. I mean, you know, the fact that it looked like it for a while, it was looking like either it was going to be a game with no touchdowns or a game that would have been the first and only shutout in a Super Bowl. And then, you know, things definitely got more interesting beginning late in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, but it felt like it never really got off the ground, at least as a spectacle, as entertainment.
A
One of the other storylines I thought was fascinating was, was Sam Darnold was in fact a quarterback that could play well in the playoffs and win a Super Bowl. And so the story there is the Vikings dropped him last year in favor of a younger prospect, JJ JJ McCarthy. And then Darnold went on, guys, to become the first starting QB in NFL history to win the super bowl after playing with over five teams. So he's bounced around a ton. Most of the time if a QB bounces around a lot, they. They don't win. Or someone like who made it to the. Oh, Carson Wentz. You make it to the. The super bowl, get injured, and then Nick Foles takes over as a backup and wins super bowl for the Eagles. Donald was the first starting quarterback to bounce from team to team to team to team and then. And then win it all.
B
So I thought he went from. From journeyman to hero's journey.
A
Yeah, I mean, the film has to come out soon. It's a heck of a story as well.
C
The film starts with him getting drafted by the Jets Yes.
A
Yeah. Third overall. Baker, Baker Mayfield and Saquon Barkley. So big expectations. They thought it was a bust because he didn't do well for the. For the jets and then ended up on the Panthers, San Francisco, Minnesota. And then was the super bowl the other one. I thought this finally felt like the refurbished Patriots team. It feels like for a long time, the kind of ghost of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick was always around. But Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal writing New England has fumigated the final traces of the Belichick Brady dynasty, replacing them with a perky coach, Mike Vrabel and the fresh quarterback phenom Drake May. So it did feel like a new version of the Patriots. Anyway, there's some of the storylines heading into the game, but let's now start the real by introducing the first half. We start the show the first half of the game of the show with the super bowl of our own, Paul versus Ross. The goal here is to give me the three biggest takeaways from the Super Bowl. This is how it's scored. I'm gonna basically assign points based on how I feel. But the scoring that I've invented about an hour ago, bad answers get you no points. You basically have to punt. Good answers will get you three. That's a field goal. And great answers are worth a whole touchdown and an extra point because touchdown six. So seven total. If you get great answers, three drives or three answers each will go back and forth. Paul, what was one of the biggest takeaways for you from Super Bowl?
B
As I was watching it, I felt like I was settling for meh. To quote the tagline in the star studded YouTube TV ad, the game was kind of meh. The commercials were kind of meh. For me, it was interesting that it was one of the least quote unquote offensive Super Bowls because it also felt like brands and individuals were trying very, very hard not to offend, which I can totally understand given the climate we're in. Yeah, that's kind of my first takeaway.
A
All right, I think I'm going to give that. I'll give it three. And also I think part of it was the personalities in the game, like Sam Darnold. He's incredibly down to earth, grounded and kind of non flamboyant kind of a player. And when he won, you expecting kind of a take that Minnesota, like I showed you. And he was thanking his teammates. Yeah. So I think that was part of it. And Drake may as well.
C
You need Baker Mayfield in the game.
A
Yeah, exactly.
C
He would Be talking.
A
Yeah. So I think that's a bit a part of it as well. I watched the game and then I think you're right. Afterwards, I was like, was that the super bowl or just kind of a regular season game? All right, three points for Paul out the gate.
B
I'll take the field goal. I mean, I might win with that. So you could.
A
Yeah, yeah. In the five he. He scored. Ross, what have you got?
C
Well, just too many AI ads. I, I saw a stat, I think it was from. I spot that about a fourth of all the super bowl ads. We're promoting some sort of AI product and that's just like a lot for any category, like whether it's automotive or beer or travel. If you have like a fourth of the inventory related to pushing a particular category, especially an emergent one, it just feels like a lot like it, you know, it feels like the, like the dot com Super bowl of the year 2000.
A
Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sure what to make of this number because so it's 15 of the 66. And they said featured AI. So that meant it could be selling AI to consumers or using or used the technology to make the ad. But I wasn't sure whether was this a. I guess this is a high number. Maybe I expected it to be higher given all the hype around AI in the last year or two.
C
Well, there's always like a category that is spending like drunken sailors. Like you had crypto not long before that betting apps once gambling was legalized. So it seems like AI is that category right now. That's like they have a lot of money for marketing and they're going to let the nation know it.
