Monday Briefing: Super Bowl LX - $8 Million for 30 Seconds of Your Attention

Good morning, it's James here.

This week, the marketing world is doing what it does best: spending enormous sums of money to interrupt people watching football. Super Bowl LX airs this Sunday, and the price of admission has hit $8 million for 30 seconds. But look closer at the creative strategies, and you'll see something interesting: brands are betting that nostalgia, wellness messaging, and yes, AI-generated content will break through the noise.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn quietly made life harder for anyone trying to drive traffic off the platform.

The Lead

Super Bowl LX: $8 Million and the Death of Subtlety

NBC sold out its Super Bowl LX ad inventory by September, with 30-second spots commanding $8 million each (eMarketer). Factor in production, talent, and agencies, and full campaigns are running $26-45 million. The game airs this Sunday, February 8.

But here's what makes this year different: the creative strategies reveal a market that's both nostalgic and nervous.

Nostalgia is the safe bet. Budweiser is celebrating its 150th anniversary with "Made of America," marking the Clydesdales' 48th Super Bowl appearance. Toyota's "Superhero Belt" tells a generational story through the RAV4. Pepsi brought back the polar bear for a blind taste test directed by Taika Waititi. When in doubt, remind people of better times.

Wellness messaging is having a moment. Hims & Hers paid $16 million for a spot called "Rich people live longer," directly addressing healthcare inequity (Inc). Dove returns for its third consecutive year with body confidence messaging. These aren't feel-good PSAs; they're brands staking positions on cultural fault lines.

AI made it to the big game. Svedka is debuting a generative AI-created commercial, with its fembot performing fan-submitted dances. OpenAI bought 60 seconds. The technology that's reshaping your marketing department is now advertising alongside Doritos.

The CMO question: At $8 million for 30 seconds, what's the real ROI calculation? The brands that win this weekend won't just have the funniest spot; they'll have the campaign ecosystem to extend the moment into weeks of earned media. Watch who has that infrastructure and who just has a commercial.

Musical Chairs

Holly Smith joins P.F. Chang's as CMO (January 30). Smith previously held marketing roles at Rosa Mexicano, Yardbird, Romano's Macaroni Grill, and Joe's Crab Shack. CEO Jim Mazany called her "an outstanding addition" for her "proven ability to build dynamic, consumer-centric brand strategies" (Nation's Restaurant News).

Angela Johnson promoted to CMO at Edible Brands (January 27). Johnson moves up from Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, a role she's held since 2021. She'll oversee Edible Arrangements and Roti Modern Mediterranean, reporting to CEO Somia Farid Silber. The CEO praised her "rare ability to connect strategy, product innovation and brand storytelling" (PR Newswire).

By The Numbers

LinkedIn: External Links Now Get 60% Less Reach

LinkedIn's "360 Brew" algorithm update is now fully in effect, and the data is stark: posts with external links see approximately 60% less reach than identical posts without them (River Editor).

The platform is optimizing for on-site engagement. The same study found that "a post with 50 comments outperforms a post with 500 likes." Text-only posts with strong hooks perform best. Document carousels that deliver value without requiring users to leave LinkedIn see excellent engagement.

The implication for marketers: LinkedIn is no longer a traffic driver. It's a content platform. If you're still posting links to your blog and wondering why engagement tanked, this is why. The game now is building authority on-platform, not using it as a distribution channel.

What I'm Watching

TikTok's Algorithm Gets an American Makeover

The TikTok USDS Joint Venture officially closed on January 22, transferring US operations to American investors. The bigger story: Oracle is retraining TikTok's recommendation algorithm "from the ground up" using exclusively US user data (NPR).

What does a rebuilt-for-America algorithm look like? No one knows yet. But expect subtle to moderate changes in what surfaces on the For You Page throughout Q1. Global content will still appear, but its ranking will shift. The trends that dominate will feel distinctly American.

For brands with international content strategies on TikTok, this is worth monitoring closely. The algorithm that worked in January may not work in March.

The Reading List

The best marketing writing from the past week:

• "IAB Issues New, Far More Bullish 2026 Ad Spend Forecast" (MediaPost) - The IAB now projects 9.5% U.S. ad spend growth for 2026, driven by CTV (+13.8%), social (+14.6%), and agentic AI adoption.

• "UK To Google: Let Sites Opt Out Of AI Overviews" (MediaPost) - The CMA is pressuring Google to give publishers a choice about appearing in AI-generated search summaries.

• "Unpacking the marketing industry trends forecast for 2026" (Marketing Dive) - CMOs are being forced to be more agile than ever as trade wars and AI acceleration reshape the playing field.

One More Thing

The creator economy ad market is projected to hit $37 billion in 2026, growing four times faster than the overall media industry. Unilever is now allocating 30-50% of its $9 billion annual ad budget to creator campaigns.

We're past the experimentation phase. This is now the game.

See you next Monday.

—James