New York City, February 5, 2026: Super Bowl advertising strategies are getting rewritten. New Kantar research reveals that the long reigning 30 second spot may no longer be king, as fresh testing shows 15 second ads can pack just as much brand building punch. In a cross platform study analyzing Ritz’s top performing 2025 Super Bowl creative, across TV, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Instagram, Kantar found that both formats delivered comparable brand lift — signaling a shift toward smarter, platform tailored strategies over sheer duration.
What really moved the needle wasn’t the length of the ad—it was the moment and the creative discipline behind it. Kantar’s study shows that early branding, crisp storytelling, and showing up in high impact cultural moments like the Super Bowl matter far more than whether the spot runs 15 or 30 seconds. The findings were clear:
- Awareness surged across every platform, with Linear TV and Instagram delivering the biggest lifts driven by passive attention.
- YouTube grabbed passive attention but didn’t always convert it into recall, proving that views alone don’t guarantee memory.
- Instagram punched above its weight, matching TV level recall thanks to brand cues landing within the first two seconds when passive attention was the highest.
- And in Amazon’s NFL environment, the 30 second cut pulled 1.4× higher active attention, boosted by the priming effect of NFL content indicating people were more emotionally engaged.
A Shifting Playbook for Super Bowl Advertisers
“Super Bowl playbooks are shifting,” said Deepak Varma, Kantar’s Head of Neuroscience. “Our data proves impact isn’t about seconds on the clock—15 second spots can hit just as hard as 30s when the moment and the creative are right. It’s a game changing insight that helps advertisers deploy both formats more strategically.”
In today’s fragmented landscape, the ‘big game’ functions less as a single linear moment and more as an ecosystem of attention across screens, with viewers encountering ads on TV, streaming hubs, YouTube pre roll, and mobile social feeds.
Creative Lessons for 2026 Super Bowl Campaigns
Kantar’s analysis found that both formats outperformed on branding across YouTube and Instagram, while the 30s excelled on Linear TV and Prime Video. Strong performance was driven by:
- Early brand presence (within 2 seconds)
- Celebrity integration
- Product forward storytelling sustained across the first 10 seconds
Both cuts may have lagged on “New Information,” but they significantly outperformed on brand salience and unaided awareness—exceeding U.S. CXL Food norms across every platform. “The message for creative teams is simple,” Varma said. “Design for the moment. Grab attention fast. When you anchor branding early, you don’t weaken the story—you strengthen it, especially in high stakes cultural stages like the Super Bowl.”
About Attention and Brand Lift in Super Bowl Study
This study, conducted by Kantar between December 19, 2025 and January 8, 2026, measured advertising effectiveness across Linear TV, Prime Video, YouTube, and Instagram using a control–exposed design to evaluate Attention, Brand Lift, Purchase Intent, and Creative Diagnostics. Respondents were shown 15 second and 30 second versions of a top performing Ritz Super Bowl 2025 ad within platform native environments, followed by standardized survey metrics to assess unaided and aided awareness, brand favorability, affinity, and sentiment.
About Kantar
Kantar is the world’s leading AI-native marketing data analytics business and an indispensable brand partner to the world’s top companies. We combine the most meaningful attitudinal and behavioral data with deep expertise and advanced analytics to uncover how people think and act. We help clients understand what has happened and why and how to shape the marketing strategies that shape their future.