WeatherTech’s Ads Show the Power of a Long-term Play

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As we gear up for 2026’s Super Bowl, Ad Of The Week is taking a fresh look at some of the best ads from previous big games, and we’re starting with WeatherTech’s “Whatever Comes Your Way”, a 5-Star classic created with Pinnacle Advertising, where four old ladies hit the road looking for thrills and trouble to the sound of Steppenwolf.

WeatherTech are a Super Bowl regular with one of the most interesting and effective marketing strategies out there. They’re a car accessory brand, and if you ran a competition for boring products, car floor mats would have a good chance of winning. But dull products don’t have to mean dull ads. WeatherTech have become a brand that shows up on Game Night with a mission to entertain – and they usually succeed.

WeatherTech get the point of emotional, funny advertising. In a highly functional category, you want your brand name to stick in the mind of consumers and have positive associations. The way to do that is to entertain for commercial gain and make ads which spark an emotional response. WeatherTech’s Super Bowl ad isn’t directly about the product, but it’s about the fun and freedom of driving and the product can play a “Best Supporting Actor” role.

How do we know it works? To see how WeatherTech’s strategy has paid off over the long term, we can look at Test Your Ad Competitive Edge. This is our AI-searchable database of over 100,000 ads which lets you assess a brand’s effectiveness in the context of its competitors, its wider sector, and its own performance over time. So we can look back to 2019, and the first time WeatherTech scored a 5-Star Super Bowl ad, with the owner’s own dog taking a starring role!

Powered by canine cuteness, that ad placed near the top of the Super Bowl rankings, but there was an obvious downside – the brand was little-known and got a low Brand Fluency score (only 69% of viewers could identify WeatherTech as the advertiser).

But WeatherTech understood that emotional advertising is a long-term play as well as a short-term bet. 2025’s “Whatever Comes Your Way” also scores 5-Stars (5.2-Stars put it in the Top 3 Super Bowl ads of the year) but its Brand Fluency is now a strong 91%, even though the product is still in a background role. In other words, consistent high-reach emotional advertising at the Super Bowl has raised the brand’s fluency – more people recognise WeatherTech and its ads are more effective because of it.

Getting a 5-Star ad at the Super Bowl is never easy. Every year we rate every Super Bowl commercial live as it airs, and there are years we don’t see a single 5-Star spot. The huge investment can lead marketers to be too cautious or try to cram in too much detail and information.

WeatherTech’s biker grandmas are a lesson for brands that doing one great idea really well pays off in audience response. And their long term strategy is a lesson that no matter how ordinary your category, creative and entertaining ads will work for you. Sign up for this year’s Super Bowl coverage to find out which brands have learned those lessons for 2026.