The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched sporting events on Earth, and a big draw for
viewers who aren't football fans are the creative, funny, and expensive commercials that come
with it.
After more than 50 games since 1967, here are the best Super Bowl ads we've ever seen.
Viewers tuning in to watch the 49ers take on the Bengals back in 1989's Super Bowl XXIII
had a nice surprise waiting for them, even more surprising than the Bengals making the
game in the first place.
We're talking about the Bud Bowl, a "beer versus beer" campaign that left a big impression.
The stop-motion ad series saw Bud Light and Budweiser going head-to-head in an ultimate
battle to determine which was superior.
"This Bud's for you, pal!"
"23 on blue!
Hut hut!"
The Bud Bowl was spread across several commercial breaks, keeping viewers invested up until
a final spot, showing the last play of a tie game.
As time expires, the Budweiser team's kicker makes a field goal, winning the matchup and
leaving viewers with the conclusion that Bud is best.
When supermodel Cindy Crawford stopped to get a Pepsi during 1992's Super Bowl XXVI,
she entered the zeitgeist with the most iconic ad the soda brand has ever come up with.
Set to the tune of Doris Troy's "Just One Look," two young boys watch Crawford, mesmerized.
She walks up to a Pepsi vending machine and takes a long drink while striking a supermodelly
pose.
And then they say what's on every viewer's minds.
"Is that a great new Pepsi can or what?"
The ad was so popular, it still gets parodied.
In 2016, Pepsi recreated it as an animated short using emojis, and Crawford has also
helped James Corden recreate the ad with his own spin.
Which version is sexier?
It's hard to choose.
"Let's get out of here."
For anyone wondering why the last living Golden Girl had such a big career revival, this 2010
Snickers ad is why.
The spot shows Betty playing football, doing about as well as an 88-year-old woman could.
After getting called out by her teammates, she gets handed a Snickers bar, and everything
changes.
The player's not an old lady, he was just playing like one, and all he needed to get
his groove back was a bite of peanutty goodness.
"You're playing like Betty White out there."
"That's not what your girlfriend said!"
"Baby!"
We're not sure if team nutritionists would be down with the snack choice, but the ad
was a hit anyway, sparking a whole campaign using the "You're not you when you're hungry"
slogan.
There was a time when basketball was dominated by two greats: Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.
In 1993, these two went head-to-head on McDonald's behalf during Super Bowl XXVII.
The spot opens with Jordan bringing a Big Mac and fries onto the court, only to find
Bird, who challenges him for the meal with a game of Horse.
"Play ya for it."
"You and me, for my Big Mac?"
"First one to miss watches the winner eat."
The challenge inspires the most extreme game of Horse ever played.
Shot after shot with nothing but net has the two greats escalating things until finally,
they end up calling shots on the top of a skyscraper.
We don't see who wins, but it doesn't matter.
The idea of doing the impossible to get a Big Mac stuck in viewers' minds, making it
one of McDonalds' most successful ads ever.
Monster.com was a fairly new company in 1999 when it purchased three 30-second spots during
Super Bowl XXXIII.
At a cost of $4 million, the spots took up a huge chunk of the company's marketing budget,
but they paid off in a big way.
After the game ended, job searches on the site reportedly surged from 600 per minute
to 2,900.
How'd it happen?
By perfectly playing on people's emotions.
"When I grow up—"
"I want to be underappreciated."
The award-winning spot made viewers dwell upon the jobs they had, and inspired them
to think about the jobs they wanted, a search the company was happy to assist with.
There's a time and place to enjoy Doritos, or at least, that's what some people think.
This ad for the corn chip brand from 2016's Super Bowl 50 featured a mother-to-be calling
out the father of her child for enjoying a snack at her ultrasound.
As she finds out, though, not everyone in the room is bothered by it.
The bizarre ad is the result of a consumer submission contest called "Crash the Super
Bowl," which invited amateurs to submit their own commercial ideas.
It didn't win the contest, but it actually proved more popular with audiences than the
one that won.
It's just that memorable.
In 2007, Snickers kicked up a little controversy, but if you don't take their commercial too
seriously, it's pretty amusing.
The ad opens with a couple guys working on a car.
One of them pulls out a Snickers and starts eating it.
Unable to help himself, the other guy goes to town on the opposite end, Lady and the
Tramp-style.
The two apparently straight men then share an accidental moment of unintended intimacy.
"I think we just accidentally kissed."
"Quick, do something manly."
You don't need us to tell you that some people found this ad offensive, even though it's
more making fun of stereotypes than actually indulging in them.
Regardless of what the ad was trying to say, the mixed response was enough to it get pulled
off the air, but come on.
We know you laughed.
How do you make a dog cry?
That's the question posed by this Budweiser ad from Super Bowl XXXIV.
The spot opens on a Western film scene with a dog lying by a man's body.
It's supposed to be sad, but the dog looks way too happy.
To motivate the dog, the director asks him to think about his worst memory, which turns
out to be a day when he was denied a frosty Budweiser.
