Olympics-Themed Ads Top February TV Rankings While Super Bowl Campaigns Win Post-Game Attention

Advertising tied to major cultural and sporting moments dominated U.S. television in February, according to the latest edition of the monthly Breaking TV Ads Report from global media intelligence platform Kinetiq and creative data provider DAIVID.

The monthly report combines Kinetiq’s real-time TV ad detection with DAIVID’s AI-powered creative analytics to identify the newly launched U.S. TV campaigns that broke through — and the emotional drivers behind their performance.

Olympics-themed storytelling dominated the creative effectiveness charts, with brands tapping into themes of national pride, perseverance and shared achievement. These narratives generated strong emotional responses including inspiration, admiration, pride and hope — helping them outperform more traditional product-focused advertising. Olympic-themed ads from Michelob Ultra, Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation and Hershey’s all ranked among the top five most creatively effective campaigns of the month, demonstrating how emotionally resonant storytelling tied to major global moments can significantly amplify advertising impact.

The report includes a ranking of the month’s top-performing new U.S. TV ads, alongside insights into the creative approaches driving performance.

Key insights from February’s report include:

• Chevrolet’s “Embrace Your Adventure” ranked as the most effective new TV ad to launch in February.
• Michelob Ultra’s “Find Your Inner Greg” and Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation’s “Olympics: On the Same Team” placed second and third respectively.
• Michelob Ultra’s campaign delivered the highest brand recall in the study, driven by strong product integration and emotional storytelling that generated “craving” as the dominant audience response.
• Other brands appearing in the top 10 most effective new ads include Hershey’s, Starbucks, Subaru and Apple.

“Emotion remains the strongest driver of advertising effectiveness,” said Ian Forrester, CEO and Founder of DAIVID. “The campaigns that performed best this month successfully tapped into feelings like pride, inspiration and humor, emotions that typically resonate strongly when audiences are already engaged in major cultural or sporting moments.”

In addition to the Olympics, Super Bowl LX also aired in February. The report’s special feature examines how this year’s Super Bowl campaigns extended their reach after the game.

Using proprietary ad detection technology, Kinetiq tracked Super Bowl commercials across U.S. networks for one week following the broadcast, identifying the ads most frequently replayed across news coverage, morning shows and broader television programming. These replays represent incremental earned broadcast exposure, extending the reach of Super Bowl campaigns beyond their initial paid airtime.

Combined with DAIVID’s creative data measuring emotional response, the analysis highlights clear patterns in the types of ads that sustained replay across television coverage.

• Dunkin’ Donuts’ “Goodwill Dunkin” ranked as the most replayed Super Bowl LX ad across U.S. television, followed by Ring’s “Search Party for Dogs” and Budweiser’s “American Icons.”
• Other brands appearing among the most replayed ads include Telemundo, T-Mobile, Pepsi, Salesforce and Squarespace.
• Commercials generating stronger emotional reactions – particularly high levels of positive emotion, humor and nostalgia – were more likely to be replayed. The Ring and Budweiser ads ranked highest for intense positive emotions within the top ten most replayed ads.
• Conversely, ads that triggered intense negative emotions, such as the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate spot, also achieved significant replay, suggesting that both highly entertaining and more provocative creative executions can drive continued media attention and discussion after the game.

“Major cultural moments like the Olympics and the Super Bowl create unique opportunities for brands to capture attention,” said Kevin Kohn, CEO of Kinetiq. “What our data shows is that campaigns rooted in emotional storytelling, particularly those tied to shared cultural experiences, are far more likely to extend their impact beyond the initial broadcast.”

To view the full February Breaking TV Ads Report, click here.

For full rankings, category benchmarks or custom analysis, contact videoadtrends@kinetiq.tv

Methodology

Using proprietary ad detection technologies, Kinetiq identified all U.S. ads that first aired in February 2026. The analysis is based on more than 1 million real-time daily detections across all major national networks, 210 U.S. DMAs and 15 streaming apps.

The ads were then ranked for their creative effectiveness using DAIVID’s AI-powered technology, which enables brands, agencies and influencers to benchmark the emotional responses, attention levels and brand impact of their ads against their rivals’ campaigns in real-time. Trained using tens of millions of human responses to ads, DAIVID’s AI models use a predictive algorithm that lets advertisers know within seconds the emotional and business impact of a video or image – enabling marketers to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns at scale.

Ads featured on the Breaking Ads Chart are ranked using DAIVID’s Creative Effectiveness Score (CES) – a composite metric that combines the three main drivers of effectiveness – attention, emotions and correct brand recall.

About Kinetiq

Kinetiq is the leading AI-powered platform for global media and marketing intelligence, capturing and monitoring video, audio, and digital content across 30,000 channels in over 120 countries. We transform unstructured data into actionable insights, giving our customers the real-time intelligence they need to optimize investments, outpace competitors, and maximize impact. For more information visit: kinetiq.tv.

About DAIVID

DAIVID is a global AI company powering the ad ecosystem with #CreativeData – the untapped signal of ad effectiveness – at unprecedented scale and depth. Its human-trained, AI-powered technology analyzes video and image content to predict creative attention, 39 emotions and impact on brand metrics, giving ad platforms and marketers access to fast, actionable insights to dramatically improve performance and strategy.  With simple API integrations, DAIVID’s Creative Data Feed supercharges ad performance and media strategy across the ad tech ecosystem. Partners include ad platforms such as Kinetiq, CreativeX and Mass Analytics, as well as global brands and agencies including Nike, Snapchat, and WPP. Visit daivid.co.