Zen's Top 5 Superbowl Ads
The Superbowl is one of the biggest commercial sporting events in United States with 2022 Superbowl featuring the LA Rams and Cincinnati Bengals had 99.18 million viewers in America. Some of the viewers (42%) are more focused on the genius adverts. As a result, companies pay through the nose to get associate with the big game whether its sponsorship or half time advertising, Statista averaged the cost of a 30-second ad costing $6.5 million.
With Superbowl 2023 taking place on Sunday the 12th of February, The Zen Agency shared our top 5 Superbowl Adverts of All Time.
In no particular order…
Honda – Yearbooks (2017 commercial)
Honda’s 2017 advert was heart-warming and technically impressive. The ad showcases various peoples yearbook photos encouraging everyone to follow their dreams which features famous celebrities like Viola Davis, Steve Carell & Magic Johnson to encourage people to “chase their dreams and see amazing places” which evolves around their tagline “power of dreams” and features Honda’s new CR-V.
Speaking to Business Insider, Honda’s Marketing Vice President, Susie Rossick, said the ad results in 120,000 “hand raisers” which is people enquiring about the vehicle.
Pepsi - More Than OK (2019)
In 2019, Pepsi’s rivals Coca-cola decided to take a break from the Superbowl which gave PepsiCo a big incentive to go hard. As a result, Pepis bought 90 seconds of ad space during half time and launched “Pepsi is more than ok” which features Cardi-B, Steve Carrell and Lil John. The 3 celebs appears in a local café to vouch for Pepsi being more than OK to drink which majority of US would have heard the phrase before.
The use of the 3 celebs helped bring personality and buzz to the PepsiCo advert which increased PepsiCo’s social media share. According to H.B Duran, the #PepsiIsMoreThanOkay had 48,000 mentions with 71,800 accumulated mentions which peaked at the half time show. Pepsi’s social media engagement rose to 3.5 million shares and retweets whilst Coke received 1.5 million.
McDonalds: The Showdown (1993)
Another celeb-heavy advert but from a different generation. McDonalds used basketball legends Larry Bird & Michael Jordan to play a crazy game of HORSE for MJ’s big mac. These two hall of famers had previous beef (excuse the pun) with one another so seeing them joke around on the half time advert got everyone talking. The ad was relatable as almost every basketball fan would have played horse as a kid and was ranked one of the best commercials ever produced.
You can watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1shK-j_u6LI
Snickers: “You’re not you when you're hungry” (2010)
This juxtaposition advert saw Golden Girl, Betty White (88 at the time) participating in a rough game of American football. This commercial begun the legendary “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign. The campaign has been lauded as one of the most successful global campaigns of all time. As a result, Betty White became a cult figure with the younger demographic and resurrected her career.
Watch the ad here
Budweiser: True/ Whassap (2000)
Budweiser is one the best brands for Superbowl campaigns, but one advert will always stick out. The advert shows two friends talking about the game when another friend interrupts with “wassup” which spirals into 5 or 6 friends joining spiraling things out of control. The advert was an instant cultural phenomenon and featured in “Scary Movie” and was used as a punchline for TV talkshows. The advert boosted Budweisers sales by 2.4 million barrels.
You can watch here
However, you don’t need to have a Superbowl ad to be successful. Oreo won the 2013 with a single tweet. That year’s SuperBowl will be remembered for a power outage that cause viewers to experience a “blackout”, the creative team at Oreo posted a simple tweet “You can still dunk in the dark” and caught on immediately getting nearly 15,000 retweets.
Do you agree with the office shouts? What’s your favourite Superbowl ad?
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