According to a 2020 ABC News study, 25% of an average NFL TV broadcast consists of commercials. This usually bothers viewers. However, during the Super Bowl, most people don’t care. 

The phenomenon of the “Super Bowl commercial” has become synonymous with the big game: a time for companies to get the most creative with their ads. Super Bowl ads have become known for their unpredictability, their often surreal humor and their social media virality.

However, it is time to face a grim reality: the Super Bowl commercial as we know it is dead. 

The ad decline has never been more prevalent than this past Super Bowl. Super Bowl LX not only saw repetitive ads, but Super Bowl stalwarts such as Doritos, Mountain Dew, and Avocados from Mexico skipped the game for the first time in decades. By the fourth quarter, the ads were no different than the ads one would see in an ordinary NFL game, and barely anyone talked about the ads that were there.

So, what happened?

The first aid to the downfall was money. Super Bowl ads have always been expensive, but 2026 saw a new high: $8-10 million for a 30-second ad. Not only does this price oust smaller companies who can’t afford an ad that expensive, but it discourages risk-taking from companies who can’t afford to spend so much on an ad that might not be worthwhile. The result is what NPR News described as “playing it safe”: companies using variations of what worked before, stifling creative output.

This is a real problem. Almost every mainstream Super Bowl ad now boils down to “Hey, remember this actor? Remember this singer? Remember this celebrity?” Including celebrities is something that have always been done in ads, but when almost every major company includes one, and these same companies ran very similar ads the year before, it doesn’t do much for the memorability of the ad, especially when a Super Bowl ad’s claim to fame – virality – is often spread by social media users, who are mostly Gen Z. When ads include celebrities known mostly to Gen X and Baby Boomers, it’s hard for the ad to spread. 

But social media has created a new problem for ads: companies are releasing their Super Bowl ads before their big game airing, sometimes weeks before. This past Super Bowl, one creative ad was from Pepsi, in which Coca-Cola’s polar bear mascot yearns to switch sides. It was clever, funny, original, marketed their product well, and had the potential for virality. But PepsiCo posted it to their social media platforms on Jan. 23, two weeks before its airing on Super Bowl Sunday. As a result, the impact of an otherwise great ad was dulled because for many, as it had already been seen before.

Bud Light, Dunkin’, Pringles, Lays, and many more Super Bowl mainstays released their ads at least a week before the Big Game.

Another example, Live Action, made a pro-life, anti-abortion ad promoting adoption, which could have made such an impact pro-life young viewers – except that most had the opportunity to view it weeks before. The element of surprise is key, and without it, ads like 2015’s “Puppymonkeybaby” do not have the same impact on viewers.

The Super Bowl commercial is dead. Cause of Death: everything. Now don’t mind me, I’m going to go watch Puppymonkeybaby and relive the memories.