For years, I’ve reviewed Super Bowl ads because I’ve been concerned that these highly popular ads have undesirable features – violence, sexist, and ageism.
This year, there were fewer ads about violent movies, which was an improvement. When you have the violent game of football along with lots of violent ads, it’s a level of violence that’s concerning.
The only violent ad I saw during Sunday’s game was Sharon Stone in a Squarespace ad, throwing computers around because she was upset that someone had already used her name for a domain. This is an improvement because I remember Betty White getting tackled to the ground in a candy bar ad and a man getting slapped over a sandwich in another one.
Most of the ads this year were mediocre, in my opinion, although a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl 60 costs about $8 million, but some companies have paid more than $10 million for their ad.
This year, health seemed to be more prevalent in the Super Bowl ads. Weight-loss drugs were hyped and a controversial ad from Hims and Hers, touted a blood test designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer before symptoms show up.
An increase in AI ads also was new. AI, which makes it difficult to determine what’s real and what’s not every day, is, unfortunately, having more and more influence in our lives.
Best ads
Detect the SOS. Octavia Spencer and Sofia Vergara tell people about the campaign to inform people with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes that they may be missing a hidden signal from their kidneys that alerts them to increased risk for cardiovascular events such as heart attack or stroke.
Novartis. In “Relax, It’s a Blood Test,” Bruce Arians, Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle, and others talk about the importance of prioritizing early prostate cancer detection through the PSA blood test.
Budweiser. Budweiser’s ad shows a baby bird making friends with a horse. The bird grows up to become a bald eagle, and flies into the sky, wings spread.
Silly ads
Pringles. Sabrina Carpenter wants a real man so she gets one with a man made out of Pringles.
Bud Lite. Post Malone, Peyton Manning, and Shane Gillis are at a wedding. Malone goes sliding and screaming down a hill after a beer keg that got loose.
Instacart. Benson Boone and Ben Stiller are in a duet singing about bananas, backed by a dancing banana and carrot. Boone executes his backflip but Stiller doesn’t.
T-Mobile. The Backstreet Boys sing to a T-Mobile store full of fans, including Pierson Fodé and Druski.
Xfinity. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Samuel L. Jackson, and Richard Attenborough reunite in Jurassic Park, where a representative from Xfinity internet saves the prehistoric amusement park from disaster.
Dunkin’ Donuts. Ben Affleck gets Good Will Hunting jokes from Jason Alexander, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Jaleel White, Alfonso Ribeiro, Jasmine Guy, Ted Danson, and Tom Brady.
Michelob Ultra. Kurt Russell helps a young skier, Lewis Pullman, so he can so he can perform with pro snowboarder Chloe Kim and ice hockey star T.J. Oshie.
TurboTax. Adrian Brody gets upset because he can’t emote on how difficult it is to use TurboTax because Turbo Tax is easy to use.
Worst ads
Hims and Hers. The company promotes a new product, a blood test designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear. The test is controversial because it gives false results half of the time, according to health officials.
Draftking. DraftKings advertises its live bet features for its sportsbook, and they used Saturday Night Live actors Colin Jost and Michael Che, who were faking being live and were actually in a closet.
Coinbase. The lyrics of the Backstreet Boys song “Everybody” is used by Coinbase karaoke-style to announce its return.
Google Gemini. A mom and child use AI to see what the rooms and yard in their new home could look like including “painting” the child’s room blue.
Svedka. Svedka, a vodka brand, made the first Super Bowl ad entirely created using AI. Two robots make drinks with Svedka and then dance.
Fanatics Sportsbook. Kendall Jenner tell you how to “bet on” the right things like men because she’s learned the hard way. She dates basketball players and then bets on them to lose, because any NBA star she hooks up with is immediately cursed.
Poppi. Charli XCX opens the soda in a class room and chaos breaks out. Then things return to normal and a guy next to her asks if he can get one.
Hellman’s. Andy Samberg parodies “Sweet Carolina,” then squirt mayonnaise on strangers’ sandwiches.
Liquid I.V. Liquid I.V. is a product that you can add to your water to increase hydration. The company used singing toilets that eventually urged you to look at the color of your pee to see if you need to hydrate more.
Uber Eats. Matthew McConaughey taunts Bradley Cooper with a “conspiracy theory” about how football is only about selling food, “foodball,” in a spot for UberEats.
Wells Fargo. Rick Rolls bursts into people’s lives when they score a financial win.
Oaikos. Kathryn Hahn pushes a downed San Francisco cable car up a hill thanks to the superhuman strength bestowed upon her by one of the brand’s protein shakes.
Ritz Crackers. Bowen Yang and Don Draper are in “Ritz Island,” where a party takes place every day, all day and night. They can go if their feet don’t touch the ground, so the ride with Scarlett Johansson on a jet ski over sand.
Amazon Alexea+. Chris Hesworth and his wife Elsa Pataky imagine all the ways he could be killed.
Rocket and Redfin. Two families, one White and one Latino, living next to each other get off on the wrong foot. After the White family’s dog runs off in a storm, the Latino family finds and returns the dog, resulting in hugs, tears, and friendship.
Final thoughts. With about 100 ads shown at Super Bowl LX, that’s an estimated $800 million spent, nearly a billion dollars. It’s an amazing waste of resources in a country where there are so many needs such as affordable housing and food insecurity.
