02/12/2026
Last Sunday we partnered with to analyze Super Bowl ads live as they aired.
Using Viral Nationās Social AI, we tracked engagement, sentiment, and conversation in real time
going beyond views to understand what was actually resonating.
Hereās what we discovered:
1⣠Launch timing drove 5à the engagement.
Brands that released their ads a week before the game saw roughly 5Ć more engagement than
those that launched earlier, proving timing mattered as much as creative.
2⣠TikTok drove views. But Instagram drove conversation.
TikTok delivered high views, but comments and meaningful engagement lagged behind IG. And
several top Culture Quotient leaders prioritized Instagram where deeper interaction was
happening.
3⣠Active community engagement outperformed scale.
Ramp, with just ~16.6K followers, drove a 93% engagement rate, outperforming Dove (0.12%)
and Pringles (32.26%) despite their 1M+ audiences.
The takeaway: creative gets attention. Strategy drives performance.
Watch our full on-demand recording (link in bio) to see the engagement data, sentiment shifts, and community strategies behind this yearās Super Bowl ads.