In a few years from now, if not a few mere months or even weeks, most of us won’t remember which football team scored the most football points and won the big football game, said game being 2021’s Super Bowl LV in which the Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against defending champs the Kansas City Chiefs.
However, even long after Super Bowl LV’s action on the field is all but forgotten, many of us will still revisit its best Super Bowl commercials, some of which we hope will join the pantheon of the best Super Bowl commercials ever.
Say, let’s take a look back at some of those best Super Bowl ads right now, and let’s start off with a magical time called The Seventies!
Coca-Cola, 1979
Many people still consider this Coca-Cola commercial starring Mean Joe Greene and a charming youngster to be the best Super Bowl commercial of all time. Today’s audience doesn’t know Mean Joe’s reputation quite so well, but believe it when you hear it — this one struck a chord in 1979:
Apple, 1984
Flash-forward a scant five years. This commercial, released at a time when personal computers were still almost the stuff of fantasy, helped put Apple on the map in a way that lives up to the company’s current dominance of the tech world. The ad played off the year it was released and was inspired by the eponymous book and film, 1984 by George Orwell:
Pepsi, 1992
Now, those commercials are both classics, sure. But they also both feel a bit dated, don’t they? There was something missing from a lot of the early Super Bowl commercials that was hit upon by Pepsi in the early 1990s. It was, in a word, sex. Or rather, sex appeal.
Pepsi, 2001
Now moving ahead about a decade and turning to another young lady who was in her prime at the time, this ad with the then-wildly-popular Britney Spears:
Is that ads truly great? No, not really.
But it stuck in the larger American consciousness nonetheless, despite there being nothing clever, original, or all that interesting about it other than sex appeal.
Volkswagen, 2011
Now for the cute stuff. Let’s start with the absolute classic ad titled “The Force,” or “Star Wars kid” commercial, as it is usually called.
Budweiser, 1995
While this ad might seem blasé today, when it was released, it was a true sensation. And it still ranks near the top among critics. Yep, it’s the Budweiser Frogs:
Budweiser, 2015
But you know what’s even more popular than frogs these days? Dogs. And puppies, to be specific. If there is one thing that has driven recent ratings, it’s dogs. And it doesn’t really matter what these pooches are “selling,” but usually they’re selling beer:
Budweiser, 1999
And we can just all forget about this Budweiser ad and the cultural phenomena it created:
Doritos, 2010
Beyond the charm and the sex appeal, there’s one other trend we have seen more and more advertisers turn to for their recent Super Bowl commercials: absurdist humor. All too often, it’s done terribly and comes off as a craven attempt at wit or comedy. Occasionally, though, it works perfectly. Case in point: every Doritos Super Bowl ad ever. We’re particularly fond of this one:
GoDaddy, 2009
For a while, GoDaddy Super Bowl commercials were all about the sex appeal and leveraged their spokeswoman Danica Patrick to help with such:
GoDaddy, 2013
Then GoDaddy moved into the blended model of using both sex appeal and humor, as in this 2013 ad featuring supermodel Bar Rafaeli and “Walter,” as played by actor Jesse Heiman:
Kia, 2014
Another ad that used comedy but also used star power and cultural reference (The Matrix, e.g.) was the 2014 Kia Super Bowl commercial starring Laurence Fishburne reprising his role of Morpheus.
Mountain Dew, 2016
Things got straight up weird with the Mountain Dew ad for the 50th Super Bowl titled “Puppy Monkey Baby” in which their new energy drink was hawked by a, well, a Puppy Monkey Baby.
Skittles, 2016
Also known for weird Super Bowl commercials, Skittles got pretty weird with things, as usual in, 2016 for Super Bowl 50 with this ad featuring a Steven Tyler:
Amazon, 2018
In 2018, Amazon put out an ad that had a funny enough premise, what with Alexa losing her voice, but of course the commercial all came down to star power, featuring cameos from Gordon Ramsey, Anthony Hopkins, and Jeff Bezos himself, to name a few:
Budweiser, 2011
Finally, in 2011, to mark 10 years since the 9/11/2001 attacks, Budweiser released an ad that can still bring immediate tears to the eyes yet another decade later with their heartfelt 9/11 “Tribute” commercial.