A
Yeah, yeah. Friend of the show. Former colleague Deborah Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insight, saying the commercials are similar to how AI was portrayed last year. Practical use cases for AI or humanizing AI in people's daily lives. So people may be a bit more familiar with that type of ad, given that we saw some of it last year. And I thought, yeah, this, this piece as well from forbes. Vineet Mehra, CEO at the FinTech company Chime, was quoted in the piece. He was talking a bit about AI and how it's being used at the Super Bowl. So he said, quote, for the last few years, AI's role in the super bowl ads has been framed mainly around production. Faster edits, cheaper variations, more efficient asset creation. What we're heading into now is a moment where AI starts acting as a co pilot for modern marketing. Not just helping making the ad, but helping Run everything that happens once the ad is live. This includes adapting messaging in real time, monitoring cultural single signals, and orchestrating experiences across channels. The super bowl is the ultimate stress test for this shift. It's live, it's loud, and it moves fast. Touchdown, seven points.
C
All right.
A
All right, Paul, back over to you. Your drive. What do you got for a second takeaway?
B
Well, this one may be controversial, but it's not supposed to be. I. I was a big fan of the Bad Bunny halftime show. I thought it was a great musical performance, and it also had a lot of very subtle messaging that wasn't strident. It was. It was, you know, just kind of giving a little bit of a history lesson about Puerto Rico and presenting this Pan American vision of what America is. So, you know, I think after the Grammys and how Bad Bunny just came right out and said the part out loud that a lot of people were thinking, I think here it was just more artful, but also just very effective. And I. I really enjoyed it.
A
I think that's. Touchdown, seven points. Bad Bunny. Ross, what you got?
C
I'm also gonna put the halftime show as this point here. And my point is that programmatic advertising will never work for a huge event like the super bowl or never. I don't. Yeah, okay. It would. You might have some sort of automation, but not like you see online. And what I'm using as my case study here is. So I watched the Bad Bunny halftime show because I watched the whole super bowl later that night, I watched the Turning Point USA All American show to. To check out what, you know, 50 some year old kid Rock is up to. And the ad experience is just so different. And of course, that's like the case if you're watching linear TV sports versus a YouTube video. But it's really jarring to go from, like, these are the most expensive ads. They're placed in a way that's very thoughtful. Like, there's spacing between, like, competitors. There's not repetition too much of a particular brand. Like, the way that everyone sees the same ad at once is actually beneficial for the Super Bowl. It's why, like, we're talking about particular ads. You watch the All American halftime show on YouTube and I just got the same ad over and over again. And it was actually for a political group opposed to Turning Point USA trying to unseat a Republican congressman in my district. So that's kind of funny on how ad targeting works.
A
Yeah.
C
That I. I see ads that are like, complete opposite of the programming, but it was just like, wow, you know, watching YouTube, that ad experience is just so much worse than, than it was for this huge football game. And the ads were that way. They were personalized. I can't have word of mouth about this attack ad unless if I talk to someone who lives in my congressional district and has my same interests. So there's like no one who I know probably has even seen that ad. So there's a lot to be said of personalization and its uses, but it. It doesn't translate to something like the Super Bowl. You want the opposite. You want everyone seeing the same ad to build that water cooler effect.
A
Do you think that there's a certain size event where that changeover is more acceptable? Like, if it was a kind of a 20 million people tuning into the Grammys, you know, like 30 million into the NBA Finals, like, at what point do you think it becomes less effective?
C
Gosh, that's a. That's a great question. I don't know.
A
Just be the Super Bowl. I feel like it's the only thing people really kind of talk about. I mean, obviously it's kind of in the category by itself in terms of audience, but I think if you had.
C
That type of experience, though, even for like a NFC championship game, it would be very off putting. Like if you had the YouTube experience rather than the linear TV experience. But if it was like a weekly college basketball game that only gets 800,000 viewers, then yeah, you know, it's probably fine. I don't know where the cutoff is, though. That's an interesting thing to think about.
B
I think it's hard to put a number on it, but I would say that anything that people are talking about and focusing on before the event, like all of the award shows, right, The Grammys, the Oscars, March Madness, the Olympics, and obviously the super bowl, other big NFL and college football games. So I think there's. When you have interest that spans just outside of your town or your district, then I think Ross's point about the common experience is a great one. Actually. It's a little preview for my next drive, so I'll save it.
A
But please, it's time. Sorry, Sorry, Russ.
C
I'll just say we're teeing it up for Paul.
A
Absolutely. 14:10 to Ross. Plenty of times. Come back, though. Paul, what you got?
