Super Bowl is tradition.
People gather. Every year. Same patterns. Same rituals. Someone makes chilli. Someone brings nachos. It’s always at the same house. Or at least with the same people. The Super Bowl is a constant. It shows up once a year, and everyone sort of plans around it — mostly — even if they are not interested in the sport of football.
Right or wrong, the event of the Super Bowl has been leveraged to be more. Why? To capture new audiences, dive into new segments. By expanding the audience, you increase revenue.
Turning a sports championship into a shared cultural moment.
The Product: The Super Bowl
The strategist, take the data, and use that to continually improve the performance of the event. The event becomes the product, and eventually someone asks how do you expand the market?
Super Bowl Commercials — Will they be Good?
For years, you’d hear I watch the Super Bowl for the ads—and brands spend millions. For Super Bowl LX in 2026, 30-second commercial spots are priced at a record average of $8 million, with some premier slots reaching up to $10 million to reach 100 million people.
Humor made a surge in last year's Super Bowl ads, and based on that, there is evidence that humor will be centerstage again. These choices are based on research—what does the audience need, now?
Super Bowl Performers — Again, Strategic
The commercials have been a lever for years. “I don’t care about football, I just watch the ads” became a perfectly normal sentence.
And it worked. It pulled in people who otherwise wouldn’t have shown up.
But another lever is the Super Bowl halftime show. At this point, the halftime show is its own event. Not the performance — the lead-up. Last year it was Kendrick Lamar. And the conversation started long before kickoff.
What songs would he play?
Would he reference the tension with Drake?
Would he make a statement?
Social was already on fire. And then — Serena. The internet lost it. Not because it was flashy. Not because it was expected. But because it crossed worlds—tennis, hip-hop, sports and culture—at the Super Bowl.
Suddenly, people who weren’t watching the game were watching clips. Commenting. Sharing. Arguing. Explaining why it mattered. That moment alone pulled in another audience. Another micro-market. Another reason to care.
The halftime performer isn’t chosen just to entertain the people already watching. They’re chosen to bring in new audiences — people who weren’t planning to tune in at all. Music fans. Culture fans. People who don’t want to miss the thing everyone will be talking about tomorrow.
This year, the buzz around Bad Bunny follows the same pattern. Different audience. Same playbook. Global reach. Younger viewers. Fans who don’t show up for football — but show up for the moment.
The game doesn’t change.
The audience does.
And that’s the real point of the halftime show.
When people think marketing is the Super Bowl ad, they miss what’s actually happening. The ad is the visible moment. The performance is the spark. But the real work is the slow build — the anticipation, the speculation, the cultural pull — that makes the Super Bowl feel unavoidable.
That’s how a football game became everyone’s game, and I didn’t even mention Trailor. 🙂
We hope you enjoy the game, the commercials, the food or the half-time show or if you’re opting out for some peace and quiet!
