Were you ready for some non-football consumerism? Ready or not, the Super Bowl’s annual blitz of commercials landed before and during the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots defense-first matchup, with some ads served up in advance while others were unveiled for the first time during the game. As in previous years, there were serious clunkers (looking at you Bud Light rolling keg ad), but also a few that transcended their buy-more mission (may you live forever, Melissa McCarthy). Other trends we noticed: celebrities double dipping to appear in more than one Super Bowl commercial (three if you’re Sofía Vergara), lots of borderline-gross humor (exploding heads, singing clumps of shaved body hair, singing toilets and plenty of ads trying to convince America that artificial intelligence tools aren’t a waste of time and energy).
While many of this year’s ads promoted AI and the usual rah-rah-America nods to patriotism, one trend we noticed was that the longer versions for some of the best Super Bowl ads, found online, were even better than the condensed cuts that made it to broadcast. What if next year, we make the Super Bowl three quarters and the commercial breaks 15 minutes long? Any takers?
While we wait for that brilliant idea to make it to the NFL’s offices, here are the big game ads we loved the most and a few that fumbled the ball — big time.
