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The showdown of showdowns. A clash of the titans. You don’t need to be a fan of American football, even Aussie Rules or netball to know that Super Bowl Sunday is a really, really big deal.
I’m not a fan of ball sports – chalk it up to childhood trauma related to my lack of hand-eye coordination – however, I am a fan of a spectacular event that has the power to capture the attention of hundreds of millions of eyeballs. Eyeballs that are trained not only on the game and interested in who wins or loses*, but eagerly awaiting the halftime show and, of all things, the ads.
As marketers and advertisers we know all about the insane budgets that go into securing the primetime airing spot, not to mention the eye-watering cost of producing what are best described as short films. We also recognise – and are perhaps a little in awe – of the power that the Super Bowl has over consumers. Get the narrative and the pitch right, tell a compelling story, and the client is all but guaranteed to get incredible ROI in terms of sales. Not to mention the intangible brand loyalty and maybe, just maybe, scoring a marketing and advertising touchdown: going viral.
Ads that make us go ooohhhh
For content marketers, the Super Bowl – with all its glitter, sequins, fireworks, and cinematic ads that evoke fond childhood memories and tug at our heartstrings (yes, I’m talking about Roger Federer explaining tennis scoring to Elmo in the ON blooper reels – thanks, I finally get it!) – doesn’t offer much, except perhaps inboxes and social feeds drenched in Super Bowl fever.
A quick Google search will give you plenty of listicles and clickbait: roundups of the best and worst Super Bowl ads of 2025; roundups of the best and worst Super Bowl ads of all time; McDonald’s family meal-sized servings of criticism for ads that fell flat; and all-you-can-eat, waffle-sized helpings of praise for ads that were truly brilliant — like NerdWallet’s debut ad starring Kieran Culkin as a ‘genius beluga’.**
As content marketers though, surely we can do better. In the current era of AI and short attention spans, it’s tempting to get a list out there because everyone is doing it, it’s trending, SEO keyword optimisation will be on point and traffic and engagement metrics will light up.
The reality is though, a spike in the graph on GA4 doesn’t actually mean anything. As in science, a spike and random anomaly is just that. An anomaly. Statistically insignificant. As Robert Rose writes in a recent piece for the Content Marketing Institute: “…when you only create content for the here and now, you lock yourself into a short-term mindset, and your audience sees you as a commentator, not a guide”.
Get off the band waggon and onto recipes, sartorialism and anti-racism
Now, I am not suggesting that you should ignore the Super Bowl. Far from it! What I’m saying is that if you really want to create great content that resonates and makes a genuine lasting impact for your client and their audience – which every great content marketer does – consider how to leverage a specific aspect of the Super Bowl’s cultural content to appeal to your audience. Grab hold of that and take a deep dive into it, in the way only you know how.
Take The New York Times Cooking eDM. I look forward to food writer Sam Sifton’s delicious way with words on a weekly basis, but when the Super Bowl rolls around, Sifton puts on a five-course literary degustation: “And man, do they chow down when they do. Take it with a grain of salt (maybe a dollop of blue cheese dressing, too), but the National Chicken Council estimates that we’ll eat 1.47 billion chicken wings during tonight’s game”. For a content writer talking to foodies, pairing jaw-dropping food related facts with mouth-watering recipes is the perfect content blend of inform, educate and inspire.
Sam Sifton’s eDM for The New York Times Cooking.
Sifton also manages to sneak Taylor Swift into his short, sweet and perfectly formed chicken nugget of an email intro – which brings me to Vogue.
For those who might not know (which is none of you I’m sure), Swift is not performing at the halftime show, but she will be there in full support of her quarterback boyfriend Travis Kelce. While she may have been booed by the crowd when she appeared on the Jumbotron, speculation about what she might wear to watch Kelce hopefully lift the trophy has been the subject of Vogue content since late January.
Vogue’s excellent content piece looks back at what Swift has worn to past games, highlights who and what she’s been spotted wearing lately and offers readers aspirational style tips.
There is no denying that Swift, like the Super Bowl, is a cultural phenomenon. Last year her seconds of airtime coverage reportedly generated $180 million in media impact value. For those in the fashion content marketing and media space, latching onto who wears what and expanding beyond worst and best-dressed lists should be top of mind to get extended cut-through and lasting engagement.
The Super Bowl, while just a game, is still serious business. Not just for the brands who realised $1.3 billion in media impact value last year, but for organisations seeking to make a positive social and cultural impact and media outlets that still engage in critical discourse. In this case, I’m not talking about the hard-hitting ad for Stand Up Against Hate, starring Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady – arguably one of the most confronting 30 seconds you’ll have seen in advertising in a while. I’m talking about Louisa Thomas’s piece for The New Yorker: ‘The end of “end racism” in the end zone’.
I won’t go into Thomas’s argument (you can read the piece at your leisure). The point is not what she said – although what she says is worth contemplating regardless of what side of the political spectrum you align with – but rather how the clever content creators and journalists at The New Yorker have grabbed the cultural moment of the Super Bowl to capture our goldfish attention spans at the inbox subject line level.
Combined with the hero image of a heroic Kelce and a cheering Saints crowd, all decked out in warm, jubilant red and yellow, it’s a piece of content that ticks all the boxes. If readers come away feeling like they’ve learned something or had their minds expanded, all the better.
Key takeaways
You didn’t think I’d miss the opportunity for a listicle, did you? Call it a reward for those of you who got this far.
- Content for content’s sake is a waste of time. It’s a waste of your time, your client’s time, and most importantly the audience’s time.
- Content is created for an audience. If you’re not writing or creating content with your specific audience in mind, are you even a content marketer?
- If you’re not showing up in your audience’s inbox or on their feed with great content, don’t be surprised if your metrics begin to look lacklustre. People have more choice than ever and they vote with their feet… or their ‘unsubscribe’.
- Don’t be afraid to lean into what you know and care about, be it fashion, food or social justice. If you can find a unique angle to come at a cultural phenomenon like the Super Bowl, go for it. Just make sure you tell the story well.***
*I’m sure that a significant percentage of the eyeballs focused on the Super Bowl have far better hand-eye coordination than I do, and probably do want to know the outcome of the game. Condolences to Kansas City.
**In my opinion, this ad is tied for the best ad with Federer and Elmo talking about tennis. Why? Because whales and dolphins are the nerds of the sea. Tying that well-known fact together with the all-too-familiar ‘uh oh’ of dropping your phone when you’re trying to get the shot, and Culkin’s acerbic wit is priceless.
***If I were working for an endangered species organisation, I would absolutely be leveraging the NerdWallet ad to talk about the plight of whales and the scourge of overfishing as a way to engage in difficult conversations.
Jessica Agoston Cleary is the managing editor of Australian Design Review, inside magazine and Marketing. How do design and marketing fit together? Glad you asked. Prior to becoming a design writer she built her career building brands and coming up with creative content strategy informed by her innate belief in the power of a great story. Architectural and interior design are stories told through colour and materials. Content marketing is story told with words.
