This year's Super Bowl ads are keeping us glued to our seats
đ° NoGood News Vol. 111 | More on Super Bowl ad predictions, the "offline" era, and conversational search
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Here's a quick TL;DR of what's below:
Super Bowl Predictions: Marketers are on the edge of their seat awatitng this weekendâs Super Bowl ads. From brain rot to AI slop, we break down our predictions on the trends shaping the most expensive 30 seconds in advertising.
2026 as the âYear of Analogâ: Everyoneâs suddenly going analog in 2026, except theyâre all posting about it. Has authenticity become the ultimate performance?
Optimizing Content for Conversational Search:Â Users are no longer changing their phrasing to match how search engines understand their queries. Instead, they expect search to understand their way of asking questions.
Ready? Let's get into it.Â
đ Super Bowl Ad Predictions
Another Super Bowl, another year of unforgettable ads
âThe ads are the best partâ â every marketer during the Super Bowl this weekend.
Here are our predictions based on recent trends and teasers.
đ§ Brainrot humor: Nonsensical, weird content goes viral fast. Itâs exactly the type of ad that cuts through the Super Bowl noise like Mountain Dewâs seal ad in 2025.
Viral attention online can be as powerful as a successful TV spot, so when brands take a multi-channel approach and tailor their ads to the media, they can turn them into unforgettable, cultural moments.
đş Nostalgic throwbacks: Weâre gonna see a lot of brands tapping into nostalgia and throwing it back to old films, trends, and memes. Just like last yearâs Super Bowl Hellmanâs ad with the cast of âWhen Harry Met Sally.â
People are growing tired of the media framework, flooded with performative content and optimization, so audiences want storytelling that feels personal, not manufactured.
đ¤ AI Slop: This is the real game everyone should be prepared for. Weâve already seen it happen with Kalshiâs Super Bowl Ad in 2025. Produced in under 72 hours for $2,000, this ad gained over 10 million impressions, acting as an early example of AI disrupting conventional marketing processes.
Two camps will emerge: brands using AI to produce ads faster and cheaper, and brands doubling down on human creativity as an anti-AI stance (like Doritosâs creator-focused contest).
What are some of your Super Bowl trend predictions?
đş 2026 as the âYear of Analog?â
The analog bag trend that has everyone in a chokehold
Is 2026 the year of analog? Or did we just get better at performing authenticity for the internet?
2026 was branded the âYear of Analogâ because, apparently, people hit a breaking point.
So much so that everyone started making âanalog bagsâ.
People are packing tote bags with film cameras, journals, puzzles, and sketchbooks, like an âoffline emergency kitâ to detach from their phones.
So why exactly is the analog bag trending?
People are desperate to reclaim their attention and detach from the digital world, which is why they are entering this so-called âoffline era.â
Stats show that 83% of Gen Z say theyâre phone-dependent, they have the highest daily average screen time at about 9 hours, and theyâre tired of AI slop flooding their feeds.
So the bag proves to everyone that youâre not like everyone else, glued to your screen.
But in performance culture, aesthetics require documentation.
People are posting about their analog bags, flaunting their offline status while theyâre online talking to you about not being online.
The word âauthenticityâ no longer reflects its meaning â it has become performative.
Quite frankly, the analog bag videos are really about signaling identity, where it shows that youâre the kind of person who values presence and slow down time over doomscrolling
Then thereâs proof of transformation, which shows that youâre doing the work to be offline
And seeking validation from the comments confirms youâre doing âofflineâ correctly
If you donât document your personal growth, does it even count? Apparently not.
But documentation doesnât stop because the only communal space we have left is online.
So are we truly resisting participation in the current online atmosphere, or is this just another performative trend?
đ Optimizing Content for Conversational Search
A full guide to transforming static content for conversational interfaces
Before you can think about advanced conversational structures, you need to get the basics right.
Use clean, semantic HTML: Use your headings (H1, H2, H3) to create a logical hierarchy. Use actual HTML heading tags, not just bigger text. Use ordered and unordered lists of bullets and numbers. This provides a structural map that search engines and AI crawlers use to understand your content.
Comprehensive metadata: Your page titles and meta descriptions are still incredibly important. Make them descriptive and accurate. Fill out your image alt tags, as they tell search engines what an image is about.
Write like a human: Write in a natural, accessible tone. If you wouldnât say it to a colleague in a conversation, donât write it on your website.
Prioritize content freshness: Regularly review your content to remove or update anything thatâs no longer accurate. When optimizing content for freshness, make sure youâre not just changing the date but actually adding new, relevant information to improve content quality.
đď¸ Q&A with an expert
A bi-weekly interview series with the best in the game
Q: Why is it important for someone to optimize their brand content for conversational search?
A: Users are no longer changing their phrasing to match how search understands their query. Instead, they expect search to understand casual phrasing as if they were having a conversation with a friend or colleague. Content needs to anticipate the full cycle of a userâs journey, not just the snippets of keywords. The goal is to become the authority, the definitive answer across multiple platforms from AI Overview to ChatGPT.
Q: Do you think structuring content for AI to crawl compromises its readability for humans?
A: Absolutely not, in fact, itâs the complete opposite. Making your content easily parsable by LLMs actually improves readability for humans. Structural elements like question-based headings and HTML tables help readers (and LLMs) scan for what they need, and can even tease enough value to encourage them to keep reading. The foundational advice hasnât changed all that much. Write for your users, answer questions they are asking, and ditch dense, difficult-to-decipher content. When you structure content around natural questions and provide clear, concise answers, youâre essentially making it easier for everyone, human and AI, to find what they need.
âď¸ We wish we wrote this
Articles that caught our eye these past 2 weeks:
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I love the SB ads. I'm trying my best to watch them as they happen (as in, during the game). That said, I did see the Raisin Bran ad w/William Shatner. Besides being very funny, I think the marketing angle is brilliant, if they're trying to reach Gen Zers.
Thanks a lot for sharing my write-up! Just a heads up, the link was pasted twice.