The End of Excess

The Super Bowl has always mirrored the tensions shaping American culture. In the early 2010s, it reflected the peak exuberance of the attention economy. In 2026, it feels more like recalibration. Brands were more cautious about how they’re utilizing their $8M ad slot. Narratives were steadier. Humor was safer. 

In other words, this year’s Super Bowl ads felt less like a circus and more like a board meeting.

We saw fewer classic product punchlines. Fewer Doritos-style gags. Fewer Snickers moments. The tonal shift suggests a kind of cultural sobriety.

However, there is historical precedent for this. During economic recessions, advertising tends to move away from high-risk humor toward safer, value-driven messaging. When margins tighten, so does risk tolerance. 

But this shift runs deeper than economics.

Brands are no longer just selling products; they are selling ideologies and aspirational lifestyles. Products have become portals into identity systems, reiterating our values, beliefs, and who we want to become. Several ads were promoting messages of health, productivity, and technological empowerment. 

A Super Bowl ad could hinge on a single joke. Today, ads function within broader omnichannel ecosystems. Meaning accumulates elsewhere and is amplified on this stage.

The Super Bowl no longer creates identity. It legitimizes it.

Physical appearance is increasingly becoming a status symbol in modern American society. And this year’s ads confirmed that. 

For years, Super Bowl ads sold indulgence and pleasure. Iconic ads from brands like Doritos, Budweiser, and Snickers graced our screens, signaling abundance, pleasure, and permission. However, this year there were noticeably fewer food and alcohol ads, and if there were, they were for products like Pepsi Zero Sugar and Oikos, brands notoriously tied to a high-protein, low-calorie diet. 

In other words, we moved from selling excess to selling intervention. 

The presence of GLP-1 brands like Ro, Wegovy, Zepbound, Hims and Hers reframed the conversation from weight being a moral failure to a metabolic condition. Several of these ad spots highlight positive side effects of losing weight, such as reduced joint pain, to sell the product to the audience.

But the meaning behind these messages was deeper than just weight loss; it showcased that the body is no longer something you simply enjoy, but something to optimize. And a slender physique is a sign of discipline, which arguably money can’t buy. 

More than that, it represents control. Millennials and Gen Z grew up during an era of abundance and entered adulthood during instability. Student debt, pandemic, inflation, and climate anxiety. When the external world feels volatile, the body becomes something we can control. 

Every year, a handful of ads take the theme of the “American Dream.” This year was no exception. 

Ads from brands like Levi’s, Toyota, Lay’s, and Cadillac Formula 1 reiterated the whole idea of “Made in America.” But it runs deeper than just that—the “Made in the USA” framing is a symbolic re-anchoring.

When Levi’s sells American craft, or Lay’s leans into generations of agricultural dynasty, they are not just selling denim and chips. They are offering continuity. A lineage. A story of origin.

Policy and platform design have contributed to this anxiety. Decades of deregulation and global optimization hollowed out visible production. Meanwhile, digital platforms flattened local identity into cultural homogenization and algorithmic sameness. The result is a longing for tangibility.

The American Dream is being aestheticized again because people are unsure whether it structurally exists.

Last year, AI was a novelty. This year, it’s infrastructure.

The messaging from AI SaaS brands was less about AI-generated commercials and more about tools, workflows, and productivity. And instead of being positioned as existential disruption and apocalyptic fears, it’s being repositioned as an assistive layer.

Spots from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google Gemini normalize AI, reiterating that it is not here to replace you but to help you write, build, design, and automate.

What this tells us is that AI is no longer something we experiment with, but something that is essential to how we operate. And placing it alongside ads from other iconic American brands indicates that AI has officially hit mainstream culture. 

The Super Bowl remains one of the few collective media rituals left in a fragmented landscape. When that ritual pivots in tone, it signals broader shifts in how Americans see themselves.

In a decade defined by pandemic disruption, political polarization, algorithmic amplification, and technological acceleration, the cultural response is not escapism but rather stabilization.

Because when optimization becomes the dominant narrative, we have to ask what gets lost: Playfulness, Excess, Collective absurdity. Shared laughter.

The question is whether this is a transitional phase or the beginning of a longer cultural turn toward discipline as aspiration.

The Super Bowl ads used to sell us who we wanted to be. This year, they sold us who we feel we need to become.