Every February, the Super Bowl becomes one of the most expensive, most scrutinized advertising environments in the United States. Budgets reach eight figures, creative teams aim for cultural relevance, and a single 30-second window can define how a brand is discussed for the rest of the year.
In 2025, that pressure intensified. Viewership reached historic highs, ad prices climbed again, and audiences spread across television, streaming, mobile, and out-of-home screens.
The result was not just a bigger game, but a clearer signal for advertisers: the Super Bowl and its cultural significance remain unmatched in scale, but extracting value from it now depends on what happens beyond that single February day.
For brands investing in paid media, the Super Bowl has become a stress test for modern programmatic advertising strategy—one where AI technology, planning, audience behavior, and creative expectations collide.
The Super Bowl by the Numbers: Scale That Few Other Media Moment Match
The 2025 Super Bowl did not merely outperform previous games; it redefined what “appointment viewing” looks like in a modern media environment.
According to Statista, the 2025 Super Bowl drew 127.7 million viewers in the United States, making it the most-watched Super Bowl in history and the most popular television program ever aired in the U.S. The previous year’s game held the prior record, meaning the event continued to build momentum rather than plateau.
That growth was confirmed by Nielsen, which reported a 3.2% year-over-year increase compared to the already record-setting audience for Super Bowl LVIII in 2024.
What makes these figures especially important for advertisers is how Nielsen measured them.
The audience estimate included:
- Out-of-home viewing (bars, restaurants, public spaces)
- Digital viewing across mobile devices, PCs, MVPD apps, and vMVPD platforms
- Streaming via Tubi
- Digital properties owned by FOX Sports and the NFL
The data confirms what many large advertisers already know: the Super Bowl audience is no longer confined to a living-room screen. It is distributed, multi-platform, and measurable across environments that align naturally with programmatic extensions.
In the landscape of paid media advertising, the Super Bowl now represents a convergence point where linear TV, digital video, connected TV, and streaming behavior intersect at an unprecedented scale.
The Cost of a Moment: $8 Million Spots and the Question of Value
Scale has a price. In 2025, that price reached a new peak.
According to eMarketer, Super Bowl LIX remained the most expensive night for advertisers, with 30-second spots commanding up to $8 million.
Several broader creative trends also stood out:
- AI-driven advertising played a prominent role, mirroring the wider adoption of AI across media planning, creative development, and audience analysis.
- Celebrity-led campaigns continued to dominate. In 2023, 74% of Super Bowl ads featured celebrities, and that momentum carried forward as brands leaned into familiarity and star power to break through clutter.
But creativity alone does not guarantee impact, especially when audiences are selective about what they want to engage with.
A survey by Attest highlighted clear viewer preferences across both in-game Super Bowl commercials and the broader wave of campaigns tied to the Super Bowl season:
- 56% prefer humorous ads, reinforcing the Super Bowl’s role as entertainment.
- 40.6% are drawn to celebrity-driven ads, validating continued investment in recognizable faces.
- 30.2% value ads with discount codes, while 27.4% enjoy sweepstakes-style promotions, showing that even brand-heavy moments benefit from tangible incentives.
Whether brands invest in in-game Super Bowl placements or leverage the event as a seasonal hook for broader campaigns, such insights reinforce a familiar truth: the Super Bowl rewards brands that understand audience expectations and build strategies that extend beyond one expensive placement.
Why the Super Bowl Still Matters More Than Other Media Events
Despite rising ad costs and evolving viewing habits, the Super Bowl continues to hold unmatched importance for advertisers, and not because viewers tune in primarily for commercials.
According to audience data picked up by Attest, 49.5% say football is their main reason for watching, outpacing interest in commercials (35.8%) and even the halftime show (34.7%).
That hierarchy is precisely what makes the Super Bowl so powerful.
A Captive, Unified Audience
The Super Bowl delivers something increasingly rare: a massive audience aligned around a single cultural moment, even as viewing stretches across linear TV, connected TV, and streaming environments.
Viewers may tune in for the game itself, but attention carries well beyond the broadcast into the broader Super Bowl advertising ecosystem.
Phones come out, conversations pause, and messaging tied to the game—whether aired during kickoff or delivered through CTV and programmatic placements before, during, and after—becomes part of a shared experience.
