Marketers love to talk about brands ‘owning a moment.’ This weekend, the Super Bowl IS the moment. And, for the first time, as we look at the Super Bowl itself through the lens of Kantar’s Meaningful, Different, and Salient framework, using the power of BrandZ, it’s clear this isn’t just a sporting event with a massive audience – it’s one of the most powerful brands in the US, full stop.
That distinction matters for all brands, because when a property combines deep emotional connection, clear functional value, and mental availability at scale, it doesn’t just attract viewers; it builds enduring demand.
A Meaningfully Different brand
The Super Bowl outperforms other global sporting properties on all three pillars of Meaning, Difference, and Salience.
In the US, it ranks at the very top of Demand Power - a one number summary of a brand’s equity - and shows exceptionally strong Future Power, signaling continued momentum rather than decline. Large, established brands often lean heavily on Salience while gradually losing their emotional or functional edge. The Super Bowl does the opposite — it stays culturally vital and future-facing.
But size isn’t everything. When brand size effects are removed, the picture is even clearer. The Super Bowl sits in the 90th percentile or above for Meaning and Salience versus every other brand in the entire BrandZ database. Not just sports brands. All brands!
Meaningful, in BrandZ terms, is not vague affection, it’s a powerful combination of:
- Meeting functional needs
- Creating an advantageous emotional connection
The Super Bowl achieves both, at the level of an elite athlete.
What ‘Meaningful’ looks like in practice
What drives this depth of connection for Super Bowl fans in the US?
Strong performance on attributes that blend functional excellence with social and emotional value:
- “Provide the best sports viewing” – a clear functional leadership cue
- “Easy to follow as a fan” – accessibility lowers barriers, widening appeal
- “Features players or athletes you genuinely care about” – emotional investment
But that’s only half the story. It also dominates attributes that stretch beyond sport into culture:
- “Would you want to be seen watching”
- “Are better at bringing people together”
- “Create the most buzz at the time of the event”
This is where Meaningful becomes Meaningfully Different – and where brand equity is built for the long-term. The Super Bowl is not just watched — it’s experienced socially as an EVENT - one of the few remaining mass cultural events where watching is a shared ritual. This fusion of spectacle, social currency, and emotional storytelling is what keeps the brand vibrant, not just visible.
Salience at scale
Salience is often mistaken as simply ‘being famous’. In fact, it’s about coming easily to mind in buying (or in this case, viewing) moments.
The Super Bowl’s Salience is exceptional — again in the top decile versus the entire BrandZ universe of more than 20,000 brands, but crucially, that Salience is supported by Meaning and Difference.
A self-reinforcing ‘play’ Tom Brady would be proud of:
- Emotional connections build strong Meaning
- Distinctive cultural positioning reinforces Difference
- Both support high Salience and maintain profile
Compare that with other global sporting properties. Events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup also perform strongly, but in the US, many major competitions lean more heavily on heritage and scale than on distinctive, emotionally resonant positioning. The Super Bowl, by contrast, feels contemporary, culturally integrated, and socially relevant every single year.
More Than Sport — A Cultural Platform
Another reason the Super Bowl behaves like a top-tier brand is its ability to expand beyond its ‘core category’ without dilution. It’s a sports final, AND the biggest night in advertising, AND a music event, AND a social gathering mainstay.
This multi-layered meaning deepens emotional connection and broadens the audience. Importantly, expansion hasn’t made the brand more dilute, quite the opposite. The core promise - the pinnacle of football - remains clear, but the _experience layers_ around it create additional entry points for different audiences; further embedding the Super Bowl’s Meaningful Difference to a very wide-ranging audience.
Implications for Marketers
- Build meaning beyond your core function
Functional excellence matters. Enduring growth comes when brands also play a role in people’s social and emotional lives.
Ask: how does your brand help people connect, signal identity, or create shared moments?
- Make participation easy and culturally visible
The Super Bowl is something people want to be seen engaging with. Brands grow when usage becomes socially shareable and culturally current. Lowering barriers expands relevance.
- Invest in moments that elevate and differentiate
The Super Bowl consistently creates moments that dominate conversation. Brands should consider their own equivalent of “game day” — culturally resonant peaks that refresh memory structures, reinforce Difference, and boost Salience.
This Sunday, as the New England Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks at Super Bowl LX, millions won’t just be watching a football game, they’ll be participating in one of the most Meaningfully Different brand experiences in the US and around the world.
However, the strongest brands don’t just win attention in the moment — they build emotional, distinctive, and mentally available structures that compound over time and help win the game against their direct competitors.
Game on!




