The 2025 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

Welcome to the 2025 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LIX is history and the Eagles are decisive Super Bowl champions! And it’s time to reveal our judging panel’s (me) top honors for this year’s Super Bowl ads.

Everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy. But our Super Bowl Ad Awards may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck and the ones that sucked. That means highlighting the ads that resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second and had a beer or two (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

Best Ad That Screams "We Have No New Ideas" Award

Co-opting a catchphrase from a 25-year old movie for your Super Bowl ad concept? Check!

Using a cheap, attention-getting stunt to generate "buzz" before the Super Bowl? Affirmative!

Congratulations Coors Light for hitting the "We're Creatively Bankrupt" daily double! Like actual Coors Light, their "Got A Case of the Mondays" spot featuring sloths having a bad day was empty and flavorless. A line from the funny movie Office Space, Coors Light adapted "Case of the Mondays" into an unfunny concept for their Super Bowl spot. But Coors Light doubled down on their bad idea with pre-game ads with an intentional misspelling to generate cheap buzz. (Pro tip: If you have to explain your concept and stunt before the ad runs, you're doing it wrong.) Honestly, a silver bullet should have been used to kill this idea before it ever came to life.

The "Please, Just Go Away!" Ad Award

Uber Eats gave us a celebrity-studded spot on the history of football … or something. But piled atop a full season of Matthew McConaughey playing a middle-aged Wooderson for Uber Eats, this ad was not alright, alright, alright! Too many celebrity cameos, too many contrived scenarios for all those celebrities and too many concepts jammed into one spot. But, ultimately, this spot earned its award for the use of not one but two of the most overexposed pitchmen of our time; McConaughey and Peyton Manning. That McConaughey also appeared in not one, but two, SalesForce ads (and I'm still not sure what the hell SalesForce does) didn't help. Please advertisers, there are pitchmen who can do the same thing McConaughey and Manning are doing for your brand who would work for less. And they'd be far less annoying and overexposed.

Honorable Mention: Jesus, He Gets Us

As a concept, the He Gets Us message is tired and hasn't evolved. And while it's still trying to be a show-stopper, the message really falls flat on Super Bowl Sunday. The spot asked us to ponder, "What is Greatness?" Even with Johnny Cash singing Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, this spot was not "greatness."

Best "Close But No Cigar" Super Bowl Ad Award

The Ram Trucks spot featuring Glen Powell as Goldilocks could have been a classic among Super Bowl ads. A celebrity in an absurd situation can always play when it sells the product. Instead, Dodge overplayed their hand and overproduced the ad. Instead of cutting through the noise, there was too much screaming, too many booms and it was ultimately more noise. In the end, it was a :60 spot that would have had more impact as a :30. 

Best Ad That Put Everyone To Sleep Award

Jeep has a long history of room-quieting Super Bowl ads featuring big-name celebrities waxing poetically about freedom and America. Those ads can work in the right time and place. This year, however, Jeep chose to have Harrison Ford present a monotonous, ponderous, two minute monologue on freedom, acceptance and America in the 4th quarter of a blowout game. Though many viewers likely were still paying attention at that point, I'd bet that spot didn't hold their attention for the full two minutes. Even the novelty of Harrison Ford as spokesperson had worn off by the cute payoff at the end. And, for all the mention of freedom and America, did anyone bother to notice the irony that Jeep is owned by Netherlands-based Stellantis?

The Office Dog Honors Memorial Award

Named in memory of my beloved Office Dog (he was the goodest of boys!), this award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in a Super Bowl ad. But, it seems monkeys are passé in Super Bowl ads these days and dogs were a rare commodity too. Other than sloths and NerdWallet's talking manatee, animals were scant in this year's ads. So, this award goes to the plucky young Budweiser Clydesdale that was too young to join the team but bravely pushes a dropped keg to a bar. However, while it likely made everyone say "Awwwww," it will have zero impact on Budweiser's flat sales. 

The Super Bowl Ad WTF? Award

Streaming service Tubi gave us a weird concept about a kid born with a skin cowboy hat. or was he born with a cowboy hat-shaped head? Whatever it was, the kid (and later the adult) liked Westerns and therefore Tubi was the streaming service for him. Or something. I think the spot ran twice and it was still too weird for the concept to make sense. 

Best Ad That Didn't Make Fetch Happen Award

Easy Mean Girls reference aside, Fetch is an app, or something. And they pulled a cheap stunt with a million dollar giveaway in $10,000 just for downloading and opening the app. I still don't know what the app does and I didn't scan the QR code that was on the screen for the duration of the app. Throw in that this ad ran at the 2-minute warning break in the 4th quarter of a blowout game and this was a big waste of time and money. And for the people that did see it, it was quickly forgotten among a sea of better – and earlier – Super Bowl ads. (Note the ad linked above is a "making of" video, since it appears the spot itself isn't online.)

The Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic Water Cooler Winner

This year, I found the Super Bowl ads awash in mediocrity. But from that morass of mediocrity, two stood above the rest. In fact, these were the two that I actually did want to go back and watch again. 

The Doritos ad did everything a Super Bowl ad should do. It was fun, engaging, cut through the noise and had a nice payoff. My only issue was it ran in the 1st quarter, which it might get lost among the other attempts at Super Bowl ad blockbusters. 

The other ad I thought was great was the Stella Artois Two David's ad. Here, David Beckham discovers he has a long-lost brother, also named David. Having Matt Damon as the other David, along with some witty dialogue made this spot, fun, memorable, and effective Even though it came late in the 4th quarter, this ad was good enough that the people who actually saw it took note and will be talking about it tomorrow. 

So, there ya’ go… my Super Bowl Ad Awards for 2025. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites, and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2025 football seas

The 2024 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

 Welcome to the 2024 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LVIII is history and the Chiefs are again Super Bowl champions! And it’s time to reveal our judging panel’s (me) top honors for this year’s Super Bowl ads.

Everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy. But our Super Bowl Ad Awards may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck and the ones that sucked. Our goal is to recognize the ads that resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second and had a beer or two (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The Super Bowl A For Execution But… Award

Pfizer ran a fun little ad that celebrated science and innovation through history and featured Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo and others. OK, fine. It's a nice little pat-yourself-on-the-back corporate feel-good ad that was likely made to counter Pfizer's ad encouraging people to get a Covid vaccination (which obviously lit up the anti-vax crowd). But right at the end of the spot, the company switches gears and shows us a little girl leaving the hospital as "LetsOutdoCancer.com" appears on the screen. It was as if they couldn't decide on what message they wanted to emphasize and, instead, tried to jam in both ideas. Ultimately, it made the first part of the ad appear superfluous and silly when superimposed with the serious message of beating cancer as the (overly broad) call to action.

https://youtu.be/fwvjimuwVyY?si=pndsrF_zPMlQiFfn

The Office Dog Honors Memorial Award

This is a tough one, as this year marks the first Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic without the judging help of my beloved Office Dog. He was the goodest of boys! In Opie's memory, this award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl ads these days. But this year, animals overall were a rare commodity (save for animated creatures and the Planet of the Apes movie promo). Reese's gave us a fun spot that checked all the classic Super Bowl TV spot boxes (even though it got old and predictable fast), and it featured a doggie twirling a Hula Hoop around its "waist." Ultimately, the Office Dog Award winner was Budweiser, who featured a yellow Labrador saving the day and leading the Budweiser Clydesdales through a blinding snowstorm to make a heroic delivery. It was short (only :30 seconds), it was in the fourth quarter and it will have zero impact on Budweiser's sales, but it did have a cute doggie. 

https://youtu.be/8C4DNSV3IRE?si=6BxFt9Y4OLwJjJMd

The Super Bowl Ad WTF? Award

A super Pac supporting anti-vaxxer wacko Robert Kennedy Jr's run for the presidency was a blatant ripoff of an ad run by his Uncle, John F. Kennedy in 1960. In fact, it appeared the spot simply interspersed RFK Jr into the original ad. The ad was campy in the 60's, but it was crap in the 2020s. That he's going for name association and the ad was essentially a cartoon that did nothing but repeat "Kennedy for President" will do nothing long-term for his chances. And yes, it was seen by millions of people, but so was every other ad. Hence, just like RFK Jr's campaign, this really bad spot will be soon forgotten. 

Honorable Mention: For the second year in a row, The Jesus, He Gets Us ads. It may be Sunday, but Super Bowl Sunday is not the day to schlep spirituality to the masses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXJJRjGVT4

The Please Just Go Away Award

The Temu ad in the first quarter was bad. The tagline, "Shop like a billionaire" was also stupid. And, the spot, which was a weird animated spot that featured a singer crooning nothing but "ooh ooh Temu" for :30 seconds at a time was just painful. What is Temu? In the ad, it came off as an app to buy cheap crap. What is it in reality? It's an e-commerce site that sells cheap crap from China. So that was bad enough. But then the spot ran again in the second quarter. And again in the third quarter. And, just for good measure, once more during overtime (at a discount price). I never wanted to see the ad or the advertiser again after the first view of the spot. By the fourth viewing, I was wondering how much I'd need to drink to forget I ever saw the ad in the first place. Yes, a lot of people will be talking about it because it was so bad. But won't translate to sales. Blessedly for all of us, the ad isn't online, so we won't have to see it again here!

