The Super Bowl's Tone-Deaf Ads Problem

The Super Bowl is America’s last mass television event. On February 8, an estimated 127 million people will share a spectacular viewing experience — a far cry from the 44% of Americans who watched the game in the 1970s, but far and away the most unifying broadcast in the country. Across screens, audiences of all ages and backgrounds will watch the same game, the same commercials, and, for many, the same halftime show. What they don’t share is the same reality.

The shiny opportunities presented in most of this year’s Super Bowl commercials won’t be relevant to the increasing number of Americans facing rising job anxiety, household debt, and insurance costs. There is a growing disconnect between what most brands will promote during the Big Game and people’s ability to afford basic necessities, especially given that 52% of Americans lack the means to sustain their current lifestyle.

This year’s advertisers—including Cadillac, Rocket Mortgage, State Farm, and Uber Eats—are spending $8 million per 30 seconds to broadcast messages of aspiration, ownership, and optimization, as they have since the similarly turbulent 1960s. 78% of Americans can’t afford a new car. The median family needs $33,000 more per year just to afford a median home. And food delivery, once a growth story, is in a potential death spiral, with some apps having lost more than 90% of their financial value in just five years.

Using behavioral signals from 63 million Americans who plan to watch the “big game,” Sooth found the same exaggerated K-shaped pattern among the advertising audience that analysts have observed in the US economy.

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$33k: The additional annual income needed for the average family to afford a home.

78% of Americans can't afford a new car, with loan delinquencies their highest in 30 years.

$30b: Business losses by food delivery apps since 2021—GrubHub's valuation is down 91%.

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Lifestyle Showcase, or Sunday Scaries? Super Bowl Commercials Through Two Different Lenses

Most advertisers view Super Bowl Sunday as a showcase of the American Dream. TV commercials are the highlight, sparking Monday morning conversations after the game. This appeals mainly to financially stable Americans, for whom security is key—and they're largely achieving it: 86% own their cars outright, 82% have homeowner's insurance, and 90% have cash savings. When Cadillac shows gleaming cars, 34% plan to buy a new one within six months.

The Super Bowl's commercial breaks reinforce this reality. They're the remodel-ready homeowners that Lowe's and Home Depot target. Four in ten are living within their means without relying on credit lines. For them, mortgage ads offer timely information about refinancing opportunities, not painful reminders of housing impossibility.

Yet for others, those at the bottom of the K-Shaped economy, most of these ads serve as painful reminders of bills, debt, job threats, and other realities waiting for them once the trophies have been handed out.

For financially precarious viewers, Super Bowl commercials seem like impossible opportunities. Their job anxiety is 3X that of the financially stable, with 47% worried that technology will steal their jobs. Up to 45% are seeking gig work for extra income as a financial hedge.

So, while the game is on the TV, intrusive thoughts about rent payments, credit balances, and rising insurance premiums are constant distractions. A car commercial triggers thoughts of the check engine light that came on Thursday. An insurance ad is a reminder of a medical bill that hasn't been opened yet, because opening it doesn’t make it easier to pay. Unless that parlay bet comes through in the fourth quarter.

Every break in the game’s action highlights the gap—gleaming kitchens, new cars, vacations, and people for whom "treating yourself” doesn't need a savings plan. The Super Bowl shows a version of American life that no longer matches their reality since 2019, and each commercial break is as triggering as it is costly for brands gambling on another multi-million dollar ad buy.

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ELI's Crystal Ball: 5 Predictions—What the Super Bowl's Advertising Mismatch Signals for 2026:

1. RATHER THAN FUELING SPENDING, TAX REFUNDS WILL PATCH CONSUMER DEBT.

Retailers expecting a boost from February to April will be disappointed. 53% of financially unstable viewers plan to take loans in six months, but 36% are already paying off loans. For deficit households, refunds are allocated to credit cards, buy-now-pay-later, medical bills, and car repairs. 73% seeking new credit cards aren't seeking new benefits or rewards as much as they're looking for additional opportunities to extend and revolve.

2. AUTO LOAN DEFAULTS WILL ACCELERATE PAST THE CURRENT 30-YEAR HIGH.

7% of subprime borrowers are already delinquent 60+ days, yet nearly half of financially strained households plan to buy a new car in 2026. With zero new cars under $20,000 and average monthly payments of $754, the math doesn't work. Car repossessions, already surging more than 40% since 2022, will keep rising straight through summer

3. BNPL DEMAND WILL SPIKE TO NEAR HOLIDAY LEVELS AS APPROVALS TIGHTEN.

Klarna's losses doubled. Affirm is shifting to bank-account-linked underwriting. The people who most need to split payments into four will increasingly get declined—right when they need it most. The gap
between BNPL demand and BNPL availability will reach crisis stage as soon as Q2 2026.

4. FOOD DELIVERY APP USAGE WILL DECLINE AMONGST MIDDLE INCOME HOUSEHOLDS.

Super Bowl viewers at risk use food delivery apps twice as often as stable households, yet 45% have personally delivered food via these apps, putting them at risk on both ends of the transaction. Increasingly, urban tipping laws are also making food delivery less affordable. Order frequency for households under $50K may drop 15-20% by Q2 as economic conditions worsen.

5. THIS YEAR, EVEN THE SUPER BOWL COMES WITH A BILL.

The game isn't just entertainment—it's a lottery ticket dressed in overtime. Many financially precarious consumers who pay for Super Bowl groceries and snacks through Affirm at Walmart. Their food delivery order was charged to a credit card. Minimum payments on Super Bowl weekend spending will carry the
wrong Super Bowl memories into summer for households already juggling balances and payoffs.

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DATA SOURCES FOR THIS EDITION OF THE ELI REPORT

Insights are based on Sooth’s patent-pending methodology, which analyzes over 100 million intent signals from 220 million anonymized US adults to predict, with 91% accuracy, how their emotional, practical, and situational needs will influence their buying decisions and the subsequent impact on people, businesses, and the economy. In addition, the following sources were used for corroborating data and qualification of predictive insights:

• 52% cannot afford current lifestyle: Urban Institute American Affordability Tracker, 2025
• 78% can’t afford new car: U.S. Census Bureau (21.6% of households earn $100K+, threshold for median new car purchase)
• Average new car price $50,000: Kelley Blue Book, December 2025
• Car reposessions up 43% since 2022: Bankrate, November 2025
• Zero new cars under $20K: Industry tracking, January 2026 (Nissan Versa, Mitsubishi Mirage, Kia Forte discontinued)
• $33,000 income gap to afford median home: National Association of Realtors, Housing Affordability Index, 2025
• First-time homebuyer age 27→40: National Association of Realtors, November 2025
• Grubhub 91% valuation loss: $7.3B (2021) to $650M (2024 sale to Wonder)
• 127M projected viewers, $8M per 30 seconds: NBC Sports, Ad Age Super Bowl tracker
• 44% Super Bowl viewership in 1970s: Nielsen historical data
• Behavioral audience data: Sooth ELI platform, 63M U.S. consumer sample, January 2026

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About Sooth & ELI

Sooth is the predictive intelligence company decoding the 93% of human decisions driven by emotional, practical, and situational needs. Powered by ELI — Sooth’s exclusive Emotional Logic Interface — Sooth uncovers hidden signals, turning audience behavior into predictive foresight. Sooth’s patent-pending methodology uses artificial intelligence to cross-reference more than 100 million intent signals with data on 300 million individuals worldwide to predict buyer tendencies with 91% predictive accuracy. For more information, visit soothbetold.com.

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