Jeffreys said Uber Eats is paying no mind to which competitors appear or don’t appear in the $8 million-plus ad slots on NBC. She said the company is running its own race when it comes to the Super Bowl.
Playing the long game
Returning to the 2026 Super Bowl with the same conspiracy narrative as last year is risky. Viewers could get bored with the joke, and requiring background knowledge means it might not work for those who didn’t see or don’t remember (like perhaps Jennifer Aniston) the 2025 ad.
But the development of Uber Eats’ Super Bowl spots is built on trust.
Special US, the American outpost of a New Zealand-born agency, was established to focus on the Uber account, which it won in 2020. Since then, the same leaders have overseen the partnership, and Special US has been able to build on the learnings from each Super Bowl commercial.
“As you do more Super Bowls together, and you have more trust, and you have more of the shorthand, you can expand the reaches of that ambition,” said Kelsey Hodgkin, CEO and partner at Special US.
The team initially came up with the idea for “Build Your Own Super Bowl” a couple years ago, but it was too difficult logistically to pull off. This year, with more Big Game experience, the time was right.
Besides juicing app downloads and use, there’s another benefit to the approach: It helps Uber Eats diversify its celebrity roster. Jeffreys is betting on its casting to hit both mainstream cultural touch points as well as niche fan groups, helping Uber to “round out what we think is the alchemy of the audience engagement,” she said.
“We will be learning a lot in real time,” said Jill Hazelbaker, Uber’s svp of marketing and public affairs.
