Your Tremendous Bowl Preview, Creator Advertising Version (HBBIP #120)

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As you could be conscious, this Sunday, February eighth 2026, isn’t any atypical Sunday. It’s the form of Sunday that comes however yearly. That’s proper: it’s the Tremendous Bowl, America’s unofficial vacation, and the topic of each publication/roundup/thinkpiece/recap that’s going to be clogging your inbox from now until subsequent week.

So sure, you may already be sick of Tremendous Bowl content material lengthy earlier than the sport’s first snap. You may not care about movie star cameos in big-budget model tie-ins. You may not like sports activities all that a lot. And although it’s onerous for me to conceive of such a factor, you may not even be all that excited by game-day snacks. (Not even guac? Come on now.)

However you might be, willingly or not, subscribed to this text, which signifies that you do appear not less than slightly bit within the creator financial system. If that’s so, I’ve information(letter) for you: the Tremendous Bowl is your day, too. As a result of simply as the large sport has lengthy since asserted its standing as one of many signature occasions inside American tradition, it’s additionally develop into a proving floor for creators, and one of many largest days within the calendar yr for our trade.

As a result of nature of linear time, I can’t assess what occurred on this yr’s matchup, both from a sporting perspective (as I’m penning this, I don’t even know which groups shall be enjoying) or from the creator angle. However what I can do is offer you a take a look at creators’ increasing roles within the 2024 and 2025 Tremendous Bowls—an enlargement that gives hints of what’s to return this yr.

And now, the kickoff…

The Prime Occasion of All Time (of the Week): the 2026 Tremendous Bowl (of Creator Advertising)

With the intention to correctly cowl all the assorted angles of how creators are altering the face of the Large Sport, and in an homage to a soccer sport’s 4 quarters, we’re going to divide our evaluation into 4 sections:

1. Creators’ exercise throughout Tremendous Bowl Week
2. Creators as Tremendous Bowl advert stars
3. Creators vs. celebrities
4. Creators as NFL companions

We wished to quantify simply how embedded creators have develop into within the model activations hosted throughout Tremendous Bowl Week—the parade of events, model experiences, and different occasions thrown main as much as the Large Sport, all sponsored by the NFL. 2024 and 2025, we discovered that the pool of manufacturers leveraging creators in Tremendous Bowl-week activations, and the scale of the NFL’s official creator crew (extra on that in a second), expanded from 103 manufacturers and creators in 2024 to 148 manufacturers and creators in 2025.

Nevertheless, on a per-brand and per-creator foundation, common totals for EMV, put up rely, impressions, and engagements dropped between these two years. In different phrases, the bottom expanded, however not all these new additions had been notably productive.

Nevertheless once more, this decline might be not less than partially attributed to environmental elements. The 2024 Tremendous Bowl was in Las Vegas, a metropolis higher suited to large-scale model activations than virtually anyplace on earth. In 2025, the Tremendous Bowl venue was New Orleans: not precisely a foul place to throw a sequence of huge events, however not fairly on the identical scale as Vegas when it comes to the extent of infrastructure surrounding these model activations. With the Tremendous Bowl shifting to the Bay Space this yr, we might very effectively see a bounce-back in 2026.

A complete of 28 manufacturers and creators noticed Tremendous Bowl Week exercise in each 2024 and 2025. Of this group of 28, simply 9 noticed both partial or across-the-board YoY progress in key metrics from 2024 to 2025:

Tremendous Bowl Week EMV Progress, 2025 vs. 2024

Good on Amazon for as soon as once more throwing off the curve for everybody else. Other than the occasional shock—what are you doing right here, NBA? Flawed sport!—this can be a very streaming-heavy record (YouTube TV, Kai Cenat, Streamlabs, Discord), pointing to the dominance of that type of content material creation and consumption, and its overlap with sports activities content material. As we’ve reported beforehand, that’s solely going to extend throughout all main leagues in 2026 and past.

So what’s the takeaway right here? 

First Quarter Sport Notes:

• Manufacturers, together with the NFL itself, are increasing their creator efforts each throughout and within the lead-up to the Tremendous Bowl. 
• Whereas common per-brand or per-creator metrics declined from 2024 to 2025, this was largely the results of altered services and infrastructure between Tremendous Bowl venues. 
• The increasing pool of creators and types concerned with promotional occasions, in addition to the NFL’s continued funding in creators all through the 2025-2026 season, factors to an enormous Tremendous Bowl for creators within the Bay Space this yr.

