MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Whether or not you’re a sports fan, there’s no denying that the Super Bowl always knows how to cap off playoff runs with a bang. However, this epic event can mean different things to different people. For American football fans, it’s all about rooting for a team and seeing which one comes home with the championship title. For music and pop culture lovers, the halftime show is a bigger affair than the game itself. But in the world of business and advertising? The Super Bowl is about getting a new slate of unforgettable ads.
Ads have become a huge part of Super Bowl culture. Anyone who isn’t a stranger to the Super Bowl viewing experience knows that brands take it to another level — usually complete with celebrities, huge budgets, and the best ideas they have to offer — when they manage to secure that coveted Big Game spot. After all, when you have the chance to advertise your brand to over a hundred million viewers in one go, you can’t waste it. So, which brands made the most out of it at the Super Bowl LVII last weekend?
In this special edition of adobo Picks, adobo Magazine has rounded up some of the best Super Bowl ads, where pop culture staples — from nostalgic favorites to modern classics of the streaming age — kept scoring touchdowns this year.
Walter and Jesse’s addicting new supply
In what seems to be the internet’s favorite Super Bowl ad, Walter has to remind Jesse to not help himself to their own supply. Their supply of PopCorners, that is. This year, almost a decade since Breaking Bad ended, D3, Frito-Lay‘s in-house agency, brings back Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Raymond Cruz to reprise their roles from the beloved series. You see the characters rave over Walter’s latest creation — batches of the perfect air-popped chips, a guilt-free new addiction that’ll make you want to break into something good.
Giving EVs the representation they deserve
As General Motors goes electric, Will Ferrell journeys across the different universes of Netflix to demonstrate the many ways the streaming platform can include more electric vehicles (EVs) in their shows and movies. From Army of the Dead to Squid Game, the movie star takes the EV into the worlds of Netflix’s biggest titles. After all, as he put it, if you’re going to get swarmed by zombies or kidnapped, might as well do it in an EV! And while it isn’t fit for every scene — like the Regency era of Bridgerton or the Upside Down in the ’80s — it makes sense for most occasions to go electric.
Brian Cox and Serena Williams hit the links at Bushwood
As always, the Super Bowl saw no shortage of beer commercials. One, however, stood out from the rest — Wieden + Kennedy’s Michelob ULTRA ad. Taking place in the fictional Bushwood Country Club, the beer brand’s spot was a fun and cheeky homage to the ’80s classic Caddyshack. Making this salute to one of Hollywood’s most beloved sports comedies even better is Succession star Brian Cox as he goes up against Tennis legend Serena Williams. And as a cherry on top, the rest of the Bushwood Country Club characters are played by big names in sports such as Tony Romo, Alex Morgan, Canelo Alvarez, Jimmy Butler, and Nneka Ogumwike.
Leave Cher out of the Super Bowl ad fun? As if!
From the ’80s, we head to the ’90s, which is incomplete without the teen comedy it girl of that decade — Cher Horowitz. For Rakuten’s Super Bowl ad, Alicia Silverstone and Elisa Donovan step back into high school to reprise their Clueless roles in a callback to one of the movie’s many classic Cher moments: the debate speech where she tackled the topic of immigration via a story about her dad’s birthday party. This time, though, the topic was economics. And in true Cher manner, she tackles it by talking about how much Rakuten has helped her save during her shopping sprees.
It’s time to tell him more, tell him more about T-Mobile
When Scrubs stars Donald Faison and Zach Braff see that the new neighbor who’s trying to install cable internet is none other than Danny Zuko himself, John Travolta, they know exactly how to show him the light. In a spoof of the Summer Nights number from Grease, they break into song to show the ’70s leading man all the home internet wonders that he can get from T-Mobile. In no time, they manage to convince him to switch to the home internet that’s more life-changing than summer love.
What the real rockstars have to say
Workday has no problem poking fun at a corporate phenomenon in its spot — the act of calling colleagues “rockstars” in emails, after presentations, and even in job listings. In the spot, real rock icons Billy Idol, Gary Clark Jr., Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, and Paul Stanley address the corporate types guilty of this by listing the hardcore things they’ve done, from trashing hotel rooms all over the world to being on the road since they were teenagers, to earn the moniker. This cheeky ad by Ogilvy playfully reminds office job workers that Workday may make them great at their jobs, but maybe they should leave the rockstar title to the legends.
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