B
So I love having these cultural moments, and they're, they're. They are few and far between. And the super bowl, you know, in. In all transparency, I'm, I'm not a huge NFL fan, but I love, I love this event because of how it just. It's like the last thing we have or one of the last things that really brings people together. So you see that in the ads. You see that in the stories around the game. You see that in the halftime show. So, like, the whole thing, it's just so much fun in. At a time when, like, so much of our media consumption and news consumption is totally fragmented, and it's hard to get people from different walks of life to. To coalesce around anything. So I treasure these things more and more, you know, as our society becomes more fragmented and as I get older and have had the experience of, you know, seeing TV go from everything being appointment viewing to everything being, like, atomized.
A
Mm.
C
Yeah.
A
It's odd because we kind of sit in our entertainment silos for the entire year and decide, let's get together and just. Just for one day. That's plenty. We don't need any more than that. So how would you sum that up in the sentence, people coming together around this kind of cultural moment?
B
Yeah, yeah. That there's. There's great value and now scarcity in these kinds of moments. And just one little postscript. So, like, it used to be that big season finales for big shows like Friends and, you know, MASH and all those great shows would also garner this kind of focused attention. That doesn't happen anymore because people are watching the finale of, you know, Stranger Things or Breaking Bad, like, all at different times. Like, it's all, you know, there's no single moment. I mean, there's. Some shows are streamed in a way that tries to encourage that, but for the most part, it's like, you know, you watch it when you watch it. So the live in the moment thing is something that is pretty unique to sports now. So again, all the more reason to kind of harness it and enjoy it before something breaks it up.
A
Yeah. Touchdown. 1714. Ross. You could tie it with a field goal. And then I'll ask something else to get some takes for my whiff, too. You might, but you might. That's true. Or the touchdown. We'll seal it. What have you got?
C
So I've appreciated when there's been an alt cast that's incorporated, like, a children's entertainment. So two years ago, when CBS had the super bowl, there was an alt cast on Nickelodeon that had, like, all the, like, animations and slime and, like, SpongeBob was featured and. And it made it more palatable for the kids to sit there so they bother you less and you can actually watch more of the game and Disney plus has done this, not for the super bowl, because they haven't had the. You know, Disney hasn't had the super bowl recently. They're going to have it next year. But they've done various, like, events, NFL games, NBA games, or they'll have, like, Toy Story animations or other characters from their IP included. And it works to a degree to, like, get your kid to sit down. So NBC doesn't have as many children's franchises as Disney, certainly, and not even as many as Nickelodeon, but I would have loved a Minions cast for this game.
A
This is. This is really interesting because what do kids do when they get the Super Bowls on? Everyone, the whole country is watching the Super Bowl. Not the whole country, but a lot of people. What the kids just running around like, is this hues up is they try.
C
To get you to put it on Gabby's dollhouse and to stop watching. That's what they. That's what they do.
A
So maybe there's this huge. Yeah, this huge opportunity.
B
Well, it's funny, you know, when my kids were younger, it was during the heyday of the Patriots, like, you know, playing in every super bowl and winning many of them. And I think one of those games went to overtime. And, like, you know, local kids, including my kids, like, they were up to like 11:30 at night. So the next day at school, like, I think they even let people start late or, you know, it was like this whole thing about, like, the kids and their involvement, but that was because, you know, it was the. The local team. If it's not the local team and your kids are watching more for the cultural aspect, then, yeah, obviously, you know, you need to do something to keep them entertained.
A
The kid audience, I kind of like this. This is about Outcast for kids. I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say three points. Three points field goal for Ross, which ties us up overtime at 17. Of course we're going to overtime. The one I had was that celebs in ads are well and truly here to stay. And so, as folks watching can see on the screen, this chart showing, over the last six years, celebrities have been featured in around 70% of Super bowl ads. Data from I spot. So about 70% of Super bowl ads have a celebrity over the last six years. Ten years ago, it was closer to 40%. So big uptick, multi celebrity spots have also climbed from 17 to 51 in the last 10 years. Paul, start with you. What's your take here?
B
I was wondering when I saw the ad with Scarlett Johansson and John Tam and John Tam, Jon Hamm. Jon Tam, our new cmo. You have been confused with a very famous actor. Consider it a compliment. So I, I was wondering, like, and I said to my wife, like, does ScarJo really need the money? And, well, she said that. And then I said, what about Jon Hamm? And she's like, well, Jon Hamm will do anything. So, yeah, I think we're in a. We're in a new normal where, like, it's not even about the money. And it used to be, like, you know, if a musician sold their song for an advertisement, it was, like, considered selling out and it was never done. And now it's like, par for the course. It's the same with celebrities and ads. Like, it's going to happen.
