Tradition and legacy, for brands new and old, will be on display as viewers gather to watch Super Bowl LX, played by the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, on February 8.

Some brands will celebrate the game on other channels in inventive and disruptive ways. For instance, Skittles is sitting out the actual broadcast, and instead will send movie star Elijah Wood to a fan’s house to film a live commercial people can watch online, according to a press release.

Many of the Super Bowl’s traditional advertisers, however, work from a template that has found success for generations. The game connects brands with an audience of more than 100 million viewers.

Sitting out the Super Bowl

While many advertisers are rushing for the endzone on gameday, this year Nike is taking a pass on one of the pricy $8 million ads.

“Nike not advertising in the Super Bowl doesn’t necessarily say as much about the Super Bowl as it does about Nike,” said Dan Larkman, CEO and founder at Keynes. “Companies like Nike spend a huge amount on marketing, but a lot of that comes from endorsements.”

He added, “Athlete pay has gone up significantly, and many athletes either aren’t taking endorsement deals anymore because they’re starting their own brands, or they’re taking them at a much higher cost. That shifts where marketing budgets go.”

An unusually busy sports schedule this year also has brands potentially shifting budgets out of one event and into another.

“2026 is a unicorn year, in that advertisers have many premium events to pick from, including the Super Bowl, Olympics, March Madness, World Cup, and more,” said Laura Grover, senior vice president and head of client solutions at EDO. “Nike is a prominent brand sitting out this year’s Super Bowl and investing heavily in the World Cup instead. Other brands are stepping into the whitespace, with...Adidas expected to lean into its Bad Bunny [halftime show] partnership.”

Multichannel storytelling

Some brands are going far beyond the airing of the game for their campaign. This year, State Farm kicked off a multi-pronged campaign including digital, linear TV, social, out-of-home, and three trailers to its Super Bowl ad, per Marketing Dive.

The multichannel approach will support an ambitious plotline around a fictional agency, “Halfway There Insurance.” Viewers will be tipped off about the farce when they see comedy veterans Keegan-Michael Key and Danny McBride appear as shady agents in a mock direct-response TV ad of their own.

“[A 30-second Super Bowl spot] can be incredibly powerful from a cultural standpoint, but it’s also a very concentrated bet,” said Eric Herd, global head of sports and emerging products at Yieldmo. “That same budget, when you spread it across social and the open web, can reach a much wider audience over a longer period of time.”

He added: “If you’re thinking seriously about sports, you have to plan for a 21-hour game and recognize that for most fans, that journey happens almost entirely outside the stadium and beyond the broadcast itself.”

CPG buffet

The Super Bowl has a longstanding connection with consumer packaged goods (CPGs) that fans enjoy while watching the game.

Anheuser-Busch InBev is logging two and a half minutes of ads during Super Bowl LX with Budweiser, Bud Light and Michelob Ultra, according to MarketingDive. Michelob Ultra is also a Winter Olympics sponsor, capitalizing on a big year for sports.

PepsiCo’s Pepsi Zero Sugar and Lays chips, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran and Ferrero’s Kinder Bueno also have ad slots lined up.

This presence is a sign of faith in tentpole sports events at a time when CPGs are pulling back from traditional media.

• US CPG ad spend is expected to drop 10.1% in 2026, according to an EMARKETER forecast.

“At the end of the day, the Super Bowl is still the Super Bowl,” Larkman said. “There’s enormous brand equity. Running an ad during the Super Bowl, especially at halftime, tells the world you’re not just a player, you’re the player.”

Super Bowl LX will affirm how big live events are desired by marketers and coveted by viewers. It’s a rare sign of stability in a media industry facing digital and genAI disruption.

“The continuity in the advertiser lineup is interesting given how disruptive the rest of the context is,” said Jon Crowley, partner, head of strategy, and senior vice president at Fuse Create. “Other than Bad Bunny headlining the halftime show, it feels like regardless of how much the US has changed in the last year (both domestically and in terms of international relations) the Super Bowl has the same stature, resonance and role, at least when it comes to advertising.”

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.