Best Superfluous Use Of A Celebrity Award

This is always a tight race as there were once again far too many celebrities packed into too many ads. Aubrey Plaza appeared in her standard sullen and sardonic persona for Mtn Dew Blast. Kate McKinnon showed up to shill Hellman's Mayonnaise. Tom Brady was in several spots. T-Mobile brought back Zach Braff and Donald Faison singing and dancing to the Flashdance theme and included Jason Momoa and Jennifer Beals. Uber Eats reunited Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer. But no advertiser topped M&M's this year, who gave us a weird ad that celebrated runners-up and featured Dan Marino, Bruce Smith, Terrell Owens (none of whom ever won a Super Bowl) and, in a wacky twist, Scarlett Johansson (who has never won an Oscar). It was a lame concept and, on a day like today, nowhere near good enough to break through the noise. 

https://youtu.be/9UBWFIArQxs?si=-N9q-F8m8JpoLMf9

Best "We're GettingThe Band Back Together" Award

Budweiser and Bud Light used to own Super Bowl advertising. Some of the stuff the two brands did in the 90s and early aughts are some of the most memorable ads ever made. But, these days, Budweiser simply utilizes the same, formulaic heartstring-tugging ad with the Clydesdales and dogs every year. And Bud Light saw its fortunes plunge in 2023 after inflaming conservative America by having the audacity to have a transgender influencer endorse the brand. So, in 2024, Bud Light went back to the well and tried to produce a rollicking, memorable Super Bowl spot like they used to. This one featured the emergence of a wish-granting beer genie and wacky consequences ensued. But it was too quick, had too many cuts, tried too hard, and ultimately, was too ambitious. It won't hurt Bud Light, but it won't fix their plunging sales either. 

https://youtu.be/Cl--5P79iRs?si=uOXre9HnmEmO-GyC

The Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic Water Cooler Winner

This year, there were some truly good Super Bowl ads. That's notable because it's not always the case. Amidst all the explosions, yelling and clichés, a few spots rose to the top. The CeraVe spot featuring Michael Cera as the alleged inventor of CeraVe was amusing. Dunkin' Donuts killed in bringing back Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez while including Matt Damon, Tom Brady and others (Damon modifying his famous Goodwill Hunting line to "How do ya like them donuts" was inspired). BMW's ad featuring Christopher Walken was great as well. But I thought State Farm's " Like A Good Neighbaa" with Arnold Schwarzenegger was the best and funniest ad of the night. Nicely paced (a rarity among many ads this year) with a punchline and tagline that, though repeated, didn't get old, the spot just worked and stood out among the current trend of trying-too-hard-to-be-memorable Super Bowl ads. That it ran early in the game and then again during overtime will also help the memorability factor on Monday morning. 

https://youtu.be/p8ZYgb8Osek?si=RkO9PUuQhRvdT_Q-

So, there ya’ go… my Super Bowl Ad Awards for 2024. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorits, and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2024 football season start?

The 2023 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

 

Welcome to the 2023 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LVII is history and the Chiefs are Super Bowl champions! And it’s time to reveal our judging panel’s (me and Office Dog) top honors for this year’s Super Bowl ads.

Everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy. But our Super Bowl Ad Awards may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck and the ones that sucked. Our goal is to recognize the ads that resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The A For Execution But… Award

For a change, this year Dodge went light with a spot for their not-yet-available Ram REV electric truck. The ad parodied various ads for erectile dysfunction and did a nice job of it with the tagline of "Premature Electrification." Normally this is a sound Super Bowl ad strategy. But it got really old, real fast. And perhaps missing the irony, Dodge is using the term "premature" for a vehicle that isn't even available yet. This begs the question, was the ad written knowing the truck wouldn't be available? Or was it produced once they realized they'd be spending $6 to $7 million to advertise a product no one can buy yet? Either way, this ad and any impressions it made, will be long forgotten by the time the Dodge Ram REV is available for purchase. 

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl ads these days. Aside from CGI-generated dancing animals in the Jeep Electric Boogie ad, this year's Super Bowl ads had lots of dogs. The Farmer's Dog dog food ads scored major "awwww" points with their two sweet ads. But the absolute best ad with dogs was Amazon's "Saving Sawyer." In telling the story of the beloved family dog who expresses his separation anxiety in funny, destructive ways, Amazon engaged viewers, made them laugh, and still managed to stick the landing. Though it only minimally extolled the virtues of the company, it was still better than what Amazon has run recently. And it was also one of the better ads of the night. 

The WTF? Award

The second ad of the evening from game developer Limit Break was simply brutal. It featured oddly animated characters, a large QR code, and annoying music and sound effects screaming "Scan Me!" for a chance at a "free digital collectible." I'm pretty sure the NFT frenzy has already passed anyway (much like crypto), so I doubt too many people ran toward their TV with the smartphone in hand to scan that QR code. Either way, spending $6-$7 million for a Super Bowl ad, throwing together an awful, annoying ad that's nothing more than "Scan me!" was an incredible waste of money, even for a sketchy game developer.This ad may play in television market like Japan. But it was game over in the U.S. on Super Bowl Sunday.

Note, the Limit Break ad was so bad that it appears no one has bothered to put it on the Internet. Instead, to get a feel for that spot, please enjoy this "teaser" ad:

Honorable Mention: The Jesus, He Gets Us ads. It may be Sunday, but Super Bowl Sunday is not the day to schlep spirituality to the masses.

