Super Bowl LX is still a day away, but the ad game is already in full swing. Brands have dropped extended cuts, teasers, and full spots online, and early rankings are painting a pretty clear picture of who is connecting and who is just burning cash. One classic beer brand, in particular, has jumped out to a serious early lead, while a handful of tech and delivery players are quietly building their own case for commercial MVP.
With early rankings, fan voting tools, and a flood of pre-release videos, there is already enough data to stack the field. From nostalgic horses and American flags to Emma Stone meltdowns and 50 Cent cooking lessons, here is where the Super Bowl LX commercials stand so far, and why one brand is already pulling away from the pack.
How Budweiser Turned Nostalgia Into An Early Lead
The clearest front runner right now is Budweiser, which has gone back to its comfort zone of Americana and sentimentality and found a fresh gear. Its new spot, built around The Clydesdales, an American eagle and the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, leans hard into the idea of “American Icons,” pairing those images with a slow build of heartland visuals that feel engineered for living rooms in every time zone. Early critics have already slotted the ad near the top of their lists, noting how the familiar mix of animals, flag imagery, and classic rock lands as a reassuring throwback rather than a stale rerun, especially when those Clydesdales thunder across the screen in front of an American flag and a soaring guitar riff from Lynyrd Skynyrd in a spot explicitly framed as American Icons.
That emotional play is not just a creative choice, it is a strategy that is already paying off in the numbers. Marketing analysts tracking early online performance have flagged Budweiser’s “America’s Icons” as the early pacesetter in the Super Bowl 2026 ad race, pointing to higher engagement and positive sentiment than any Big Game spot released so far, a surge that has turned the brand into the first clear favorite of the week according to a breakdown of how Budweiser is performing online. That momentum is reinforced by broader rundowns of the best Super Bowl commercials of 2026, which highlight how Budweiser is using its 150th anniversary to stage a full-on heritage play, complete with a bald eagle and those Clydesdales framed as living symbols of the brand’s history, a combination that early viewers have already seen teased in lists of the best spots.
Squarespace, Instacart And DoorDash Chase The Crown
While Budweiser is owning the heartstrings, the sharpest pure comedy so far belongs to Squarespace. In one of the most talked about early releases, Emma Stone throws a hissy fit because the domain name she wants is unavailable, a premise that lets her lean into full diva mode as the brand pokes fun at the modern obsession with perfect URLs. The spot marks her sixth collaboration with Squarespace and is part of a broader campaign that includes additional pieces like “The Negotiation” and “A Message From,” all orbiting around the same idea of scarcity and online identity, a cluster of work that critics have already placed at or near the top of their rankings of Squarespace work. The company has also confirmed that the game day centerpiece remains “Unavailable,” a 30 second spot set to air between the first and second quarters of Super Bowl LX, with extended cuts already online to build buzz around Unavailable.
Delivery and grocery apps are not sitting quietly either. Instacart has rolled out a maximalist spot featuring Ben Stiller, Benson Boone and Spike Jonze going “bananas” for the service, a surreal, celebrity packed piece that plays like a mini music video and has already been singled out as a standout among the early Super Bowl crop, with particular attention on how Ben Stiller, Benson Boone and Spike Jonze use their star power to make Instacart feel like a pop culture event in its own right in a ranking of Instacart ads. DoorDash, meanwhile, is leaning into food education and nostalgia with “Beef 101 with 50 Cent,” a spot that pairs the rapper with a playful cooking class vibe, and early rankings of the Best Super Bowl Commercials 2026 have already slotted “DoorDash: Beef 101 with 50 Cent” at the top of their lists, praising how the brand and 50 Cent for killing it with a concept that makes a delivery app feel like a kitchen sidekick, a verdict that shows up prominently in rundowns of Best Super Bowl.
The Middle Of The Pack: Catchy, Quirky, And Forgettable
Below that top tier, a cluster of brands are fighting for attention with solid but less transcendent work. T-Mobile has rolled out a music driven spot that leans on a familiar earworm, with one critic summing up the reaction as “Just admit it: You love that darned song,” a line that captures both the charm and the limitation of the concept, which banks on recognition more than surprise in a ranking that slots T-Mobile at No. 12 among the Mobile spots. Manscaped, on the other hand, has gone full absurdist with Emo hairballs singing a plaintive love ballad to the follicles they are about to lose, a creative swing that lands the brand in the teens of early rankings and shows how far some advertisers are willing to go to stand out in a crowded field of Manscaped gags.
Elsewhere, a wave of food and beverage brands are stacking celebrities in search of a viral moment. One widely circulated rundown of Super Bowl 2026 Ads Ranked notes how the lineup runs “From Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ Collab to Andy Samberg’s Mayo Moment,” a shorthand for the way chains like Dunkin are using From Ben Affleck in a drive thru setting while condiment brands hand Andy Samberg a jar and a punchline, all in the hope that a single GIF will carry them through Monday morning recaps of Ads Ranked. It is a familiar Super Bowl formula, and while some of these spots are charming, they are not yet threatening the early lead held by Budweiser or the sharper tech and delivery ads.
The Race To Be Loved (Or Hated) By Viewers
Of course, critics are only half the story, because Super Bowl ads now live and die by real time audience scores. The USA TODAY Ad Meter, which is returning for its 38th edition, remains the closest thing the industry has to a national scoreboard, inviting viewers to rate every commercial and then crowning a winner based on those scores, a process that Rick Suter has framed as a way for fans to help decide the best ads of the night through the long running Ad Meter project. That voting is already open, and the platform’s homepage is highlighting past winners and teasing how this year’s Budweiser Super Bowl entries might stack up against previous champions, with a dedicated section of AD METER NEWS tracking the Best Super Bowl spots and even calling out a recent Budweiser Super Bowl ad that honored service animals as a benchmark for emotional storytelling, context that frames how the 2026 crop will be judged on METER.
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