By the time this story runs, the Super Bowl commercial winners and losers will already have been declared. Rankings finalized. Hot takes archived. But advertising history suggests that immediate reaction does not always translate into lasting impact. Some of the most iconic spots in Super Bowl history, from Apple’s “1984” to Budweiser’s “Whassup?”, did not simply win the night. They seeped into our culture.
In an era now dominated by AI, algorithmic amplification, TikTok, and Instagram, the question feels more urgent than ever: Is it still possible for a commercial to seep into cultural memory, or has technology trained us to expect instant gratification over enduring resonance?
Vincent Geraghty, Executive Vice President and Head of Production at Laughlin Constable and a longtime production leader who spent nearly two decades at Leo Burnett, has helped shape and evaluate the kind of large-scale campaigns that define moments like this.
“We’re not captive audiences anymore,” Geraghty says. “We have our own programming that we’re watching. The days of three networks and a slow-mo cultural moment have long passed.” Yet he pushes back on the idea that the opportunity for cultural significance has disappeared entirely.
“There are still buzzworthy and huge ideas that happen,” he says. “Even this year at the Super Bowl, where everything’s released way in advance, there are still those few ads people are talking about. It’s amplified across social channels now.”
This year’s game offered clear examples of both effective and less effective uses of emerging tools like AI. Budweiser’s patriotic Clydesdale-and-eagle spot set to “Free Bird” earned strong rankings, yet even there Geraghty points to what he calls the “last three percent” of craft, the final stretch of refinement that separates good from great.
“There were parts of that ad that I thought were really well done,” he says. “But the eagle taking off from the horse’s back at the end felt really janky. That should have been the moment where you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is incredible.’”
That missing final polish, he suggests, reflects a broader industry compression of time and patience.
Following the Budweiser Clydesdale spot, Geraghty also highlighted Instacart, calling it “one of my favorites from this year’s Super Bowl,” and noting that even days later, “people are still talking about those ads.” He mentioned the Hellmann’s spot with Andy Samberg in the same breath, saying it was another ad where people “just keep on commenting and posting about it… on social channels.”
But if there was a cultural high point of the evening, Geraghty believes it may not have been a traditional commercial at all.
It was the halftime performance by Bad Bunny.
The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show averaged approximately 128 million viewers across broadcast and streaming platforms, placing it among the most-watched halftime performances in history. That audience alone rivals what many brands pay up to $10 million for a 30-second spot.
“That was my favorite part of the night,” Geraghty says. “The level of craft and the attention to detail that was put into that show was amazing to me. I loved that it was all in Spanish. That was the whole point.”
Bad Bunny’s performance did not feel engineered to satisfy a dashboard. It felt aligned with who he is and what he believes. In a year saturated with conversations about artificial intelligence and manufactured authenticity, the most resonant moment of the Super Bowl was unmistakably human.
And the resonance shows up in the numbers. Three days after the game, clips of Bad Bunny’s performance had surpassed 173 million views on the NFL’s Instagram account alone. That figure does not include additional views across YouTube, TikTok, X, and international platforms. In an ecosystem where brands fight for incremental engagement, the halftime performance generated organic reach at a scale most paid advertisers can only hope to achieve.
From a marketing perspective, the implications are significant. While advertisers purchase placement within the Super Bowl, the NFL effectively created a moment with the Bad Bunny halftime show that functioned as marketing for itself, driving global attention, cultural relevance and potential audience expansion without selling a single product.
“That moment worked because it wasn’t engineered, it was lived,” said Geraghty. AI can replicate patterns and predict engagement, but it cannot manufacture conviction of people like Bad Bunny. The alignment between artist, message and moment made it the most powerful statement of the entire Super Bowl slate.
Iconic ads may be harder to create today. But iconic moments still happen and sometimes, the most powerful marketing move isn’t a commercial at all but a heartfelt moment and deep belief in our fellow man.
Amy Pais-Richer is REEL Chicago’s newest contributor. She is a published author, and we are lucky to have her!
ALSO READ:
NERDS x Andy Cohen debut Juicy Gummy Clusters in Big Game
