Which Brands Have the Edge at Super Bowl 2026? System1 Breaks Down the Early Winners

Super Bowl 2026 may be scheduled for February 8, but the advertising playbook is already being written, and it looks far more human and engaging than high-tech, polished results. 

This year’s Big Game is shaping up to reward brands that prioritize warmth, clarity, and emotional storytelling over polish, spectacle, or AI-led gimmicks, according to System1, the creative effectiveness platform that measures emotional response to advertising. 

System1 recently released its Big Game Hall of Fame, ranking consumers’ favorite Super Bowl ads from the past five years (2020–2025). The rankings are based on emotional response testing of 425 ads, collected from more than 60,000 viewers. 

Brands like Lay’s, NFL, Huggies, and Disney consistently rose to the top because they delivered humor, cultural relevance, inclusivity, and recognizably human stories. 

We spoke with Vanessa Chin, SVP of Marketing, System1, about early creative signals, brand lineups, and where advertisers are getting it right and wrong at Super Bowl 2026. 

Why is AI stepping back but not out 

One of the most noticeable shifts in recent Super Bowl advertising is the reduced visibility of AI-forward creative. Chin is clear on consumers’ choice.  

The reduced visibility of AI doesn’t mean brands should avoid the technology,” Chin says. It means they’re learning how to use it responsibly.

She points to 2025 as a cautionary year, when several AI-generated ads drifted into the uncanny valley or triggered consumer backlash. System1’s emotional testing shows that when AI becomes the star of the creative, emotional engagement drops sharply. 

People respond most strongly to human warmth, characters, and storytelling,” Chin explains. AI can absolutely support that, but overly polished or synthetic creative risks feeling cold or disconnected.

For the Super Bowl, that distinction matters. Chin says the Big Game consistently rewards humanity over perfection, and brands that use AI to elevate a human idea rather than replace one continue to perform best. 

Celebrity isn’t required, but creators need to play by rules

System1’s Hall of Fame data shows a clear pattern: celebrities are not a prerequisite for high-performing Super Bowl ads. In fact, many of the top-ranked ads from the past five years relied less on star power and more on emotionally resonant storytelling. 

Celebrity can help, but it’s not required, Chin says. What matters far more is whether the creative delivers clarity, entertainment, and emotional connection.

That doesn’t mean creators are out of the picture — but Chin is blunt about where brands go wrong. Creator-led storytelling is typically optimized for short-form, niche environments. When those formats are lifted directly into a Super Bowl context, they can create barriers instead of connections, particularly when the references skew too TikTok-native or culturally narrow. 

Creators will show, but can they shine? 

Creators can absolutely succeed on the Super Bowl stage, Chin says, but only when they’re integrated into ads designed for a massive audience. 

System1’s short-form research, The Long and Short(form) of It, reinforces this. Creators are most effective when they drive attention without sacrificing early brand recognition.  

When that balance is struck, brands see a 2.3× lift in brand awareness — a mantra Chin says applies directly to the Big Game, especially when TV spots are supported by a broader multi-platform rollout. 

With MrBeast and Sabrina Carpenter both booked for Super Bowl 2026, that balance will be tested in real time. Chin says their success won’t hinge on whether they’re creators or celebrities, but on whether their roles are shaped for the medium. 

“The Super Bowl rewards spectacle and narrative clarity,” she explains. “Creators perform best when they’re woven into that structure rather than trying to replicate their native formats.” 

In short, creators can elevate Big Game advertising. 

Super Bowl 2026 brand trends, warmth beats spectacle

Around the Halftime Show, Chin expects brands to lean into creative that feels culturally connected rather than overproduced. 

She points to Duolingo’s “Bad Bunny 101” activation as a strong example of where things are heading. The campaign doesn’t rely on scale or visual excess — instead, it taps into shared anticipation with humor, personality, and cultural fluency. 

Bad Bunny’s Apple spot reinforces the same lesson, Chin says. Celebration, inclusivity, and human warmth land harder than polished environments.

During the Super Bowl, she explains, brands that lead with character, connection, and distinctive assets naturally stand out—especially when audiences are already emotionally primed by the event itself. 

Challenger brands are to watch

Among first-time or newer Super Bowl advertisers, Raisin Bran stands out in System1’s early testing. 

Chin says the brand performs strongly because it gets the fundamentals right. “It’s funny, clear, and instantly attention-grabbing,” she notes, but more importantly, it leans into right-brain creative features that drive emotional response. 

The characters are expressive, the humor is disarming, and the branding is woven in naturally from the very beginning, Chin says. That combination supports both short-term attention and long-term brand building. 

Kinder Bueno is another brand Chin flags as one to watch. Chocolate, she explains, consistently scores well in System1 testing because it taps into simple, universal enjoyment that reliably translates into emotional response. 

Why legacy brands keep winning, and yet first timers still show up

Legacy brands dominate System1’s Hall of Fame, but Chin says that doesn’t mean challenger brands are retreating. 

The Super Bowl still offers unmatched reach, she explains, and with the right creative and media investment, it can drive major commercial impact.

That’s why brands like Manscaped, Liquid Death, Eos, and Tree Hut have already confirmed their spots this year. 

The reason legacy brands appear more frequently at the top, Chin says, is consistency. They’ve mastered storytelling, humor, cultural reference points, and crucially distinctive brand codes. 

She points to Budweiser as a prime example. Even without a top-10 Hall of Fame placement in recent years, its continued investment in the Clydesdales, now appearing more than 45 times, delivers instant recognition and positive emotion. 

“Challenger brands aren’t participating less,” Chin says. “They just face a higher bar.” 

Early winners and the ‘brand recall’ problem

System1’s early Super Bowl testing suggests 2026 is shaping up to be a strong year creatively. Two brands have already achieved 5-Star ratings before kickoff, a rare signal of long-term brand-building potential. 

The current early leaders: 

• NFL – “You Are Special” (5.9 Stars)

• Budweiser – “American Icon” (5.6 Stars) 

• Ring – “Search Party” (4.5 Stars) 

These ads are leading in predicted long-term impact due to strong emotional resonance and distinctive creative assets. 

However, Chin flags one growing challenge: brand recall/fluency.

As Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer at System1, puts it, consistency is becoming the competitive edge. With multiple brands already hitting 5 Stars before kickoff, Super Bowl 2026 is shaping up to reward advertisers who understand that recognition, not novelty, is what wins the biggest stage. 

Ahead of game day, fluency or brand recall has dropped to a record low of 77%. The brands winning early are those leaning into memorable characters, consistent cues, and recognizable brand codes. 

Cut to the chase

For Super Bowl 2026, emotion remains the most powerful media buy of all. System1’s data, reinforced by early testing and five years of emotional response measurement, shows that the ads most likely to win aren’t chasing technical brilliance or cultural shortcuts.