Super Bowl 2016: The Ads
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl so the pressure was on for this year’s ads to deliver. With a record price tag of £3.5 million per 30 second slot, the stakes were high and companies pulled in the big names to bolster up their brand.
The days of a Super Bowl short viral video strategy are gone and this year’s campaigns focused on shareable, engaging content that would pull consumers into the heart of their online campaigns.
We’ve returned to the office bright and early after watching Peyton Manning make Super Bowl history, and the Super Bowl ad breaks are the hot topic of conversation. With over 60 to choose from, we’ve rounded up our top 10 of this year’s ads:
1. Adobe ‘Wager’
Adobe strikes a nerve for marketers everywhere with this witty ad highlighting just how important the Super Bowl is for the advertising world. A nervous man at the bar explains he has millions riding on the game – not on the outcome, but on the sheer amount he’s spent on a dubious cream cheese advert. If the punters reactions are anything to go by – he lost the bet.
2. Bud Light
Bud light recruited Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen to launch their new political spoof campaign to ‘raise one to right now’. All we can say is that their campaign is a damn sight better than Trumps.
3. Honda ‘Somebody to Love’
A Sheep singing Queen classics. We can’t argue with that.
4. Heinz ‘Wiener Stampede’
The animal theme continues with Heinz offering a stampede of dachshunds dressed in hotdog buns. Dogs dash towards the condiments in slow motion to Harry Nilsson’s classic love song, ‘Without You’.
5. Budweiser ‘Helen Mirren’
No one delivers a withering insult like Helen Mirren. With a barrage of increasingly brilliant put downs she succeeds in making her opinion of ‘oxygen wasting’ drunk drivers abundantly clear. Slowly sipping on a bottle of Bud she succinctly sums up in her precise clipped tone, ‘If your brain was donated to science, science would return it.’ She ends with the life lesson that we would all do well to live by: ‘don’t be a pillock.’
6. T Mobile ‘Restricted Bling’
Drake’s recent dance moves in ‘Hotline Bling’ caused an internet sensation as we all marvelled at his carefree and nonchalant dad dancing. Spawning plenty of meme’s and amusing GIFs the rappers moves make their way into the latest TMobile advert. We would have loved to see a version where ‘device eligible for upgrade after 24 months’ was squeezed into the tune.
7. Doritos ‘Doritos Baby’
Doritos went for a comedic ad this year as a pregnant woman having an ultrasound finds her significant other happily munching on a bag of Doritos at her side. They do make the perfect Super Bowl snack, afterall.
8. Pokemon ‘#Pokemon20’
Joining the Super Bowl in celebrating a big birthday this year, Pokemon led their campaign with the motivational tagline ‘Train On’ to mark its 20th anniversary. This ad definitely hit a lot of people with deep nostalgic feelings.
9. Hyundai ‘Ryanville’
Championed by a celebrity name and face that is everywhere right now (especially following the impending release of his latest film ‘Deadpool’ on 12th Feb), Hyundai used Ryan Reynolds and his good looks to gain traction around their ad. Multiple Ryans romance women around Ryanville, leaving the ad open to a Valentine’’s Day tie-in post Super Bowl.
10. Amazon ‘#BaldwinBowl’
Amazon recruited Alec Baldwin to make a humorous nod to last year’s ‘deflate gate’ controversy in their tongue-in-cheek ad.