The Please Just Go Away Award

While all the ads featuring QR codes collectively earned a close second for this honor, M&Ms took the top prize. the brand's silly attempt to play on social outrage over spokesperson representation gave us Maya Rudolph selling her Ma&Ya's chocolate-covered clams instead. This was followed by a live in-game sponsorship announcement and a bring-it-full-circle spot after the game. It wasn't funny and the whole attempt to be edgy, controversial, and cute failed miserably.

Honorable Mention: Pringles' concept of people getting their hand stuck in Pringles cans was stupid (and kind of disgusting) when it was new. The same-but-different idea didn't work this year. It's time to try a new concept.

Best Superfluous Use Of A Celebrity Award

This was a tight race as there were far too many celebrities packed into too many ads. Adam Driver starred in a pointless and quickly forgotten ad for SquareSpace. T-Mobile gave us Bradley Cooper and his Mom. But Draft Kings simply crammed too many celebrities into a :30 second ad that the message and most of the celebrities got overlooked. You can make a spot work with lots of celebrities, but it helps if you also have a story to tell and the celebrities are all instantly recognizable. Otherwise, you have no form or substance, which perfectly encapsulates the Draft kings ad…

Best Unfunny Ad Based On A Movie That Actually Was Funny Award

For the first time in more than 30 years, Anheuser Busch gave up being the exclusive Super Bowl beer advertiser. While here wasn't an ad for the legacy brand Budweiser, there was a fun (but cliché) spot for Busch Light. There was also an immediately forgettable ad for Bud Light (pro tip: you can't use sex to sell swill). Unfortunately, there was also a bloated, staggeringly unfunny ad for Michelob Ultra. Michelob Ultra seems popular among golfers, so an ad that evoked the movie Caddyshack should have been a no-brainer. Instead, Michelob Ultra simply reenacted scenes from the film with celebrities (Serena Williams, Tony Romo, Alex Morgan, the old guy from Succession) reading the lines. However, other than a cameo from Caddyshack co-star Michael O'Keefe, there was nothing funny or even engaging about the spot. AB may have saved some money by giving up exclusivity, but they should have spent more of that money on creativity.

The Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic Water Cooler Winner

In spite of all the dreck, there were some good spots in this year's Super Bowl ads. I thought Doritos' Try Another Angle spot worked well. Amazon's Saving Sawyer (the Office Dog Award winner above) will still have people talking on Monday too. But for my money, the best Super Bowl ad this year was the first ad of the game. That was the Dunkin' Donuts ad featuring Ben Affleck. Granted, David Letterman originated the concept of a celebrity in the drive-thru 30 years ago. But the Dunkin' ad featured Affleck leaning into all his meme clichés, his Boston accent, humor, and a great kicker at the end from Jennifer Lopez. It may have run in the first quarter, but it was a smart enough ad that plenty of people will still be laughing about it tomorrow and in the weeks and months to come. 

So, there ya’ go… my Super Bowl Ad Awards for 2023. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites, and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2023 football season start?

The 2022 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

Welcome to the 2022 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LVI is history and the Rams are Super Bowl champions! And it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) top honors for this year's Super Bowl ads.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our Super Bowl Ad Awards may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck, the ones that sucked, and the ads resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

Best "We Phoned It In"Award

Budweiser's tagline has long been "The King of Beers." And I'm old enough to remember when Budweiser was also the King of Super Bowl Advertising. Yes kids, there was a time when Budweiser Super Bowl ads were funny, buzzworthy, and memorable. 

But, it seems Budweiser has abdicated both its royal titles. While losing market share to an array of trendy seltzers, ciders, and trendy microbrew swill, and running among the gamut of screaming, over-the-top Super Bowl ads, Budweiser chose to just burnish its brand with a schmaltzy spot featuring a dog worrying about the health of its Clydesdale buddy. The 60-second ad posted below was a great spot that would have quieted the room and made viewers say "awwwww." But, unfortunately, Budweiser ran a too-short, 30-second version during the 2:00 warring commercial break that didn't have time to actually connect with the audience (especially at that point in the game). Why they ran the :30 instead of the :60 (which is embedded below), I don't know. But I do know Budweiser's advertising agency can make those ads in their sleep, it won't sell much beer and, pretty much like the Budweiser beer brand, it will quickly be forgotten.

The A For Execution But... Award

The first ad of the game came from Toyota and told the story of the McKeever brothers, one of whom lost his sight but still won Paralympic Games gold medals with the help and support of his brother. It was really an inspiring spot, that suffered from running at the start of the game and the use of the edgy, senseless please-use-this-in-a-hashtag tagline, "Start Your Impossible." How that applies to selling Toyotas, I don't know. But it was a well-done spot. 

