The 4 Best Ads of Super Bowl LIII
Super Bowl Sunday – the only day of the year where ads are are celebrated, rather than tolerated. While the lowest-scoring Super Bowl game in the history dragged on, there was an even bigger battle going on during the breaks this year. According to Bloomberg, this year’s 30-second spots cost between $5.1 and 5.3 million dollars. Ad agencies and companies spend months carefully crafting their Super Bowl spots in hopes of going viral. And in the minutes, hours, and days following the game, thousands of people troll social media and YouTube to watch the best and worst ads of the game.
This year, there were plenty of companies whose ads we admired, including Amazon, Doritos, Google, Stella Artois, and Olay. Here are a few of our favorites:
1. Bud Light and HBO, “Joust”
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Dilly Dilly. It’s no secret that Bud Light has been playing with medieval characters in its commercials for a while, but now they have come full circle. Complete with an off-brand Game of Thrones theme song, Bud Light’s knight is murdered in a joust by The Mountain before a dragon swoops into view and sets the arena on fire. Although many viewers were shocked to see the beer ad morph into a Game of Thrones series finale advertisement, the spot definitely caught and held the viewer’s attention. Who knows, maybe this marks the end of Dilly Dilly?
2. NFL, “The 100-Year Game”
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The New England Patriots might have won the game, but the NFL won the night. This year’s commercial debuts more than 40 current and former NFL players from the 100-year league, including favorites like Peyton and Eli Manning, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Odell Beckham Jr., and even Sarah Thomas, the NFL’s first female official. Despite wearing suits, the former and current players couldn’t help throwing, catching, and intercepting the golden football. The 2-minute spot was funny, emotive, and beautifully shot.
3. Pepsi, “More than OK”
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In this year’s ad, the official Super Bowl sponsor took on the long-standing implication that Coke is better than Pepsi. Set inside a diner, a guest attempts to order a Coke, only to have the waiter respond with that old, familiar question: Is Pepsi okay? Outraged, Steve Carell stands up from a nearby booth. “Is Pepsi okay?” he asks, almost laughing. “Are puppies okay? Is a shooting star okay? Is the laughter of a small child okay?” Lil Jon and Cardi B make cameos to help Carell convince the stunned waiter that Pepsi is “more than okay,” okay?
4. Hyundai, “The Elevator”
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Award-winning actor Jason Bateman stars as the Hell-evator operator for a young couple going car shopping. That means “you’re going down,” he announces. Bateman takes the couple on an elevator ride from hell, stopping at jury duty, a root canal appointment, and the middle seat of a flight before reaching their destination. Once they explain that they are using Hyundai’s Buyer Protection Program, everything changes. While the spot offered little in the way of details about the program, it certainly succeeded in making us laugh. And who doesn’t love Jason Bateman?
Watch these ads and so many more from Super Bowl LIII here.
