This article was originally published in Adweek.
On a Super Bowl Sunday full of surprises, the biggest loser was conventional wisdom.
On the field, the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty came to a shocking halt in a game that was all but over by the third quarter. And during the ad breaks, buzzy new AI products failed to move the needle while some of Hollywood’s biggest stars were outperformed by a new class of creator-economy influencers.
Above all else, Super Bowl LIX proved that it’s one thing to speculate and another thing entirely to see what people actually do when the whole world is watching.
The chatter around this year’s Big Game was about how it was poised to be a watershed moment for artificial intelligence. It was known ahead of time that OpenAI, Google Pixel, and Salesforce would be touting AI products at the Super Bowl, and Coca-Cola even rolled out a spot pondering the AI future just before kickoff.
Despite being the hot topic of the day, generative AI ads mostly failed to inspire Super Bowl viewers to learn more about what its biggest brands had to offer. When EDO measured how impactful these brands were at driving the consumer behaviors that predict future sales—think online engagements like site visits and brand searches—it found that the majority of these AI ads were actually less effective than the median Super Bowl LIX ad.
The only AI brand to significantly outperform this benchmark was Meta, which generated strong engagement from its partnership with Ray-Ban to advertise glasses that include a conversational AI assistant.
By contrast, the night’s biggest winner was a surprise new technology partnership. T-Mobile and Starlink teamed up to offer viewers free access to satellite-powered wireless service, which keeps consumers connected even in highly remote locales—and they were ready to let AT&T and Verizon customers try it for free. This ad was the most effective at driving consumer action all evening, generating a staggering 12.6X more engagement than the average Super Bowl LIX spot.
Celebrity activations are one of the safest bets in Super Bowl advertising—a tried-and-true method of generating consumer engagement. But at Super Bowl LIX, many ads carrying some of Hollywood’s biggest names fell flat, while emergent, creator-economy influencers drove eye-opening results. In either case, it was authenticity that separated the wheat from the chaff.
When brands authentically connected their brands to those of the celebrities they employed, consumers responded in a big way. This was the case in America’s favorite new leading man Glen Powell and his turn as Goldilocks for RAM, Harrison Ford’s ode to American individualism for Jeep, and Bud Light’s backyard barbecue starring the laid-back trio of Post Malone, Shane Gillis, and Peyton Manning. But celebrity for celebrity’s sake failed to make a meaningful impact for most brands this year.
Most of the Hollywood icons were outperformed by a trio of Gen-Z influencers and reality stars. Soda upstart Poppi topped the outcomes charts for a second year in a row, generating 442% greater engagement than the average Super Bowl LIX ad by smartly employing comedian Jake Shane, creator Alix Earle, and reality star Rob Rausch in a spot that effectively positioned it as the low-calorie soda of the future.
On the field, Super Bowl LIX continued to prove that predictions and punditry don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. If they did, Travis Kelce and company would be celebrating a three-peat instead of scrambling for a “Getaway Car.”
The same is true when it comes to Super Bowl advertising. While there’s no such thing as guaranteed success, a spot at the Big Game is simply too costly to leave to conventional wisdom and tried-and-not-so-true methods of ginning up consumer engagement.
The only way to achieve consistent, long-term success for your brand is to know what works—by focusing on what will move consumers most in the moments that matter.
In sports and in business, the scoreboard tells the real story. Everything else is noise.