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl ads these days. In fact, animals of any kind were barely featured in this year's crop of Super Bowl ads. The ad for Flamin' Hot Doritos and Cheetos gave us various wildlife eating junk food and beatboxing (though feeding any animal Flamin' Hot Doritos or Cheetos should be considered animal cruelty). That pretty much left the Kia ad for its EV6 electric car. Sentient, animated dogs were in vogue this year, and the Kia ad featured an electric "Robo Dog," who wants a human owner, chasing an electric car. All in all, it was a fun spot that at least had some form of animal in it (even if it was an animated Robo Dog).

The WTF? Award

The ads that Matthew McConaughey did for Lincoln several years ago were strange. The ads that McConaughey did for Wild Turkey were equally weird. So, true to form, SalesForce's Super Bowl ad starred Matthew McConaughey spouting lots of self-righteous tropes about what "we need to do" here on earth instead of exploring alternate realities or other planets (take that Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos!). Oh did I mention that McConaughey did all this while floating around in a hot air balloon while wearing a spacesuit? SalesForce is essentially a software company and the payoff to the spot was the company (through McConaughey) declaring themselves "#TeamEarth." Short of taking pokes at Zuckerberg and Bezos, I have no clue what SalesForce was trying to accomplish with this spot. 

Honorable Mention

Rakuten is a shopping app, or something. But I honestly spent the entirety of this ad thinking it was an online betting ad. I've watched it four times and I'm still not sure what Rakuten is. 

The Please Just Go Away Award

Pro tip when writing Super Bowl ads; being annoying will only get you so far. Needless to say, Carvana's ad featuring a wildly annoying lady annoyingly describing everything that made her car purchase through Carvana wonderful got real old, real fast. If buying a car through Caravan is this annoying, I think I'd rather get strong-armed in finance by a traditional car dealer while undergoing a root canal.

Best Ad That Looked Like a 90s Era Computer Screensaver

Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange app, ran an ad that was nothing but a QR code bouncing around the screen. Those who ran to their screen and scanned the code were taken to the Coinbase webpage and, if they downloaded the app, they could be rewarded with a token amount of cryptocurrency and a chance to win even more in Bitcoin. There was a brief screen at the end highlighting Coinbase, but overall, it was a cheap gimmick to draw more potential investors who don't fully understand how crypto works.

Best Superfluous Use Of A Celebrity

See Salesforce above.

The Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic Water Cooler Winner

While the Uber Eats "Don't Eats" spot was fun and memorable, it took too long to pay off. That said, Gwyneth Paltrow was totally believable as being dumb enough to eat a candle.

That left the BMW electric vehicle spot featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Salma Hayek as the Greek gods Zeus and Hera, who've retired to Palm Springs (along with their pet pegasus Peggy). As Zeus grows frustrated with the mortal world's electric needs, Hera introduces him to the BMW iX EV "Ultimate Electric Driving Machine." It puts the spark back in Zeus's life and the two happily enjoy the ride as Eddie Grant's "Electric Avenue" plays. It was a funny concept, a well-written ad, and it captured your attention and kept you guessing. It had one of the more amusing fine print disclaimers at the bottom of the screen, too. For my money, it was one of the better, and more memorable Super Bowl ads I've seen in quite a while. 

So, there ya' go... my Super Bowl Ad Awards for 2022. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2022 football season start?

The 2021 Super Bowl Ads For The Non-Poetic

 Welcome to the 2021 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LV is history and the Buccaneers are  Super Bowl champions! COVID sucks! We're all in this together! It takes all of us! Every brand is "here for you!" And it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) top honors for this year's Super Bowl Ad Awards.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our Super Bowl Ad Awards may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck, the ones that sucked, and the ads resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

Best Use Of Identical Stock Footage

A new category for my Super Bowl Ad Awards! Congratulations to Indeed and Guaranteed Rate for showing America that brands and agencies can cheap out, even for their biggest ad spend of the year. Both first-time Super Bowl advertisers not only used stock footage in their spots, they both used the same piece of stock footage! For those curious, look for the Dad carrying a kid on his back. Granted, in the age of COVID, using stock footage certainly makes good sense. But the fact that neither advertiser opted to change their spot even after the duplication came to light just screams "lazy" and "cheap." Fortunately, with Indeed's spot running in the first half and the Guaranteed Rate spot running late when the game was essentially over, it's likely not many people actually noticed, but…

 

The A For Execution But... Award

The Bud Light "Legends" spot generated lots of pre-game buzz by bringing back many of its more famous Super Bowl ad characters from years past. Given that, it could have been really great. But instead, it came across as somewhat contrived and actually served to illustrate just how so-so the brand's ads have been in recent years.

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl advertising these days. In fact, animals of any kind were barely featured in this year's crop of Super Bowl ads. One that did have a good cameo role of a dog was Tide's spot featuring Jason Alexander's ever changing face on a hoodie that's being put through a daily wringer of use. That the spot was pretty funny, ran just before halftime, and earned consideration for the Water Cooler Winner award was an added bonus.