A
Ross, we got.
C
The price of super bowl ads continues to skyrocket much faster than inflation. So when a company decides to purchase that inventory, they have to go big or go home. So I think that's why you're going to see more celebrities. If they're going to pay more for the inventory, they're going to be willing to pay more for the creative. And it doesn't seem to be a limit on how many celebrities they can jam into an ad. Yeah, they really want to have the biggest impact, even if it's going to blow up their budget, because super bowl ad is a bigger venture and riskier than it used to be. And if you have more celebrities, you have more chance that it could take off.
A
Yeah, yeah. Speaking about more chance to take off, Lauren Johnson of Adweek making the similar point, saying celebs talk about their ads on social media reaching people beyond the confines of super bowl airtime. But she was saying, consider whether the celebrity presence serves the strategy or becomes the strategy. Saying star power should amplify a strong idea, not substitute one. Good examples being Gordon Ramsay being on an ad for kitchenware company. Some bad examples. Meta's ad for Ray Ban Smart glasses. It starred Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt. It was last year. Neither typically associated with technology or glasses or Coinbase's karaoke style. Sing along this year to the Backstreet Boys. There was one X user saying, I was vibing doing Backstreet Boys karaoke and then crypto. How dare you. So, yeah, make sure it fits. But Paul, to your point, Jamie Goldman, who's one of our senior directors of content, was saying, as celebs, basically as celebrities kind of fill super bowl ads, ads themselves have shifted from touching to funny. You were talking about the comedic part of this with humorous spots now accounting for 71% of Super bowl ads, up from 62% in 2016, according to. I spot heartfelt comments. Sorry, Content. Heartfelt content went from 38% to 20 in the last seven years. Why? Funny lends itself better to quotable memeable moments that spread faster on social, extending reach beyond broadcast. All right, after overtime, the winner is. Ross is today's winner of the Super Bowl. Congratulations to him. Some really good points. Too many AI Ads. Programmatic won't ever work for the Super Bowl. And Super Bowl Alt cast for kids could be good. Paul saying kind of felt a bit meh. Bad Bunny's halftime performance and then mass audiences watching together. Close contest, gents. But Ross is today's super bowl winner.
B
Well deserved.
A
Congratulations.
C
That was my Mahomes moment.
A
Time now for the second half. All right, today in the second half, we're looking at the top three biggest winners from the Super Bowl. So this could be an advertiser, it could be an ad, it could be a cultural moment, it could be a network, a streamer, really, anything. So we're going to come up with a top three list together. Ross, I'll start with you. What you got?
C
Well, you guys mentioned him earlier. I'm going with Ricky Martin. He's back into the spotlight. People hadn't thought about him for years, and, man, he looked great. I mean, what a beautiful man. You know, he's 54 years old and he's more handsome than ever. He's living la vida loca. I'm going with Ricky.
A
Ricky Martin. I didn't see that coming, but well played. It was right there. Paul, what you got?
B
I'm going with Kenneth Walker as mvp. Amazing story. Knowing that it was the first time his dad had seen him in an NFL game was amazing.
A
That was the first time.
B
First time, Yep.
A
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Super mvp.
B
So he wins on many levels.
A
Yeah. He rushed for twice as many yards as the entire New England Patriot team. And I think he had the most rushing yards since Terrell Davis, which I don't know when that super bowl was, but he's been retired for about 30 years. So a long time ago, you know, in.
C
In 2021, Nebraska shut down Kenneth Walker. We played for Michigan State. He only had 60 yards on, I think, 21 carries. Not a first down in the second half. And Nebraska still lost that game somehow.
A
Wow.
C
So that's what I thought when I saw him.
A
So, yeah, I'm thinking. I mean, Sam Donald's the obvious choice for me. I'm such a Sam Donald fan now. But I'll go with the winners being I was looking at USA Today's annual Ad Meter popularity contest and I think some of the the winners. I'll wrap them all up into the the winners of the Ad Meter popularity contest. And you had Budweiser for their client sale and Eagle ad lays the daughter take over the family potato farm ads and Pepsi's story using the, the polar bear. So they apparently did very well according to this measure. So yeah, I thought they were all really good so they would be my winners for, for the Super Bowl. Just saw the top three. Ricky Martin, Kenneth Walker III and Budweiser lays and Pepsi. All right, that's short but sweet. Second half. We move now to clutch time. All right, this is where we offer takeaways to sports marketers. Game on the line, gents. What's your best takeaway? Paul, I start with you.