Campaigns are discussed, debated, and remembered long after the final whistle, extending the impact well beyond a single night.
Cultural Relevance at National Scale
No other advertising environment blends sport, entertainment, and culture so seamlessly. Ads featured in the Super Bowl or creative ad campaigns referencing the event can be covered by news outlets, dissected on social platforms, and replayed long after the final whistle.
For brands, that cultural footprint often matters as much as immediate reach.
A Signal of Market Leadership
Appearing during the game places brands in a peer group defined by category leaders and global names, but the real advantage extends beyond kickoff.
Super Bowl season creates a longer promotional window where all brands can launch specials, reinforce messaging, and stay visible while attention remains elevated.
A Launchpad Instead of a Finish Line
Crucially, the Super Bowl functions best as a starting point. The brands that benefit most treat both the game and the cultural moment it creates as an anchor, using Super Bowl-referenced advertising across broader media strategies that carry attention before kickoff and sustain it well after the game ends.
Programmatic Advertising’s Role Around the Super Bowl
For advertisers investing in Super Bowl–adjacent media, control, clarity, and extension are non-negotiable. Programmatic advertising provides the infrastructure to support all three, without relying solely on linear television.
Rather than replacing traditional buys, programmatic strategy complements them by enabling brands to:
- Reach audiences who are planning to watch the game broadcast with targeted messaging
- Extend Super Bowl–themed messaging across digital, CTV, and streaming environments
- Maintain consistency as viewers move between screens and platforms
Within the Super Bowl’s multi-platform audience, the programmatic approach allows advertisers to align scale with precision. The same campaign narrative can live across environments where modern viewers spend time, without fragmenting messaging or relying on guesswork.
Programmatic also supports transparency at a level that traditional event advertising cannot.
With clear insight into placements, delivery environments, and audience exposure, brands gain a more complete picture of how Super Bowl-related investment performs across the broader media ecosystem.
Activating Around the Super Bowl Moment
The Super Bowl creates a compressed period of heightened attention, predictable viewing behavior, and shared cultural context.
Even without a presence in the game’s commercial breaks, brands can still align with the moment through smart media and creative decisions that feel timely, intentional, and scalable.
Build Creative That Acknowledges the Moment
Super Bowl–adjacent creative performs best when it recognizes why viewers are paying attention in the first place. Referencing the game, the season, or the rituals around it gives campaigns instant context without requiring heavy explanation.
It can be as subtle as thematic language, time-bound messaging, or visuals that align with how audiences experience Super Bowl week.
Campaigns that nod to the moment feel current; campaigns that attempt to replicate Super Bowl commercials often feel forced.
Use Connected TV to Capture Spillover Viewing
Audiences stream pregame coverage, highlights, analysis, and entertainment content across CTV platforms before and after the game. CTV placements allow brands to stay present in those environments, where attention remains elevated, but competition is more controlled.
This approach supports sustained visibility without relying on a single, high-pressure media moment.
Align Messaging with Short-Term Incentives
The Super Bowl is closely tied to limited-time behavior: watch parties, food orders, retail activity, and online browsing spike around the event. Messaging that reflects that urgency performs well, particularly when tied to time-bound offers, exclusive access, or event-related promotions.
Incentives should feel connected to the moment rather than layered on arbitrarily.
Leverage Audience-Based Targeting Around Known Viewing Patterns
Programmatic advertising allows brands to align messaging with audiences that are more likely to engage during the Super Bowl window.
Viewing behaviors, content preferences, and demographic signals make it possible to prioritize exposure where attention is already concentrated, rather than treating the moment as purely mass reach.
As a result, brands can create a more intentional connection between Super Bowl-related messaging and the audiences most likely to respond to it.
Work With KPAI to Bring Clarity to High-Stakes Programmatic Advertising
When the biggest advertising moments demand precision, transparency, and control, brands turn to partners that understand how to manage complexity at scale.
KPAI helps advertisers make programmatic advertising more predictable, transparent, and effective, especially around high-investment seasons or moments like the Super Bowl.
From strategic planning to execution across digital and connected environments, our team builds campaigns designed to extend reach intelligently and maintain confidence at every stage.
Contact us today to ensure your next big moment delivers value well beyond the final whistle.
