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The Big Game is one of the biggest moments for brands, marketers, and the advertising industry, and year after year, ads lead the buzz and the conversation around game day. Which ads won over audiences? Which ads had us reaching for our tissues? Which were the most memorable ones?
While there are countless lists and subjective ways to answer these questions, YouTube can offer a unique perspective. As the platform where brands share their ads and viewers come to watch their favorite commercials before, during, and after the game, YouTube has a pulse on what resonates most with audiences.
On game day, our teams looked at various signals, including the most viewed and most searched ads on YouTube, along with comments, shares, likes, and time of upload. For deeper analysis, we leveraged advanced AI text and vision recognition methods to identify and analyze related content, to learn which ads are successfully breaking through and what marketers can learn from them.
Here are top insights from our analysis.
1. Creators are changing the game
Brands have bought into the power of creators, and now that trust extends to one of advertising’s biggest moments. Forbes reports that some brands are signing six-figure deals with individual creators for Super Bowl coverage.
Brand investment in creator and influencer activations have also increased significantly compared to last year, with funds being diverted from traditional TV advertising. Here are a handful of examples.
Uber Eats
For its ad about football’s influence on food cravings, Uber Eats featured Sean Evans eating wings — a perfect collaboration with the creator who’s become known for his YouTube show in which he and his guests eat chicken wings with spicy sauces. The brand leveraged Evans for additional surround-sound content, including a 101 on wings.
Dunkin’
As a continuation of the DunKings storyline from last year’s Big Game, Dunkin’s star-studded spot included a cameo from YouTube creator Druski, who partnered with the brand to build additional content.
Carl’s Jr.
Carl’s Jr.’s ad featured Alix Earle, who opens with a nod to her YouTube podcast Hot Mess. Leveraging early promotional interest in the ad, Carl’s Jr. was the No. 3 most searched ad on YouTube in the week leading up to the game.
Poppi
Alix Earle and fellow YouTube creator and podcaster Jake Shane also appeared in Poppi’s ad.
eBay
While eBay didn’t have a spot during the live broadcast, they made the most of the moment by repromoting their ad on YouTube with one of the most well-known creators, Emma Chamberlain.
YouTube is the epicenter of culture, and creators bring a perspective fans can’t find anywhere else. The National Football League (NFL) has leaned in to recognize and reward this, understanding that creators bring in massive audiences they can uniquely reach and engage. This year, the NFL brought over 100 creators to New Orleans, giving them a front-row seat to the game and allowing them to bring millions of their fans closer to the action.
Most notably, the league brought together some of the biggest YouTube creators in entertainment, sports, and culture for its flag football game at the Super Bowl Fan Experience. IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat — the captains of the flag teams — have more than 52 million subscribers combined on YouTube.
YouTube creators Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed captained rival teams at the Super Bowl LIX flag football game, featuring celebrity athletes like Cam Newton and Jordan Chiles, at this year’s Fan Experience.
2. Brands that use YouTube to extend storytelling see big gains
The best ads have always been about great storytelling. While live broadcast has time limitations, brands that succeed with their audiences use all the tools and tactics at their disposal to deepen their storytelling.
Only YouTube allows brands to unleash their creativity across long-form content, Shorts, podcasts, live streams, and more, to engage the communities that have made YouTube the No. 1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for the last two years.1
TV is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. Brands recognize this shift by developing holistic campaigns to reach audiences that consume content beyond live broadcasts. As the following brands show, this marketing strategy is resonating with viewers.
Uber Eats
For its 2025 spot, Uber Eats created a monthslong series of fun, cinematic videos showing why football is synonymous with food, leading to over 20 million views.
In the weeks leading up to the game, Uber Eats shared Shorts, YouTube playlists, teasers, and, eventually, an extended version of their ad, giving their fans a lot more touchpoints for engagement and allowing for deeper immersion into their concept of the big football “conspiracy.”
Dunkin’
Dunkin’s Big Game ads starring Ben Affleck have amassed a big following in the past few years, and the brand fueled the fandom this year with a seven-minute version called DunKings 2: The Movie. The video had a 66% view-through rate and average watch time as high as four minutes and 32 seconds, demonstrating the kind of engagement with long-form content that only happens on YouTube.
With all the buzz and excitement generated by its teaser, Dunkin’ was one of the most searched commercials on YouTube in the week leading up to the game.
Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, and Jeremy Strong are among the boldface names to don orange track suits in Dunkin’s Big Game ad, “DunKings 2.”
In fact, 9 out of the Top-10 most viewed brands on game day extended their storytelling via teasers, Shorts, live streams, behind-the-scenes content, or longer versions of the ads on YouTube, giving viewers more opportunities to interact with their brands.
Overall, 66% of the brands that participated in Big Game ads posted teasers, trailers, or extended versions on YouTube,2 showing how brands are adapting to the changing viewership of mass cultural moments.
3. Earlier is better for winning the Big Game buzz
In years past, brands considered the Big Game a one-day event, and their ad launched as a surprise “premier.” Today, brands recognize that the old model doesn’t serve them anymore. In response, we’ve seen a growing trend of releasing teasers, trailers — even the entire ad — well ahead of the game.
Big Game ads are a huge investment, and, in the age of streaming and scrolling, brands can drive excitement, intrigue, capture attention, and, ultimately, drive connections with their audience far longer by releasing content early.
Doritos
Doritos took this to a new level by bringing back their Crash the Super Bowl campaign as early as September, with a call for creators to submit an ad for the Big Game.
Only YouTube can provide a platform and technical expertise for brands to execute such an ambitious campaign. As Dr. Karima Zmerli, managing director of gTech Ads at Google, explained, “Doritos didn’t want to merely invest in fleeting advertising. The gTech Ads data science team met their ambition by leveraging state-of-the-art cloud technology and AI to process vast amounts of videos and data. This helped the brand organize thousands of video assets and set the judges up for success in personally selecting 25 entries that viewers would find the most compelling.”
By handing the reins of their biggest ad moment of the year to creators and fans, who voted for the grand prize winner, Doritos garnered immense fan love, buzz, and results for the brand. The ad was among the Top-10 most searched commercials on YouTube, and one of the Top-10 most viewed ads on game day. In all, Doritos amassed more than 60 million views on content related to its Big Game ad.
These results were consistent with other brands that launched ads early on YouTube.
Budweiser
Budweiser launched its classic Clydesdales ad on YouTube two weeks ahead of the game, and it was the most searched ad on YouTube in the week leading up to the game,3 a clear indication of its popularity. The ad received the most comments and shares across all Big Game ads on YouTube this year.4
There was no shortage of audience love too, with many in the YouTube comments section saying they watch the game only for the Budweiser ads. One of the top comments sums up the positive sentiment and fan reactions: “Watching super bowl commercials from Budweiser is like getting a Hallmark card AND a hug from someone you love, pure joy!”
Google Pixel’s heartwarming Dream Job also launched a few days before the game, and instantly started gaining buzz and great reviews. On game day, the Pixel ad featuring Gemini Live was the No. 3 most viewed on YouTube. It’s also No. 2 on the list of Big Game ads with the most comments, a sign of how deeply it’s resonating.
Hellmann’s
Research shows that 77% of Americans find nostalgic memories reassuring, making nostalgia a powerful cultural force. Big Game ads often tap into this sentiment, blending nostalgia with cultural relevance to engage audiences across generations. Hellmann’s 2025 campaign exemplified this approach, reviving an iconic movie scene from “When Harry Met Sally,” with a dash of fresh appeal.
By releasing their ad 10 days ahead of the Big Game on YouTube, the brand allowed audiences to go down memory lane and dive deeper into their fandom for the movie.
The gTech Ads data science team at Google used advanced AI vision recognition and measurement technology to identify a 111% causal lift on “When Harry Met Sally” movie content due to the Hellmann’s ad.
Only YouTube allows people to discover, explore, and immerse themselves into the worlds of related content around an ad, further deepening brand sentiment and facilitating a deeper engagement with the community. This connection can produce a far more memorable experience for viewers and impact brand favorability positively.
Releasing ads on YouTube can have big benefits for brands. On average, YouTube data showed that brands who posted their campaign content four weeks before the Big Game saw an average of 3.5 million views, compared to brands who posted in the final two weeks, where the views dropped to over 1 million.6
The world’s biggest moments play out on YouTube, and a lot can be learned about marketing strategy by seeing what rises to the top on the platform. Just as football culture thrives on YouTube before, during, and after the Big Game, marketers can leverage these tactics for their most important campaigns all year long.