For modern-day Don Drapers, the Super Bowl is, well, their Super Bowl. The NFL finale is by far the biggest day on the advertising calendar, where a 30-second commercial on NBC generally costs around $8 million and some prime slots change hands for $10 million. Those eye-watering fees are all to do with the massive audience tuning in to watch both the game itself and the high-profile halftime show. Last year, the Super Bowl broke its own record to become the highest-rated broadcast in United States television history, rivaled only by the moon landing. The game itself was watched by an average of 127.7 million viewers, with that figure rising to 133.5 million when Kendrick Lamar came out at halftime. It’s been predicted that Bad Bunny could draw even more eyeballs.
It’s no surprise then that advertisers go all out to create star-studded commercials they hope will capture the imagination of viewers and make those exorbitant booking fees worthwhile. This year, there’s one man they’ve been turning to more than any other: Taika Waititi. The New Zealand-born Jojo Rabbit director has become the MVP of Super Bowl commercials, with no fewer than three separate big-budget campaigns under his creative control in 2026.
