I’ve never been the biggest football fan. I’ll go to a live game and have a great time, but I don’t know enough about the sport to fully understand a match while watching it on TV. However, the one thing I will watch every year is the Super Bowl, and that’s for three reasons: good food, the halftime show, and the advertisements (and this year, Taylor Swift). Even as a child I always found the ads to be funny and interesting, but now as an adult who is entering the world of public relations and advertising, they are especially interesting to me as they are the perfect case study of what advertising tactics work and which ones don’t.
After watching all 50-something ads, here are a few of my favorites, as well as some that I think missed the mark.
1. Favorite: Michael Cerave
I’ve been a Michael Cera fan since the first time I watched Juno years ago, and my love for him was only amplified after watching him portray Allan in last year’s Barbie. This CeraVe ad is a genius way of using celebrity endorsements without making it seem out of place; not only does the cameo make perfect sense considering the name of the brand, but they also use Cera’s hilarious comedic timing to their advantage, making a great commercial that is just as intriguing as it is silly.
Least favorite: Temu
I may be a little biased in this one as I’ve always had a strong dislike for Temu, but this ad felt disingenuous and poorly made. Not only is it concerning that Temu was able to spend nearly $30 million to air four commercials on Sunday when their product prices are so low (A.K.A. they are cutting corners somewhere…are they skimping out on paying their employees?), but the ad was lazy and unoriginal. It honestly felt like it was AI-generated, which is fitting for their business model of stealing imagery from other brands and selling cheap knockoffs at questionably low prices. And that jingle…please, get it out of my head.
2. Favorite: the Dunkings
As a fellow New Englander, it is no surprise that this Dunkin’ ad made my favorites list. This ad is another great example of how celebrity endorsements can work well — we all have seen the photos of Ben Affleck carrying his assortment of Dunkin’ cups, so it was only fitting that we would see him here in this commercial. Not only do we have Ben Affleck, but we also see Jennifer Lopez, Jack Harlow, Matt Damon, and Tom Brady in a truly funny advertisement that will be sure to stick with me for a little while. I also find myself wanting to buy an orange tracksuit now, but that’s irrelevant.
Least favorite: DoorDash ‘all the Ads’
I will say this ad was great at promoting hype, as I heard a lot of people online talking about this one. If you missed it, it essentially asked viewers to enter a very, very, very lengthy promo code on their website, where they would then draw one lucky winner to win every single item advertised in the Super Bowl, including but not limited to a new BMW and a $50,000 down payment on a house. However, what exactly was this advertising? You could have taken this exact commercial and used it for any other brand and the result would have been exactly the same. It’s not original or interesting, just a gimmick to drive more clicks to the DoorDash website.
3) Favorite: Can’t B Broken
Honestly in my eyes, this wasn’t even a Verizon ad and more so a Beyonce ad (um…Beyonce country album anyone?!), and I think it held up very well. The premise was simple: Beyonce can break the internet, but can she break Verizon? What follows is a series of mesmerizing costume changes and great cinematography that makes for a really entertaining commercial that may or may not have made me want to switch phone companies for a brief moment… once I got over the excitement of a new Beyonce album.
Least favorite: starry lemon lime soda
This is an example of how sometimes celebrity endorsements just miss the mark. It wasn’t even necessarily Ice Spice’s fault, rather the fact that the teaser trailer made this ad seem much more compelling than it actually was. It made it seem as if Ice Spice’s ex-boyfriend was going to be some huge reveal when in reality he was just some random lemon lime soda whose name was blurred. And the explosion at the end? Maybe it was just me, but that part was a little weird. Regardless, I will think of this ad if I ever see Starry in the grocery store, so maybe they did something right.
4) Favorite: NYX Duck plump
What made this ad especially intriguing wasn’t even the ad itself, but rather the fact that NYX chose at the last second not to air the entire ad. Rumor has it that the NFL did not approve of NYX’s duck innuendo. So they only aired the first 15 seconds of the ad, finishing off with a QR code that viewers could scan which brought them to a YouTube video of the full 60-second commercial. Not only was the full commercial great with its bright colors and funny punchline, but the act of cutting it short made it all the more interesting, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Least Favorite: Hellmann’s mayo cat
I’m truly sad to say I didn’t like this Hellmann’s ad, as anyone who knows me knows that I may be the biggest cat lover on the entire planet. But what fell short for me wasn’t necessarily the concept but its execution. It features SNL icon Kate McKinnon, who is one of the funniest women in comedy by a long shot. Yet why can I barely remember her even being in the commercial? While I thought the concept was great, it baffles me that Hellmann’s was able to get a star as hilarious as Kate McKinnon, and yet her presence was completely overshadowed by a cat that does what every cat does: meow. Mayo cat, if you see this, please don’t be offended. I think you are fabulous.
5) Favorite: google pixel
There always has to be at least one commercial that makes you emotional, and Google knocked it out of the park with this ad for Google Pixel SB. It shows how the phone’s new cutting-edge technology can not only identify faces in the frame but also alert the user if they are cropped, allowing users with visual impairments to be able to effectively capture their memories just like anyone who is not blind. And once I found out that the director of the ad, Adam Morse, is blind himself? Cue the waterworks.
Least Favorite: Robert f. Kennedy Jr.’s ‘American Values’
Politics aside, this ad was just lazy. All it does is take a historic 1960s JFK campaign ad and superimpose Robert’s face on top, which left a poor taste in not only the audience’s mouth, but the Kennedy family as a whole, who has since slammed the commercial for tarnishing the Kennedy name. RFK used this commercial as an excuse to piggyback off of his family’s legacy rather than create something original of his own, and that is why I feel it simply wasn’t impactful. In fact, it had the opposite effect; if you can’t even make your own effective presidential campaign, how am I supposed to believe that you will be an effective president?
TO summarize
In reality, I don’t think there was a truly bad advertisement this year (except for you, Temu). The high price tag associated means that every company is going to put its best foot forward, and as a result, every ad I was able to see was effective in at least one way. So to all of the advertisers who aired their work at the Super Bowl this year, thank you for the entertainment, and to Temu, please never play that jingle ever again.