Super Bowl Commercials Overview

Casey Pac

Photo courtesy of TV Insider

This year, Super Bowl advertisements cost $7 million per 30 seconds (NPR). Companies are eager to advertise in front of the audience of the Super Bowl, and produce commercials with high budgets. This year, 113.1 viewers tuned in to watch the Eagles play the Chiefs in Super Bowl 57 (Fox Sports). This year many advertisements featured celebrity appearances. Here is a recap of 10 notable Super Bowl commercials.

  1. Tubi – This commercial confused many viewers, by tricking them into thinking their TV was moving to another app on its own. The screen switched from the Super Bowl to the Tubi streaming app. Although there were mixed reviews, this ad grabbed viewers attention by introducing them to the streaming platform Tubi before revealing that it was an advertisement and not someone playing with the remote. 
  2. Dunkin’ ‘Drive Thru’ featured Ben Affleck working at Dunkin’ in full uniform and handing out the Drive Thru orders. Customers reacted to seeing him in person, and one woman took a selfie with him. At the end, Jenifer Lopez makes an appearance, pulling up to the drive thru and asking him to save her a glazed donut. 
  3. General Motors and Netflix had an advertisement with Will Ferrell where he traveled in a GM car through popular Netflix shows. “Army of the Dead,” “Squid Games,” “Bridgerton,” and “Stranger Things” are all featured as Will Ferrell travels through the Netflix world. 
  4. PopCorners “Breaking Good” featured Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul reprise their roles from “Breaking Bad.” After creating the PopCorners, Tuco Salamanca approves of the PopCorners and wants to sell them, but asks for seven flavors. The text at the end reveals that PopCorners has recently created a seventh flavor.
  5. Kia’s “Binkey Dad” advertisement showed a Dad racing back to get a forgotten binkey, while driving a Kia Telluride of course. Out of all the car advertisements during the Super Bowl, this had the highest engagement rate, with cars.com data searches for the car increasing 230% after the advertisement (Forbes). 
  6. e.l.f. makeup – eyes. lips. face. sticky. The advertisement featured Jennifer Coolidge getting ready using the popular power grip primer. She opens up the box, and the product is so effective that objects around her, including her phone and the shower door stick to her face while she is on a phone call. 
  7. The “Not So Clueless” Rakuten commercial featured Alicia Silverstone reviving her role as Cher from “Clueless” to explain the uses for the shopping platform. The movie scene where Cher participates in a class debate was reworked to be a debate about why you should use Rakuten, and make viewers think about the original movie. 
  8. “Jack’s New Angle,” the Doritos advertisement for the new flavor of their chips, plays on the shape of a Dorito inspiring Jack Harlow to play the Triangle. He becomes a successful Triangle player, but loses out on winning the award for player of the year to Elton John. This advertisement also featured an appearance from Missy Elliot.
  9. “#FixedonPixel” demonstrated the editing features available on the Google Pixel, where you can remove unwanted parts of the background and unblur photos. The magic eraser and unblur buttons fix your images with one tap, the ad even had a cat using the phone to fix its picture. It had celebrity appearances from Amy Schumer, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Doja Cat using the tools to fix images.
  10. “The Farmer’s Dog,” an online dog food company, had an advertisement featuring a heartwarming story where a labrador grows up alongside a girl. The dog starts as a puppy and grows older as the girl goes to college, gets married, and starts her own family. The advertisment focused on the idea of helping your dog lead a healthy life, the goal of the Farmer’s Dog company. Their dog food was featured in the advertisement, but the focus was on the dog.