The WTF? Award

We've got a tie for the top prize in the WTF? category between Shift4Shop and Klarna. The Shift4Shop spot gave us weird, futuristic, and tired shots of a a space suit while encouraging viewers to go to another website to win a chance to go to space. Shift4Shop is apparently the e-commerce arm of that website, but the ad did nothing to tell us what Shift4Shop actually is or does. Klarna, (which is a financial service, an app, or something) went kooky in their ad starring with consistently unfunny Maya Rudolph. Problem is, I've watched the ad three times and I'm still not sure what Klarna is or how it works.

The Please Just Go Away Award

Taking The Please Just Go Away Award again (take a shameful bow PuppyBabyMonkey), Mountain Dew gave us a trippy, multi-colored, cloyingly over-the-top spot featuring John Cena and some other, random guy to highlight their new Major Melon flavor. In a cheap ploy for additional views, the brand also offered a contest to see who could count how many bottles of their product appeared in the shot for chance to win a million dollars. While the ad said the flavor was life changing, the spot had me wanting to change the channel.

Honorable Mention

Pringles ran an ad showing us just how fascinating the ability to stack their chips is. T-Mobile ran two spots (including one featuring Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton, and Adam Lambert) to highlight the reliability of their network. Vroom ran an annoying, screechy nightmare scenario to demonstrate how easy they make car buying. The Hellmann's Mayonaise spot featured Amy Schumer as the Fairy Godmayo to highlight how mayonnaise can transform leftover foods. While they're all worthy of Just Go Away Super Bowl Ad Awards, each of those spots was a waste of $5.5 million.

Best Pointless Use Of A Celebrity Award

Scotts Miracle-Gro's ad with Martha Stewart, Carl Weathers, a generic Nascar driver, a guy from "The Office", some exercise lady, and John Travolta dancing with his daughter (but without his toupee), tried to be wacky and humorous. As it also featured Travolta dancing with his daughter, just months after his wife, across Kelli Preston, passed away, it also tried for "touching." It failed on all accounts. Throw in a tagline inviting viewers to text a phone number to enter a contest … or something, and the celebs, and the spot, were forgettable.

Best Trying Too Hard To Make A Statement Award

Jeep shot Bruce Springsteen in a Jeep with no top, in the middle of Kansas, in the dead of winter to emphasize the importance unity and meeting in the middle. It also tried very hard to position Jeep as the preferred vehicle of the "Re-United States of America." In a normal year, this kind of spot would have made Super Bowl parties go silent as everyone absorbed the gravitas of the message. With COVID-19 (hopefully) limiting Super Bowl parties and a divided nation coming off an ugly (unrigged) election, Jeep's attempt to be earnest just fell flat and came across as too preachy.

The Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic Water Cooler Winner

This was a tough one this year. I loved the State Farm spot that continued the theme they'd used all year with Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, and Jake from State Farm. Plus any spot with Paul Rudd will be a winner. Rocket Mortgage ran two similar and equally funny spots with Tracy Morgan that provided a nice one-two punch. The Doritos 3D spot featuring a one-dimensional, flat Matthew McConaughey was incredibly creative, well-written, and terribly funny. Ultimately, however, GM's ad featuring a typically manic Will Ferrell taking on Norway over their electric vehicle production is the one that likely stood out the most to tonight's Super Bowl viewers. And that's the one that will be the most talked about around the water cooler tomorrow!

So, there ya' go... my Super Bowl Ad Awards for 2021. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2021 football season start?

The 2020 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic

Welcome to the 2020 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LIV is history, the Chiefs are  Super Bowl champions, the Great State of Kansas is celebrating, and it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck, the ones that sucked, and the ads resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The A For Execution But... Award

Tide did a four spot arc that left you guessing both what brand was actually advertising and where it was gonna go next. However, while it was well done, amusing, and made plenty of good impressions, the brand did the multi-spot-arc thing in the Super Bowl two or three years ago. Hence, this version was somewhat predictable and the payoff spot in the fourth quarter (when attention spans are fading) left me a flat.

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl advertising these days. In fact, it seemed like fictional creatures far outnumbered the use of real animals in Super Bowl ads this year. Given that, WeatherTech's ad highlighting the CEO's dog and the school of veterinary medicine that helped rid him of his cancer really stood out. What stood out even more was that the spot ended with a link for viewers to donate to the veterinary school without any mention of a Weathertech product. So, while it may not have directly marketed any specific product, Weathertech actually exuded gratitude and more than recouped its investment in warm fuzzies and positive brand impressions.

The WTF Award

New apps and new tech have a long history of dropping the farm for a Super Bowl ad (in 2020, $5.6 million for a :30 ad), but then not quite being able to tell the story of that technology in the time allotted. This year, that technology (Is it an app? A streaming service? Both?) was something called Quibi, which is short for "quick bites." I seem to recall something about "episodes in 10 minutes or less," but it wasn't made clear what, exactly, you'd be watching for 10 minutes or less. Overall, the spot was conceptually tired and took too long to pay off. And thus, for $5.6 million, millions of people may now know the name Quibi, but they still don't know WTF it is…

Honorable Mention

Procter & Gamble apparently couldn't decide which of their brands they wanted to feature. Instead of choosing, they left it up to the public to choose via an interactive website. While that was… odd… they also wound up with 10 or 12 brands all jammed into one :60 second spot. Add in too many celebrity cameos, including comedic actor Rob Riggle as a paper towel roll-ejaculating superhero, and you wound up with a spot that was too busy, too cute, and trying way too hard to be over-the top, even within the confines of Super Bowl ad excess.

