HarrisX Super Bowl LX Ad Ranking: Lay's "Last Harvest" Is America's Favorite Super Bowl 2026 Ad
Ring, Pepsi, Google, and the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate round out the top five
Modern Americana and family-centered storytelling rise to the top
Pringles and Sabrina Carpenter win big among Gen Z
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly 138 million Americans tuned in to Super Bowl LX, making it the most-watched moment in U.S. television history and the biggest night for advertisers competing for attention and impact. Some ads made viewers laugh, others made them feel, while a few made them think. In the end, Lay's "Last Harvest" emerged as America's favorite Super Bowl LX ad, according to the 2026 HarrisX Super Bowl Ad Ranking.
"Last Harvest," a multigenerational story centered on a farming family and the passing of a potato farm from father to daughter, earned the highest HarrisX Ad Index score, with a 93.2 out of 100. The ad performed strongly across key metrics, with 92% of respondents liking the spot, 90% finding it memorable, and 71% saying it made them more likely to buy Lay's chips.
HarrisX Super Bowl Ad Ranking: Top 10 Ads
- Lay's — "Last Harvest" (93.2): An emotional, multigenerational story about family, legacy, and continuity.
- Ring — "Be a Hero in Your Neighborhood" (91.8): A community-focused ad highlighting an AI-powered feature to help reunite lost pets with their owners.
- Pepsi — "The Choice" (87.2): A humor-driven, playful spot built around brand contrast.
- Google — "New Home" (86.8): An emotional narrative centered on life transitions and the everyday role AI can play during moments of change.
- Blue Square Alliance Against Hate — "Sticky Note" (85.4): A minimalist, personal message confronting antisemitism and hate.
- Dove — "The Game Is Ours" (85.0): A purpose-driven ad focused on confidence, inclusion, and girls' participation in sports.
- Novartis — "Relax Your Tight End" (83.8): A humor-led public health message encouraging prostate cancer screening.
- Budweiser — "American Icons" (83.6): A heritage-focused spot connecting brand legacy with American symbolism.
- Xfinity — "Jurassic Park… Works" (82.5): A nostalgia-driven ad leveraging a classic film franchise to highlight reliability.
- NFL — "You Are Special" (82.0): A purpose-led message centered on youth, encouragement, and community impact.
"The strongest Super Bowl ads this year weren't trying to do the most — they were trying to connect," said HarrisX CEO Dritan Nesho. "Whether through family storytelling, social impact, or disciplined humor, the top-ranked ads showed that clarity and emotional relevance still win on the biggest advertising stage. Resonant, purpose-driven, and easy-to-understand creatives consistently outperforms advertising that relies on novelty or complexity alone."
The 2026 HarrisX Super Bowl Ad Ranking is based on a nationally representative study of more than 9,700 U.S. adults, conducted using the HarrisX Ad Index methodology.
Each ad was assessed individually by more than 500 respondents across eight core advertising metrics, including appeal, believability, clarity, memorability, likelihood to share, comparability to other TV ads, impact on the advertiser's reputation, and the ad's specific call to action. Performance across these measures is combined into a composite score, which is then indexed using a proprietary methodology to produce a 0–100 HarrisX Ad Index score.
All 70 ads included in the ranking were evaluated using this framework, allowing for direct comparison of creative effectiveness and brand impact across the full ad lineup.
"We have tested more than 1,000 ads using the HarrisX Ad Index methodology, including hundreds of Super Bowl spots, giving us a consistent lens on performance over time," said Dom Bartkus, Managing Director of Brand and Corporate Reputation at HarrisX. "This year's results reinforce that emotionally grounded storytelling continues to outperform, while audience differences, particularly among Gen Z, meaningfully shape which Super Bowl ads break through."
Key advertising trends from the 2026 HarrisX Super Bowl Ad Ranking:
Modern Americana and Family-Centered Storytelling Rise to the Top
The highest-performing ads of Super Bowl LX leaned into emotionally grounded, human stories, using familiar moments to connect with viewers. Spots from Lay's, Ring, and Google centered on family, community, and everyday life, favoring warmth and emotional resonance over spectacle.
Several top-ranking ads also drew on Americana themes, from farming and generational legacy in Lay's "Last Harvest," to neighborhood trust in Ring's "Be a Hero in Your Neighborhood," to homeownership and family transition in Google's "New Home." Budweiser leaned into American symbolism by pairing its iconic Clydesdale horses with a bald eagle, reinforcing the brand's heritage and identity.
Purpose-Driven and Social Impact Ads Continue to Perform Strongly
Mission-led messaging once again proved to be a powerful driver of ad performance. Five of the Top 10 ads in the HarrisX Super Bowl Ad Ranking focused on themes such as public health, inclusion, and combating hate, closely mirroring last year's results, when six of the Top 10 ads delivered social or civic messaging.