B
I'm going to repeat myself and cite something I said in the reimagining retail podcast recently, which is that marketers need to treat super bowl advertising the way my daughter treats a night out where it's my, my college age daughter treats a night on the town which is basically there's pre gaming, there's the event itself and then there's the after party. So like you know, way back in my day you just advertised and that was it. Now you have to build momentum, get conversations going, tease the ad. You know, just do a lot of like preparation for that event. Obviously during the game you have to, you know, hit it out of the park or score a touchdown or whatever metaphor you want to use. And then there's the aftermath, right? Like getting people to talk about it, to remember it, to make the rankings of like, you know, top 25 Super bowl ads ever. Like all of those things really, really matter now. So it's a life cycle.
A
I love this one. I think it's brilliant. I was reading a piece by Mark Stembert of and Week who completely agree saying in recent years brand super bowl efforts have themselves Transformed from a one time 30 second spot into a sprawling multi week marketing event. Pointing to the Shatner William Shatner Raisin Bran sightings. Designed to spark curiosity before the reveal. Designed to let gossip sites and social media fees accomplish the early amplification. And the second point here, quickly, Marissa Jones, our Marissa Jones writes for our Briefing, had a really good piece about sports podcast consumption on Spotify Jumping after the games saying it surges 358% sports podcast consumption after the event. Following any sports event. According to Spotify before the game, consumption rises 172%. So it's huge. On average there's this huge conversation lead lead up to and after she was saying that the, the, the off the post event conversations are likely more effective than pre event because they tap into the game's emotional aftermath. Offering analysis for fans that seek sport that fans seek once a sports event concludes, and pointing to 80%, 80% of sports audio listeners taking action after hearing an ad on a sports podcast or radio show, according to a story from Sirius XM Media Group Eminence and Research. So if you want to sponsor this podcast, this new sports, but then that's fine, just throw some stats at you. But I thought it was interesting and quite fitting to the idea that the conversation happens around the event.
C
ROSS well, that's kind of what I was going to say for my my final point is that the super bowl isn't a place to do cost effective reach. Digiday every year has an article for like it's, you know, here's what a Super bowl ad spot could buy you. If you're paying $10 million a Super bowl, you could buy like this many, you know, TV ads and social media ads and search ads and, you know, on and on. And the list is crazy when you look at it. It's like, oh my gosh, you could build a giant campaign just from this one ad spot. But if you're doing the super bowl, you're not just looking to reach cheap people as cheaply as possible. You're not using it like a performance marketing tool. You're building a whole campaign around this one ad rather than using the ad as part of a campaign necessarily. You're, you're trying to build like a cultural conversation that you wouldn't be able to do no matter how many search ads you bought. So the use case of the super bowl is just much different than cost effective reach. So when you're looking at it that way, the trade off isn't quite the best way to tell that story.
A
Director Taika Waititi had this quote saying advertising that has a story that unfolds like in a movie is much more powerful than an ad that has lots of lots and lots of scenes, lots of messages bombarding you. Saying what most advertisers get wrong is they try to put too much into too short a period of time. And, and you're better off saying less and less people feel that emotion. The lay's Little Farmer is one of the ads. I think that's the one that he worked on from last year where the little Girl kind of nurtures a potato from seed to harvest is pretty beautiful. So I thought it was a good take as well. But that's it for clutch time, and that will do it for today. Next month, we'll be talking all about America's new and developing relationship with the F1 and what Audi and Cadillac's entrance into the competition could do for their brands and for the sport. Our production crew, Lance and Stuart, who runs a team on this one. Many thanks to them. Of course, thanks to my guests.
B
Paul, thank you for having me.
A
Yes, indeed. And before I go to Ross, Paul, I have to say a huge, huge thank you to Paul because this is his last episode with us. Paul has been one of a handful of people who've basically breathed life into this podcast and kept it going over the years. And so it's as much his as it is anybody. So, Paul, thank you so much for everything. We miss you already.
B
Well, it's been a real pleasure 19 years to the day since I joined eMarketer. And yes, being on the podcast has been one of the most fun parts of the job. And I give you tons of credit, Marcus, for your amazing hosting, Stu, for running the team. Everybody on the production crew, you guys are all fantastic. But mostly I want to thank all the listeners. You guys have made it possible for us to do this day in and day out, and it's been a joy, you know, getting emails from you, going to events and have clients tell me, oh, yeah, we love, you know, we love the show. We love when you're on it. So kudos to everybody listening, and kudos to you, Marcus, and the production team.
