Your Super Bowl Recap, Creator Marketing Edition (HBBIP #122)

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Due to the nature of both linear time and CreatorIQ’s data vetting process, it takes a little while to collect our findings about the Big Game. To put in more snackworthy terms, our Super Bowl data isn’t a smashburger, but a stew; for best results, you have to let all that delicious percolate, marinate, and simmer.

Well I hope you’re hungry, because dinner’s ready, and good things come to those who wait.

There are so many angles that we could take on the Super Bowl, which provides some of the tastiest treats we’ll see all year. Trust me: this data is a lot more interesting than the game ended up being. (Don’t get me wrong, I love great punting and watching the Patriots lose as much as anyone, but I don’t think we’re going to be seeing too many plays from this one on the historical NFL highlight reel.)

To make things more digestible, we’re going to divide our investigation into three buckets:

• The brands that made the biggest splash in the leadup to the Super Bowl (Monday, February 2nd through Friday, February 6th).
• The brands that saw the greatest impact during the height of Super Bowl festivities (Sunday, February 8th and Monday, February 9th).
• The trends we saw across the brands and creators that scored the most points on social throughout that time period.

These trends, brands, and creators are measured by Earned Media Value (EMV), Impressions, and Engagements, as based on CreatorIQ’s industry-leading U.S. creator panel.

Sounds pretty good to me, or at least better than watching Drake Maye get sacked again. Let’s go to the tape!

The Top Event of All Time (of the Week): Super Bowl LX

As promised, let’s dive right in with the top brands in the leadup to the Big Game.

1. The Pre-Game

Based largely on brands that released their Super Bowl ads in advance of the game, in an ever-accelerating attempt to capitalize on hype amid an increasingly fractured attention economy, these winners scored big thanks to several themes that were reflected throughout 2026’s edition of America’s favorite day: AI; a mix of celebrities, creators, and athletes; and a return to form for alcohol brands, which have suffered as of late due to shifting consumer sentiment.

Top Brands by Super Bowl EMV, 2/2 - 2/6

Here we have our top brands by Super Bowl-related EMV—again, that’s EMV driven by posts that directly reference said brand in conjunction with the Super Bowl—during the week prior to the Super Bowl: Monday February 2nd through February 6th.

These early birds won out thanks to attention-grabbing ad campaigns prior to the Big Game. You have a historical Super Bowl stalwart in Budweiser, along with new money Super Bowl advertisers like E.L.F. Cosmetics and Uber Eats, each with ads fronted by celebrities. Meanwhile, everybody loves dinosaurs, and Xfinity’s nostalgic Jurassic Park ad proved an instant hit.

But Oakley. That came as a surprise, at least to me.

We’ll go into further detail about our friends at Oakley, because they’re going to be popping up a good deal more, but for now, let’s see how this list changes, or doesn’t change, when we look at Super Bowl EMV as a percentage of brands’ total EMV during this time period:

Top Brands by Super Bowl EMV as a % of Total EMV, 2/2 - 2/6

Naturally, conversation about Budweiser in early February tends to revolve around the Clydesdales. While Uber Eats and Xfinity remain on the list, Pringles and Svedka now burst onto the scene, underscoring the power that Big Potato holds over the American consumer. (I mean really: is it just me, or were there a lot of ads about growing potatoes?)

We begin to see the same brands, and similar trends, when we look at other metrics, including impressions:

Top Brands by Super Bowl Impressions, 2/2 - 2/6

Again with Oakley! And now its running mate, Meta, is just behind. Meanwhile, I’m prepared to declare Hellmann’s new school Super Bowl royalty: for several years running, their ads have consistently delivered.

And when it comes to impressions by percentage, it’s more of the usual suspects:

Top Brands by Super Bowl Impressions as a % of Total Impressions, 2/2 - 2/6

The people who are viewing content about these brands from 2/2 to 2/6 are doing so because of the Super Bowl. You might not have needed this newsletter to figure that out, but now you have a handy infographic to support that point. Hooray!

I bet you can predict at least one of the top five brands by Super Bowl-related engagements from 2/2 to 2/6:

Top Brands by Super Bowl Engagements, 2/2 - 2/6

Like I told you: people love dinosaurs, food, sunglasses, and beer in that order. Common knowledge.

I wouldn’t have necessarily predicted the percentage breakdown for engagements, though:

Top Brands by Super Bowl Engagements as a % of Total Engagements, 2/2 - 2/6

That’s almost completely Super Bowl-driven coverage for Svedka’s engagements, and darn close to it for Budweiser. Amid rocky times for the alcoholic beverage industry, the Super Bowl certainly seems like an effective tool for mobilizing people to drink. After all, we don’t call these ‘pre-game’ numbers for nothing.

So what can we learn from the stretch before the Super Bowl?

• There's definite excitement around AI, with many of the top Super Bowl-related posts we saw during this time period emphasizing either AI brands or AI-related themes.
• Conversation around Open AI, Anthropic, and ChatGPT centered largely around Anthropic's ad, which creators and commentators in the tech space perceived as firing shots against its competitors for featuring ads.
• Meanwhile, Meta and Oakley scored some of the most impactful pieces of content we saw in the run-up to the Super Bowl via their "Athletic Intelligence" campaign, which put a sports-themed spin on their signature glasses
  • Oakley also enjoyed an Impactful partnership post from the Patriots, not that it ended up doing New England that many favors in the Big Game.
• Conversation around Svedka, meanwhile, was all about the brand's AI-generated ad. 
  • Note that, judging by the comments, not everyone really liked AI’s vision for these friendly dancing robots (accusations of 'AI slop' got thrown around). But hey, like it or not, it did get people talking.
• Brands are balancing celebrity and creator endorsements:
  • Uber Eats saw impactful posts from both pitchman Matthew McConaughey and TikTok star/entertainer Addison Rae.
  • Hellmann's was boosted by Conan O'Brien, but also TikTok recipe/food creator Emmanuel Duverneau.
    

