By Thomas Mills
The Super Bowl is known for a lot of things. Beer, wings and football (obviously) are common, and famous, culprits of the national holiday. However, commercials tend to ignite the most controversy and discussion after the big game. In fact, most people tend to talk more about the commercials on the Monday after the game than the Super Bowl itself. With commercials approaching almost $4.5 million for 30 seconds of space this year, we decided to take a look online and picked the top five to look out for on Sunday.
Bud Light – Real Life PacMan
What’s a Super Bowl without a Bud Light commercial? I have no idea, but it certainly would not be fun. Essentially, three guys go to a bar, order a Bud Light and one of them ends up playing a life-sized game of Pac Man. If that happened every time someone drank a Bud Light, I would totally drink more of that stuff. Yet, I never will because they keep insisting on calling their product “beer.”
BMW i3 – “Newfangled Idea”
It’s rare to see a journalist on TV for an advertisement because, well, journalists can’t act. Now that we’ve established that precedent, BMW decided to cast one of the most recognized journalists of all time, Katie Couric, alongside her previous co-anchor, Bryant Gumbel for a car commercial on an all electric car technology that few people, let alone Couric and Gumbel, understand. At first, that sounds like an unmitigated disaster. However, the commercial plays on the fact that no one understands what the i3 is. So, what should be a disaster of a commercial ends up being something that is quirky and fun. Good job Katie Couric, good job.
Wix – #ItsThatEasy
My personal favorite from the bunch. Wix, a company you’ve probably never heard of, is doing their first ever Super Bowl commercial. Featuring a slew of football superstars, from Brett Favre, Terrell Owens and Emmit Smith, the advert successfully explains its product, a free, easy to use website builder, to audiences. Every year, there’s always one commercial that successfully transports its company and brand from the underground garage to the top of the world. Expect Wix to do exactly that and become a household name on Monday with this fun and light-hearted commercial.
Snickers – The Brady Bunch
If you’ve never seen The Brady Bunch, stop reading this article and go watch an episode of one of the most culturally important television shows of all time. If you have, continue on. In what will probably garner praise as the most successful, and appreciated, commercial on Sunday, Snickers seamlessly places modern day actors Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi into The Brady Bunch life. A continuation of their famous, “You’re not you when you’re hungry,” campaign, the Snickers advert touches base with practically every demographic in the country, a massive accomplishment for a small candy bar.
T-Mobile – #KimsDataStash
Full disclosure before I continue: I utterly despise Kim Kardashian. I’ve never understood how someone who literally does nothing in life can be so freaking popular. So, when I stumbled upon the T-Mobile ad featuring Kardashian, I almost closed my browser window. However, after I pressed play, and as the advert continued, I discovered that I had to admit something I thought I would never say about anything with Kim Kardashian: it was good. Pretty good in fact. Playing on the fact that she is so popular, the ad comically entices audiences to go with T-Mobile to further follow Kim’s adventures (or whatever they’re called) on their super-fast network. Without a doubt, this commercial will be the one everyone will be talking about on Monday. Now excuse me while I contemplate life because I just said Kim Kardashian was good in something.