We’re on to Cincinnati…

Creators aren’t simply making a push within the build-up to the Tremendous Bowl: they’re popping up throughout in the course of the Large Sport, too.

Whereas we noticed this development emerge in 2024 with NERDS x Addison Rae, E.L.F. x Benito Skinner, and extra, creators took on extra of a starring function in the course of the adverts in 2025. As everybody is aware of, Tremendous Bowl adverts are just like the Tremendous Bowl of adverts, so having creators step into the highlight in entrance of the entire world was an extremely validating second for the trade.

Right here’s are the model/creator team-ups that made the most important impression on Tremendous Bowl Sunday 2025, and for the next few days after the sport:

Prime Creator Tremendous Bowl Commercials by EMV, 2025

It was an enormous yr for Alix Earle, who additionally featured in a notable Hellmann’s business (extra on Hellmann’s in a bit). But it surely was additionally a notable Tremendous Bowl for Verizon, who changed Beyoncé, its advert star of 2024 (together with Tony Hale!) with a squad of creators. The ‘creator squad’ was a well-liked technique throughout a number of manufacturers, indicating not solely that good issues are available in packs, however which you could afford 5 individuals, or most likely extra, for what it takes to pay Beyoncé.

For a lot of of those manufacturers, creators sparked a notable surge in social media efficiency metrics, particularly in comparison with manufacturers that engaged in conventional movie star adverts in the course of the Tremendous Bowl. That surge cemented itself not solely YoY progress, however in February totals that marked best-of-2025 numbers for quite a few creator-focused manufacturers:

In comparison with February 2024, these creator-focused manufacturers noticed enhancements throughout:

EMV:

• Poppi (+74%)
• Carl’s Jr. (+293%)
  • Name it the Alix Earle Impact

Impressions

• Gatorade (+124%)
• Poppi (+42%)
• Carl’s Jr. (+161%)
  • I hope Carl’s Jr. paid Alix Earle in burgers. They’d most likely go effectively with Poppi.

Engagements

• T-Cell (+77%)
• Poppi (+199%)
• Gatorade (+29%)
• Carl’s Jr. (+644%)
  • Practically a full sweep, indicating that creator content material is a surefire technique of driving digital engagement even (or particularly) in Tremendous Bowl adverts.

Publish Rely

• Poppi (+31%)
• Carl’s Jr. (+201%)

Creator Rely

• Poppi (+20%)
• Carl’s Jr. (+222%)

Some fairly clear winners there: two nice tastes that style nice collectively, united by the ability of Alix Earle.

In distinction, not one of the following manufacturers, all of that are planning 2026 SB adverts, and lots of of which additionally had 2025 adverts that includes celebrities, noticed their highest month-to-month 2025 totals for efficiency metrics in February:

• Dove
• Intuit TurboTax
• Uber Eats
• Liquid I.V.
• Instacart
• Lay’s
• Bosch
• Pringles
• MANSCAPED
• NERDS
• Ferrero Rocher
• PepsiCo
• Grubhub

That’s a number of data. That can assist you digest and palate cleanse throughout halftime, listed below are your sport notes for the Second Quarter:

Second Quarter Sport Notes:

• Creators are particularly well-suited to creating certain that Tremendous Bowl adverts garner larger efficiency metrics on social media, relative to manufacturers’ different content material all year long.
• Poppi and Carl’s Junior noticed each highpoints in February 2025 and dramatic YoY progress relative to February 2024 due to Tremendous Bowl adverts that includes powerhouse creator Alix Earle.
• Manufacturers that function creators in Tremendous Bowl adverts carry out notably effectively in engagements throughout social media, demonstrating creators’ distinctive benefit as companions.

Sorry to spoil the enjoyable, however I at all times skip the Halftime Present. I simply don’t love choreography as a lot as I like getting one other serving to of wings.

However what I do love is having the ability to supply definitive solutions to often requested questions—on this case, how do creator-led adverts examine to celebrity-led adverts? We get that on a regular basis, and right here’s what we have now to say about it.

Prime Creator Tremendous Bowl Commercials by EMV, 2025

We do see a higher-end scale right here than what we noticed for creators, although loads of celebrity-focused adverts not featured on this chart garnered decrease EMV than the examples we noticed for creators. Moreover, it’s price noting that the Dunkin’ advert is technically additionally a creator advert, as a result of Druski was there too (he performed one of many ‘associates’).