A
Oh, no, it's a team effort and you've been a huge part of that team effort. And speaking of kudos to it sounds like you're still leaving because according to my kudos board post for you, I said, I'm still mad at you. The only way to make this right is to not leave. So I'll see you on Monday. Thanks for understanding, Marcus.
B
Well, Stu, Stu threatened to have me back as a guest periodically. Yes, please post Marketer Afterlife. So, yes, that'll be the. I guess the after party. So I'm there. Count me in.
A
We'll see you then. Thank you, Paul. And a huge thank you, of course, to Ross, who we get to keep for a little while.
C
And I was just gonna also say Paul's always been a big champion supporter of the podcast, so I thank him for that, for always having the podcast back when we needed support for it.
A
Yes, indeed. Thank you Jens thank you to everyone listening in the game. New Marketer Sports Marketing podcast made possible by CTAC.
Episode: Super Bowl LX: The Most Popular Ads, Why Celebs Are Everywhere, and Marketing Like a College Kid’s Night Out | In the Game
Date: February 12, 2026
Host: Marcus (EMARKETER)
Guests: Paul Werner (VP of Content) and Ross Benish (Senior Digital Advertising Analyst)
This episode dives into the marketing spectacle surrounding Super Bowl LX, discussing the most popular ads, the ubiquity of celebrities in advertising, shifts in audience engagement, and the overarching cultural significance of the Super Bowl. Leveraging insights and stats, the panel explores why the Super Bowl remains the last great "mass" media event and what marketers can learn from how brands approach their Super Bowl investments, with a nod to how strategies have evolved to include pre- and post-game engagement.
“Seahawks were 66 to 1, the Patriots 80 to 1. Both of these teams, betting-wise, shouldn’t have been in this Super Bowl.” (03:39)
“Darnold went on to become the first starting QB in NFL history to win the Super Bowl after playing with over five teams.” (04:34)
“It was one of the least quote-unquote offensive Super Bowls because it also felt like brands and individuals were trying very, very hard not to offend.” (07:13)
“About a fourth of all the Super Bowl ads were promoting some AI product... feels like the dotcom Super Bowl of the year 2000.” (08:33)
Quote from Vineet Mehra (Forbes):
“What we’re heading into now is a moment where AI starts acting as a co-pilot for modern marketing…helping run everything that happens once the ad is live.” (09:42)
“It had a lot of very subtle messaging... giving a little bit of a history lesson about Puerto Rico and presenting this Pan American vision of what America is.” (10:54)
“Programmatic advertising will never work for a huge event like the Super Bowl.” (11:51)
“The Super Bowl…is like the last thing we have that really brings people together. So you see that in the ads, in the stories, in the halftime show.” (15:45)
“Celebrities have been featured in around 70% of Super Bowl ads over the last six years—up from 40% ten years ago.” (20:20)
“I think we’re in a new normal… now it’s like, par for the course.” (21:20)
AI Trend:
“There’s always a category that is spending like drunken sailors… seems like AI is that category right now.”
— Ross (09:24)
Audience Fragmentation:
“We kind of sit in our entertainment silos for the entire year and decide, let’s get together… just for one day.”
— Marcus (16:50)
Programmatic vs. Mass Experience:
“If you had the YouTube [ad] experience rather than the linear TV experience for a big game…it would be very off-putting. For the Super Bowl, you want the opposite. You want everyone seeing the same ad to build that water-cooler effect.”
— Ross (14:30)
Marketing Like a College Night Out:
“Marketers need to treat Super Bowl advertising like my college-age daughter treats a night on the town: pre-gaming, the event itself, and the after-party.”
— Paul (27:37)
Message for Marketers:
“If you’re doing the Super Bowl, you’re not just looking to reach people as cheaply as possible. You’re building a whole campaign around this one ad… you’re trying to build a cultural conversation.”
— Ross (30:06)
Maximize the Marketing Lifecycle
Ad Creative Should Prioritize Storytelling & Emotion
Understand the Value of Mass Moments
Celebrities & Comedy = Virality
Recommended for:
Marketers, advertisers, and brand strategists aiming to understand Super Bowl ad dynamics, mass media events, and current ad trends—from the “AI ad glut” to the cult of celebrity to tactical campaign timing.
[For further info or more in-depth analysis, listen to the full episode—skipping intros and ads for maximum insight.]