The Super Bowl remains a defining moment for brands to show their stuff.
If you're being honest, you probably don't pay too much attention to the ads during your typical sporting event. That's the time to go to the bathroom, grab a snack or just mute the noise. It's hard for brands, especially tech brands, to break through that resistance. But one time a year, the ads take center stage and become part of the entertainment. That's Super Bowl Sunday.
One of the most iconic ads of all time, Apple's famous 1984 spot, helped change the perception of ads as noise. I personally found the ad kind of creepy, but that was the point. It was cinematic, like a one minute movie, and didn’t feel like it was trying to sell you something, which was a big departure at the time. It helped change the perception so much that people began looking forward to the ads, in some cases, as much as the game itself.
When social media came along, it gave people a platform to discuss their favorites and pan the ones they didn’t like. This year's Super Bowl, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, feels more pivotal than ever because it's also going to be a testbed for the league, brands and advertisers on how far AI and data can push the modern fan experience, whether in-stadium or on the couch.
It’s part of a broader push by the NFL to rethink how fans connect to the game. From co-created social posts to localized content for overseas games, Adobe Enterprise CMO Rachel Thornton says the league is turning football into an always-on digital product with the Super Bowl serving as the most visible showcase for how far that approach can go.
Improving fan engagement
Thornton, whose company counts Real Madrid and the NFL as customers, says sports has embraced technology over the years in an effort to improve the fan experience, regardless of where they are watching. "What I think is interesting about sports over the last several years, and the Super Bowl puts this really squarely on display, is how sports leagues like the NFL have leveraged technology across a lot of different things," Thornton told FastForward.
The league and the brands they serve often use Adobe creative tools, along with Adobe customer experience and data gathering and analysis software, to make sure advertising and brand awareness campaigns are landing as intended. AI has played an increasingly large role in that process, from powering personalized content delivery to testing creative variations and analyzing fan reactions in near real time, with the ultimate goal of improving the individual fan’s experience.
The Super Bowl spotlight also comes at a key moment when Adobe is under real pressure to defend its creative leadership. Adobe has been struggling to compete with free AI image generation tools over the last couple of years, which have been eating into its core creative business. The company spent $1.4 billion on ads in 2025, an increase of 30%, to promote the brand in the face of that competitive pressure. The stock price, down over 36% over the last year, reflects investor angst over the struggle.
For Thornton, however, the Super Bowl remains the clearest demonstration of how that personalization can actually take shape. "I’m very optimistic about AI and what it can do in terms of really delivering on personalization. So when you're taking it from millions of folks to one person, how do you build engagement with a person, with an individual," she said.
She is proud that many of the creative teams building the ads for this year's Super Bowl are using her company's tools. "I think what’s been fun about the Super Bowl and advertising is that people want to see what it is, because for a lot of companies this is often the first time they’re doing it, or they’ve come up with a whole new campaign they’re launching in the Super Bowl,” she said.
“So there’s this big reveal moment that happens every time there’s a commercial break, and people don’t want to miss it.”