One space the place creators have a transparent benefit over their movie star counterparts? Posting about their very own adverts, which is one thing that celebrities are a bit spotty at. To the shock of nobody, Ben Affleck wasn’t sharing a ton of content material about his advert. Nor did Willem Dafoe or Catherine O’Hara for Michelob Extremely (think about Willem Dafoe posting on Instagram. Like, think about him sitting down and doing that). Nevertheless, the Uber Eats trio fulfilled their contractual obligations, as did Meg Ryan, so that you by no means know.

What did we study, in addition to (as soon as once more) that we will’t rely on Ben Affleck?

Third Quarter Sport Notes:

• Superstar-driven advert campaigns didn’t essentially lead to 2025-leading totals for manufacturers in February, although viral dialogue did assist manufacturers overperform in engagements as a particular metric.
• In comparison with creators, celebrities put up about their Tremendous Bowl adverts sporadically, and are much less of a certain factor than creators when it comes to direct social exercise and digital engagements.
• Nevertheless, social media dialogue/references to celebrities’ appearances in high adverts do are likely to drive on-line buzz, with outcomes various relying on the brand-celebrity pairing.
• The social media discourse round creator adverts in 2025, as measured by EMV/engagements/impressions, was on par with social media metrics for a lot of the high movie star adverts.
  • In different phrases, there wasn’t a drop-off in digital efficiency between many movie star adverts and high creator-centric adverts.

And now we enter the deciding body…

No matter how creator-centric adverts carried out in 2025—which, once more, was general fairly effectively—there’s one huge purpose why we will count on continued creator contributions at future Tremendous Bowls: as a result of the NFL wills it.

In the course of the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 NFL seasons, we noticed a large enlargement of the NFL’s signature creator packages, from Creator of the Week, which noticed a distinct creator attend each sport all through the season and doc the expertise, to the Tremendous Bowl Week festivities, which noticed a heavier creator presence than ever earlier than.

Not solely did the NFL develop its work with creators, additionally they managed to seize a number of the largest names within the creator universe, making certain that the league’s message was heard far and huge, loud and clear.

A few of the NFL’s high creators by YoY progress throughout key metrics embody names you’ll most likely acknowledge:

Notable NFL Creators by EMV, 2025

No huge deal, simply protection throughout a number of the largest creator names in sports activities, trend, life-style, tech, and no matter it’s that MrBeast does (gamified altruism for youngsters?). Shoutout to devoted NFL fanatic Tom Grossi, who’s outsourcing a number of the largest names within the enterprise, and accompanied the NFL on its jaunt to Brazil to open the 2025-2026 season, the place he livestreamed the Chargers versus the Chiefs. Congrats on the success Tom, and sorry about your Packers. Hopefully the previous outweighs the latter!

As a result of there was loads of success for Mr. Grossi to go round:

Notable NFL Creators by YoY EMV Progress, 2025

Whereas Tom Grossi and MrBeast garnered the best progress, let’s not neglect the presence of streaming sensations like iShowSpeed, who featured closely in Tremendous Bowl Week activations, or aggressive eater Matt Stonie, whom I’ll be emulating this Sunday.

With the assets and willpower to seize each market, and a passion-driven product able to turning powerhouse creators into on a regular basis followers, the NFL is primed to form the way forward for the creator financial system at giant. That journey continues this Sunday. To trace it in motion, right here’s what you might want to know:

Fourth Quarter Sport Notes:

• The NFL’s creator program is displaying indicators of success, with a various array of outstanding creators displaying their impression. 
• Many creators noticed elevated content material manufacturing in 2025, or had been new to the NFL’s partnerships altogether. Whereas different creators noticed decreased exercise, this can be a pure a part of any model seeking to check varied methods and construct a cohesive creator neighborhood. 
• Prime performing/rising NFL creators in 2025 included:
  • Tom Grossi
  • Annie Agar
  • Katie Feeney
  • Marques Brownlee
  • Kristin Juszczyk
  • MrBeast
  • iShowSpeed
• No matter progress or declines for any particular person creator, the NFL’s elevated dedication to content material creators is simple.

Bought all that? Good. It’s sport time. Let’s play ball!

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