The Migod-Did-This-Get-Old-Fast Award

Hyundai tried for some comedic buzz with their ad featuring Boston-bred comedic actors affecting annoyingly bad "Bahston" accents to promote the automaker's Smart Park feature. Unfortunately, the fake Boston accents stopped being funny about :05 seconds into the spot and a smart parking feature isn't exactly life-changing technology. The oh-boy-what-a-surprise cameo from Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz at the end also provided no redemption.

The Please, For The Love Of God, Go Away Award

Featuring the Adult Swim cartoon characters from Rick and Morty, this ad was notable for Rick screaming "We're trapped in a Pringles commercial," as he's surrounded by several robotic Mortys, "flavor stacking" chips. I fully admit I'm not a member of the demographic that spot was aiming for but, for what seemed like an eternity, we were all trapped in a painfully annoying Pringles commercial.

Honorable Mention

For no reason other than cheap buzz, Planters "killed" Mr. Peanut in advance of the Super Bowl, then predictably resurrected him on game day in the form of Baby Yoda Peanut. It was a cheap, lazy stunt that, when you add in the Baby Yoda Peanut merch they immediately began flogging, just came off as crass.

The Best Waste Of Money On A Dying Brand Award

Budweiser continued their recent trend of running uplifting, feel-good ads celebrating typical, hard-working, everyday Americans who deserve a classic American beer like Budweiser. Trouble is, Budweiser is no longer American-owned, craft beer consumption is growing all across the nation, and market share for traditional light lager beer brands like Budweiser is nosediving. That the ad didn't even feature the company's signature Clydesdales, and Budweiser basically threw a whole lot of money to make America feel good about a beer they're not gonna buy.

Best Pointless Use Of A Pointless Celebrity Award

The Sabra Hummus spot was the runaway winner for most pointless use of a celebrity honors. Why? Because it featured not just one celebrity but instead crammed 19 "celebrities" into one :30 second spot. Throw in that some of those "celebrities" weren't exactly A-list names (or even B-list for that matter), and that the ad tried to force feed some quasi-indecipherable hashtag, and the Sabra Hummus ad was ho-hum and fairly superfluous.

Honorable Mention

Coke got a lot of pre-game buzz for their Coke Energy spot that featured Martin Scorsese and Jonah Hill. But, for my money, it took too long to pay off, there was no real or imagined connection between Scorsese and Hill, and the whole concept (if there actually was one) just seem contrived. That I spent the first two-thirds of it thinking it was another Quibi spot also didn't help.

The Water Cooler Winner

I'll admit it, I went into this one biased, having seen the Jeep Groundhog Day spot before the game. In fact, based on my social media activity, I think it might have been hard for anyone to have not seen it before the game. As it happened, the spot ran in the fourth quarter, which only added to the anticipation (and the number of people looking for it). That it was funny and featured Bill Murray reprising his role in a beloved movie was great. But it also went beyond the movie and did something that sometimes gets lost in Super Bowl ads; it actually showed the features and benefits of the Jeep Gladiator. That's right, a Super Bowl ad that actually tried to sell a products on some of its merits. Revolutionary! And while there were some other amusing and well done ads this year (Cheetos, Quicken Loan-Rocket Mortgage/Doritos Cool Ranch/T-Mobile/Avocados From Mexico), the Jeep Groundhog Day ad stood out the most, and that's the one that will be the most talked about around the water cooler tomorrow!

So, there ya' go... my take on the Super Bowl ads for 2020. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2020 football season start?

The 2019 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non Poetic

Welcome to the 2019 Super Bowl Ad Awards For The Non-Poetic! Super Bowl LIII is history, the Patriots are once again Super Bowl champions, America is throughly sick of Tom Brady, and it's time to reveal our judging panel's (me and Office Dog) favorites from this year's crop of Super Bowl ads.

Note that, while everyone has their opinions of the best and worst, funniest and failures, award winners and money wasters, noteworthy and not worthy, our honors may stray wildly from the standard accolades for Super Bowl ads. Our goal is to recognize the Super Bowl ads that stuck, the ads that sucked, and the ads resonated with the person who watched the game first, the commercials second, and had a beer or two while actually enjoying the entire show (from the viewpoint of an advertising guy who worked Super Bowl promotions in bars for 15 years). So, without further non-poetry…

The A For Execution But... Award

Olay went all in in this year's Super Bowl with a TV spot and quarter sponsorship. While a women's face cream buying into the Super Bowl was interesting to see, their spot left just a bit to be desired. Titled and hashtagged Killer Skin, the Olay spot brought us Sarah Michelle Gellar and wove in themes from her turns in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Ultimately, however, the problem was it was too busy, too loud, and too convoluted to get the brand message across.