After thinking about this devastating memory, the dog howls, pleasing everyone on-set.
It's kind of a weird advertisement, since dogs aren't really known for loving beer.
But it's perfectly on-brand for a company known for commercials about talking frogs,
athletic beer bottles, and men screaming "wuzzuuup."
Sometimes it feels like birds are looking down at us like we've got targets on our heads.
At least, that's how it feels when they mess up your windshield.
That's the basis for this ad, which aired during Super Bowl XXXI.
The Top Gun-inspired spot imagines flocks of birds as a military force, swooping around
the skies on campaigns of annihilation.
They unleash their bombing campaign on everything in sight, except for a freshly-washed Nissan,
which they just can't seem to lock on to.
"This is Dirty Bird, do you read me?"
"Dirty Bird, this here's Sky Rat.
I copy."
"I've spotted a gold mine with a freshly washed beauty."
The birds try every trick in the book to hit their target, finally being denied by a closed
garage door.
So there you have it: if you only drive a Nissan, you'll never be pooped on again.
The year before Michael Jordan went toe-to-toe with Larry Bird in their epic game of Horse,
the NBA legend met a player drawn with a different brush: Bugs Bunny.
The 1992 Nike ad starts out with a game of basketball causing a ruckus on the roof of
Bugs' burrow, leading the wild hare to hit the surface and see what's going on.
When the ballers bully Bugs, he makes a call to the Bulls' best player to go up against
them.
"Who'd you expect?
Elmer Fudd?"
The ad came out four years before Jordan and Bugs met again in Space Jam and ended up being
a huge success.
The collaboration even got a sneaker nod in 2015 with the Air Jordan 7 Retro Hare.
"Where do babies come from?" is a question parents dread.
It's also the focus of a big-budget ad by Kia, which aired during 2013's Super Bowl
XLVII.
When the father in the ad is hit with the question, he spins a yarn about Babylandia,
a special planet full of babies who leave their world to come to Earth, like a 21st
century version of the old stork story.
When the story's finished, the kid reveals he might know more about the truth than he
was letting on, leading the desperate dad to call an audible, with an assist from his
car.
"But Jake said babies are made when mommies and daddies—"
"UVO, play 'Wheels on the Bus.'"
Beyond highlighting the voice command feature, the car the ad is selling is only in the commercial
for about 10 seconds, demonstrating that the most successful ads are more about getting
attention than anything else.
Pretty much every person post-Star Wars has, at one time or another, attempted to use The
Force.
Why not?
It'd be a great way to end an argument.
With this 2011 ad, Volkswagen takes this childhood fantasy to heart, employing a young child
decked out in full Darth Vader regalia to exert his will around his house.
He tries to, anyway.
When Dad pulls into the driveway in his new VW, Vader runs outside and tries to manipulate
the car.
Thanks to the dad's key fob and some remote ignition tricks, his power actually works
this time, kind of.
Once again, the ad doesn't share too much about the car.
But people have been talking about this commercial for years, and Volkswagen has been reaping
the benefits ever since.
Apple showed it had a flair for the dramatic back in 1984 with its first commercial for
the Macintosh personal computer.
The dystopian commercial is a take on George Orwell's novel, 1984.
Making it extra momentous, the ad only aired on national television one time, during Super
Bowl XVIII.
Directed by Ridley Scott of Blade Runner and Alien fame, the ad made an incredible impression.
"We… shall… prevail."
The ad itself was a cinematic groundbreaker, and made it seem like Apple was about to do
nothing less than change the world.
Some analysts have gone so far as to call it the best commercial of all time.
When Super Bowl LIII cut to what looked like a Budweiser commercial, millions of viewers
paid attention.
The brand usually brings something funny to the big game, and this starts out looking
like another winner, with a character called the Bud Knight getting ready for a joust.
But then something shocking happens; the Bud Knight loses, really badly.
Off-screen, the mascot's mysterious opponent can then be heard gouging out the eyes of
the Bud Knight, a disgustingly violent thing not usually seen on TV.
It's also a clear reference to that time the Mountain that Rides did the same thing to
a cocky Dornishman on HBO's Game of Thrones.
Just as the viewer is putting that together, a dragon soars overhead as the show's theme
song kicks in.
This isn't just an ad for Bud Light; it's for Game of Thrones!
That might be the only thing people love more than beer.
Outside of the football stadium, bone-crunching tackles can be kind of terrifying.
But in this 2003 ad from Reebok, they're also really funny.
The campaign introduces a fictional linebacker named Terry Tate, who puts in hours at an
office instead of on the field.
"And since Terry has been with us, our productivity has gone up 46%."
The ad is less about the Reebok brand and more about making the audience laugh, so much
so that a lot of people forget that the spot is even a Reebok commercial.
The ad was so well-received, it launched several sequels, all of which did well, though not
well enough to keep people from goofing off at work.
Really, the ads are amusing distractions of their own, exactly the kind of thing that
Terry Tate wouldn't approve of.
So, for your own sake, stop playing around, and get back to work.
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