Spots from the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, Dove, Novartis, the NFL, and Ring all placed inside the Top 10, reinforcing that viewers continue to reward clear, authentic social impact messages.
Notably, both the NFL and Novartis earned Top 10 placements for the second consecutive year, establishing them as two of the most successful Super Bowl advertisers in corporate and social messaging.
Gen Z Proves to Be a Distinct Audience, with Pringles Winning Big
Gen Z once again stood out in how it responded to Super Bowl LX advertising. While Lay's was the clear top performer overall — ranking first among Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers — it placed fourth among Gen Z.
Instead, Pringles and its ad "Pringleleo," starring Sabrina Carpenter, emerged as the clear winner with Gen Z. The playful, surreal spot features Carpenter creating the "perfect man" out of Pringles chips and earned a score of 94.8 among Gen Z viewers, despite ranking just 22nd overall with a score of 78.5.
More broadly, Gen Z's preferences differed sharply from the general audience. Beyond Pringles, five more of Gen Z's top-performing ads did not rank in the overall Top 15, including spots from NERDS, Uber Eats, Bud Light, Frank's RedHot, and Ferrero Kinder Bueno.
The results reinforce that Gen Z responds to a distinct creative playbook, driven by cultural relevance, tone, and authenticity.
Pepsi Wins the Night in Competitive, Humor-Driven Marketing
Several advertisers used Super Bowl LX to draw contrast with competitors, often relying on humor to make the point. This approach worked best when the competitive message was clear and the brand stayed front and center.
Pepsi's "The Choice" was the strongest example, placing third in the ranking. The spot used playful contrast to reinforce Pepsi's positioning without losing clarity, helping it resonate broadly with viewers.
Other contrast-driven ads delivered more mixed results. State Farm's "Stop Livin' on a Prayer" finished 34th overall, while Anthropic's "Can I Get a Six Pack Quickly?" ranked 67th, with 42% of respondents finding the spot confusing.
Ring and Google Win the "AI Ad Bowl" by Positioning the Technology as a Force for Good
Artificial intelligence was one of the most prominent themes of Super Bowl LX advertising, but the HarrisX ranking suggests that how AI was framed mattered far more than the technology itself.
The highest-performing AI-driven ads — Ring's "Be a Hero in Your Neighborhood" and Google Gemini's "New Home" — succeeded by centering AI around clear, human use cases, positioning the technology as a practical tool that helps people, strengthens communities, and supports meaningful life moments.
By contrast, AI struggled elsewhere in the Super Bowl lineup. Five of the seven lowest-performing ads in the ranking were AI-focused, coming from OpenAI, Anthropic, ai.com, Salesforce, and Genspark AI.
These ads focused more on the technology itself than on how it helps people in real life; a contrast to the AI spots that resonated by showing clear, human benefits.
Public Interest Ads Show Cross-Partisan Appeal
Super Bowl LX also featured public interest and policy-focused ads that, while not placing among the top-tier performers in the ranking, demonstrated broad appeal across partisan lines.
The ad from MAHA Center Inc., featuring Mike Tyson, ranked 31st overall with a score of 75.1. The spot resonated across the political spectrum, with 74% of Americans liking the ad, including 80% of Republicans, 72% of Democrats, and 68% of Independents.
Similarly, the Invest America ad promoting Trump Accounts ranked 44th overall with a score of 70.1. Despite its mid-tier placement, the ad was liked by 75% of Americans overall, including 85% of Republicans, 71% of Democrats, and 70% of Independents.
Together, these results highlight that public interest advertising can cut across partisan lines when the message connects broadly with viewers.
Methodology:
The 2026 HarrisX Super Bowl Ad Ranking is based on a nationally representative study of 9,707 U.S. adults conducted as part of the HarrisX Ad Index. Respondents were shown up to five randomly selected Super Bowl LX ads and asked to evaluate each spot individually across eight key measures of creative effectiveness and brand impact, including appeal, believability, clarity, memorability, likelihood to share, comparability to other TV ads, impact on the advertiser's reputation, and the ad's specific call to action. Each ad was evaluated by more than 500 respondents, with results combined into a proprietary 0–100 HarrisX Ad Index score.
About HarrisX
HarrisX, a Stagwell company, is a strategic research and advisory firm that delivers clear, data-driven answers to complex and pressing questions faced by corporate, political and government clients. Powered by proprietary technology and a campaign-style approach, we move fast, cut through the noise, and surface insights that drive real-world impact. With offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, we advise Fortune 100 companies, public institutions, global leaders, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations. Named one of top and most accurate pollsters of the 2020 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections, HarrisX doesn't just deliver data — we deliver confident decisions.
SOURCE HarrisX
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