The Office Dog Honors Award

This award honors the best use of animals (preferably monkeys) in Super Bowl ads. However, monkeys seem to be passé in Super Bowl advertising these days and, apparently, so are dogs or animals in general, though WeatherTech did feature some good dogs in their ad highlighting their PetComfort line of products. However, though he didn't do much, Budweiser's ad featuring one of their dalmatians with his ears flapping in the wind did the best job of  scoring all the warm fuzzies with a dog in a Super Bowl ad this year…

The WTF Award

In a year filled with plenty of WTF moments (looking at you TurboTax), Mint Mobile took the prize for their lame attempt at creating a Super-Bowl-wacky-buzz ad touting chunky style milk. In the process of the attempt to memorable, they kinda forgot about the purpose of spending big bucks on Super Bowl ads. You know? That whole promote your brand thing…

The Best Ad Only Hardcore Football Fans Completely Got Award

I thoroughly enjoyed the NFL's 100th Anniversary ad. It was wildly entertaining with humor, action, callbacks to some of the league's most memorable moments, and a nod to some of today's current and up-and-coming superstars (hellloooo Baker Mayfield!). The problem was, it was too much. Too many faces, too many cameos, too much action, and a superfluous appearance by a female football player crammed into two minutes and, on top of all that, the casual fan likely didn't know half the players or moments noted in the spot. It was still a great spot that will merit a few more views, but a little more restraint could have created a much better spot…

The Please, For The Love Of God, Go Away Award

In a cheap and lazy ploy, Devour tried very hard to be naughty by implying that their frozen dinners are worthy(?) of online porn-like addiction. Food porn, get it? In fact, their original version even used the word "porn," which was rejected by the network. And, in an even more crass grab for attention, the company's lets-be-naughty strategy included running the full ad (with mention of "porn") on the PornHub site. I never thought anyone would outclass GoDaddy for pointlessly sexist yet tacky Super Bowl advertising, but I'm pretty sure Devour did the job this year:

Best Pointless Use Of A Pointless Celebrity Award

An incredibly huge field of candidates in this category this year. Planters Peanuts ran a great ad that would have done just fine without the pointless appearance of Charlie Sheen and Alex Rodriguez. Colgate's unoriginal, let-try-to-be-buzzy spot featuring Owen Wilson was also celebrity endorsement money that was thrown down the drain (and Seinfeld did that bit 20-something years ago). All of Pepsi's ads with Steve Carell and others just sucked. Bubly Sparkling Water ran a fun ad featuring Michael Bublé that was actually a nice tie-in. However, like Bublé's music, it will be quickly forgotten. And, while Amazon likely got the biggest bang for their buck with their mish-mash ad featuring Harrison Ford, rather than promoting it, the ad actually highlighted all the concerns people have with virtual assistants like Alexa (the ad they should have run, featuring just Harrison Ford, ran after the game).

But those pointless celebrity appearances all paled in comparison to Burger King's ad, which featured Andy Warhol (who died in 1987!) silently opening a Whopper, pouring ketchup, and then dipping the burger in ketchup. The big payoff was the lame hashtag #EatLikeAndy. The clip they used, called "Andy Warhol Eats A Hamburger," was licensed from a documentary film called 66 Scenes From America. It actually could have been so much more, but ultimately Burger King simply wants us to eat like a man who's been dead for 32 years…

Honorable Mention

Stella Artois got lots of nostalgic buzz for their spot that brought back Sarah Jessica Parker as her Sex in the City character Carrie Bradshaw and Jeff Bridges reviving his Jeffrey The Dude Lebowski character from The Big Lebowski. In the end, however, the ad came off as a cheap, uncreative, too over-the-top hook designed solely for max Super Bowl hype. It was already forgotten by the end of the game.

The Water Cooler Winner

There was no debate on this one and it was pretty obvious from the moment it ran who our Water Cooler Award Winner would be. Floating above a sea mediocre ads that just tried too hard or missed the mark, the Bud Light/Game of Thrones ad is what everyone is going to be talking about around the office water cooler on Monday. Bud Light had already set things up with their amusing No Corn Syrup spot (though it won't matter to most beer drinkers, Bud Light did a good job hammering that message home with a couple other spots during the game), but the follow up, starting with typical Bud Light wit, took a very dark, violent, and surprising turn to segue into a fiery reminder that a new Game of Thrones season starts soon on HBO. This is what a Super Bowl ad should be. It was fun, light, unexpected, and very memorable. Nice job and, yea, I'll say it… Dilly Dilly!

So, there ya' go... my take on the Super Bowl ads for 2019. Some good, some bad, some creative, some cliché. Feel free to leave your thoughts, picks, pans, favorites and failures in the comments. And, until then, when does the 2019 football season start?