Google tops Kellogg Super Bowl Ad rankings

Google reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the 22nd annual Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review, with its Gemini-powered spot “New Home” earning the highest marks from the panel. The emotionally grounded ad, which shows how AI can help people navigate major life transitions, marked the fourth time Google has topped the Kellogg rankings and stood out for pairing human storytelling with a clear product role.

Panel co-leads Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker praised the work for channeling the spirit of Google’s iconic “Parisian Love” era while updating it for an AI-first moment. Other high performers included Anthropic’s Claude with “Can I get a six pack quickly?” and Novartis with its tongue-in-cheek “Relax Your Tight End.” Not every brand landed as cleanly. Both Coinbase and ai.com received low scores, with panelists citing unclear value propositions and weak brand linkage.

AI emerged as one of the defining themes of Super Bowl LX. Beyond Google and Anthropic, brands including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Genspark used the game to frame how their technologies fit into everyday life, whether through emotional narratives or performance-driven demos. AI also showed up behind the scenes, with Svedka confirming its dancing-robot spot was largely AI-generated.

This year’s review also highlighted a wave of first-time advertisers, including Tecovas, Fanatics Sportsbook, Liquid I.V., Ring, Ro and Novo Nordisk, the latter signaling the growing normalization of weight-loss medication advertising on the Super Bowl stage. Health and wellness more broadly took on an outsized presence, from GLP-1 drugs and hydration awareness to fiber intake and lower-caffeine energy drinks.

Celebrity power and nostalgia remained reliable attention-grabbers, with Matthew McConaughey, Bradley Cooper and Parker Posey fronting Uber Eats, while Dunkin’ leaned hard into ’90s sitcom energy with Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston and Ted Danson. But as the Kellogg panel noted, familiarity alone wasn’t enough. “Nostalgia and well-liked celebrities are shortcuts to attention,” Calkins said, “but they still need to be paired with a clear brand message to truly work.”

The Kellogg review evaluates ads using its ADPLAN framework, Attention, Distinction, Positioning, Linkage, Amplification and Net Equity, and after 22 years, it remains one of the most closely watched academic reads on Super Bowl advertising. This year’s takeaway was clear: brands that balanced emotion, clarity and relevance thrived, while those that leaned on spectacle without substance were quickly exposed on advertising’s biggest stage.