That’s all well and good for an appetizer—a chicken wing, say, or a singular nacho. But how about the main course?

2. The Game (and Afterwards)

Did we see a different cast of characters when it came to the brands driving the highest totals on Sunday 2/8 and Monday 2/9? Well, yes and no.

Top Brands by Super Bowl Day EMV

In what shouldn’t come as a surprise to sports fans, Fanatics had what’s probably its biggest day of the year, every year, at least outside of Fanatics Fest. That’s kind of a gimme, what with the whole sports theme. Our old friends Oakley, Google, and Uber Eats carried over their momentum, but let’s give a warm welcome to Ritz, whose ad featuring celebrities being salty was a big hit with the snack set.

Circle that “being salty” theme…it’ll come back around.

Top Brands by Super Bowl Day Impressions

A similar picture for day-of impressions: big results for Fanatics, with Oakley, Ritz, and Google once again in the mix. Meanwhile, E.L.F. Cosmetics makes a reappearance thanks to a popular telenovela-themed spot starring Melissa McCarthy.

Top Brands by Super Bowl Day Engagements

Engagements is pretty much the same picture, though it underscores just how much sports content flows through the Fanatics Social Media Universe, and how much people liked that Ritz ad.

We’ve got our cast of characters for the day-of brands, but how about the day after?

Top Brands by Day-After EMV

In a very closely matched field, we find a mix of pre-Game and Game Day brands in contention. Oakley takes the top spot for what creators were talking about on Monday morning, with Pepsi close behind. Cadillac zooms onto the scene—more on that below—while Budweiser and Fanatics round out the crop.

Top Brands by Day-After Impressions

The picture is, uh, less evenly matched when it comes to impressions. Oakley runs away with this one. Shoutout to an appearance from Manscaped, though! Those little sentient clumps of hair kept enough people up at night to warrant a spot on the list.

Top Brands by Day-After Engagements

And we’re back to a tight competition for engagements, with some of our old favorites battling things out.

I’ve just thrown a lot of information at you—12 whole charts’ worth! What does it all mean? And what common threads did we see this year?

3. What It All Means

Just like Drake Maye, this newsletter has a lot of Super Bowl takeaways.

Winning Brands

• Fanatics saw an intuitive surge on the day of the Super Bowl, underscoring how integral the brand has become to many fans' experiences of major sporting events, and validating my decision to profile Fanatics in HBBIP a while back.
• People were talking about Google's AI-driven ad both during and after the Super Bowl, indicating a surge in AI-driven conversation across social media.
• Pepsi and Cadillac were winners based on the post-Super Bowl conversation, highlighting both the strength of the non-alc beverage vertical and consumer interest in F1—another HBBIP spotlight—with Cadillac announcing its forthcoming F1 team.
• Oakley continued its strong showing before, during, and after the Super Bowl thanks to its 'Athletic Intelligence' campaign, which wisely blended the week's two biggest advertising narratives: sports and AI.
• I might have to cover that collab soon, but for now, we do have HBBIP coverage of Meta and Ray-Ban's similar collab.

Another Newsletter Tells You Things About AI

• Oakley stood out by emphasizing sports and AI in a way that felt organic and relevant to audiences, and did so by utilizing creators like IShowSpeed, further tapping into digital consumers’ sentiments.
• In comparison, other AI brands focused on messages that were more about direct or veiled comparisons to their AI competitors, and didn't necessarily use creators to the same degree.
• Anthropic, for example, managed to generate buzz via a very pointed shot at ChatGPT. (This is where I make that callback to staying salty.) That AI-world drama sparked conversation among aggregator accounts that cover AI, but it wasn't a frequent topic of discussion among creators.
• One exception was Meta, which scored a hit post thanks to this creator GRWM post for the Meta/Ray-Ban Super Bowl Party. Still, most of Meta’s buzz stemmed from its work with Oakley.

The Role of Creators

But what did this year’s Super Bowl mean for the whole reason that I’m writing and you’re reading this newsletter: creators?

From pre-game hype to day-of ads, and even the halftime show (we see you, Alix Earle), creators played a consistent role throughout this year's Super Bowl.

Savvy brands understood that creators provide an unmatched opportunity to engage younger audiences, and incorporated creators into campaigns accordingly. Creators featured in ads alongside mainstream celebrities and star athletes, claiming their seat at the table via cameos, in-the-know moments, and subtle winks at the audience.

Prominent examples included IShowSpeed, whose work with Meta/Oakley on their 'Athletic Intelligence' glasses helped propel that campaign to one of the Super Bowl's smash hits. Meanwhile, Uber Eats scored big not only with Matthew McConaughey and Bradley Cooper, but TikTok superstar Addison Rae, who shared her own twist on the brand's food-themed ad with her millions of followers on social. Other ads featured creator royalty like Druski (T-Mobile), MrBeast (Salesforce), and Paige DeSorbo (Kinder Bueno), further underscoring creators' status as a central pillar of contemporary advertising and brand-building.

In other words, while the Super Bowl’s massive scale might get all the attention, it’s creators’ credibility that drove real engagement. And that kind of engagement, especially on the media’s grandest scale, isn’t going anywhere.

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