Super Bowl Ads: Do They Keep Getting Weirder?
Haley Keler and Gabriel Maldonado Diaz — Starting Line Sports
Every year fans from across the country gather with friends and family to watch the Super Bowl. Whether we watch it to cheer on our favorite team, to sing along to the half-time show, to catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift on screen, or just for the ads, the Super Bowl is an event that you don’t want to miss.
Everyone knows that Super Bowl ads are important to big companies, so important that they are willing to pay $8 million for their 30 second slot just so people like us can enjoy them…or rank them. You might be wondering what qualifications we have to rank these, but the reality is that we are just two very opinionated college students, therefore, we are actually overqualified.
Beginning with our honorable mentions. What? Did you think we would give away our winner so fast…yeah no. With so many ads there had to be a couple that just didn't make the cut, though we loved them just the same, and some that made us want to hide under a blanket. As for the ones that just didn't make the cut, that honor goes to: Google Pixel, Uber Eats, and NFL Flag Footballs “The Brad” (as we have decided to call it). Google Pixels heartfelt message centered around parents and their children pulled at our heart strings. Uber Eats had the star power with cameos by Kevin Bacon, Greta Gerwig, Martha Stewart, Charli XCX, Sean Evans and Matthew McConaughey. And the insinuation that football was created to make us hungry made us laugh. “The Brad” had a great story from start to finish and worked with stereotypes in a unique way.
Now onto our favorites:
5: Seal Seal Baja Blast (Mountain Dew)
Did you know you needed to see 15 time Grammy nominated singer Seal as an actual Seal? Because we didn’t until Sunday night. In the strange yet entertaining Mountain Dew ad, directed by Taika Waititi, Seal as a Seal washes up on Baja beach and proceeds to serenade Becky G with a “Baja Blast-ified” version of his Grammy winning hit “Kiss From A Rose.” In true Super Bowl ad tradition the ad is ridiculous, there’s no other word for it. However, the Mountain Dew ad does what several others tried and failed to do (we’ll talk about that later) with the slightly disturbing CGI. They truly leaned into the humor and absolute chaos of the concept unapologetically. For that true commitment to the bit, Seal Seal earned our 5th place ranking.
4: Glennie Locks (RAM)
The Glen Powell Goldie locks spoof was one of our absolute favorites of the night. The Ad features Glennie Locks (Glen Powell in a blonde wig) reenacting the classic grims tale, until he’s not. The Ad pulls you from the 3 bears cottage, to taming a dragon, and into an active volcano. Half way through two children interrupt the story by saying "Uncle Glen, what about the three bears?" to which he replies "This is my story.” Before cutting back to a high speedchase with the kids in the back seat against mama and papa bear. Ram was able to cram so much into just a minute and yet all of it made perfect sense, and kept that Super Bowl ad spirit of whimsy. For these reasons Glennie Locks is our 4th ranking ad.
3: Challengers but make it Pickleball (Michelob Ultra)
With the rise of the popularity of pickleball and the overwhelming success of challengers it only makes sense that someone would combine the two. Ok so it’s not exactly like challengers (Zendaya we love you) but in their Super Bowl ad Michelob Ultra captures the competitive spirit of the film. The ad stars Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara as a unsuspecting duo, challenging other pickleball players to a game for the prize of an Ultra. The ad goes on to give us an epic series of matches where the drama is high featuring real life influential pickleball players. The relevancy of the commercial mixed with the high quality movie style editing makes Michelob Ultras Super Bowl commercial our 3rd ranked Ad!
2: Sitch On The Field (The Lilo and Stitch Movie)
The Lilo and Stitch Movie ad in the superbowl almost took the cake for us. This is movie promos done right. Everyone loves the character of stitch and unless you’re uncultured, you know that he is a menace to society, so having him go around the field and destroy everything as they are trying to catch him was both funny and also very smart. Instead of showing the trailer off the bat, they are starting to tease that it will come out soon and give fans something to look forward to while building momentum. Plus, it also ropes a new audience into the movie because showing the field is bringing the movie into the world we are currently in. Therefore, the mixture of humor, relevance, and creativity puts this ad at number 2.
1: So Win. (Nike)
Finally, coming in at the best superbowl ad, we have the “So Win” Nike ad. Nike hasn't had an Ad in the Super Bowl since 1998 and let me tell you, they delivered. A lot of ads this year attempted to target inclusion in their ads, but the way Nike did it was executed perfectly. Highlighting female athletes like Sha’Carri Richardson and Caitlin Clark, goes very well with the message of the ad. If they tell you not to do something that will empower you, just do it. The quality of the ad, the message, the relevance, and the empowerment of this ad makes Nike’s “So Win” Ad our top pick for this year’s Super Bowl ad lineup.
As for the worst of the night there are a couple that made our list. Starting off strong with Hims and Hers. What was that guys? Marketing your product by putting people down is never the way to go. The runner up would have to be Coffee Mates weird dancing tongue cold foam commercial. Strange to look at, strange to think about, all around unpleasant if we’re being honest. But the absolute worst of the night would have to be the Tubi fleshy hat ad. Who came up with that? Please never do that again. Uncomfortable to look at, to think about, and overall just a haunting experience that made absolutely ZERO sense.
Ultimately, Super Bowl ads always have to get the attention of the viewer and there are right ways to accomplish that and wrong ways to accomplish that. This year’s line up was…interesting for sure, but once again, we enjoyed watching them and critiquing them.
