Super Bowl advertisements are a valued tradition in the NFL. While the title game follows an exhilarating playoff system, completes the season and gives fans an ultimate face-off between the best of each conference, it’s often the breaks between gridiron play that catches the eye of the masses. The spectacle of the Super Bowl, including the decadent halftime show, is somehow enhanced by an array of often bizarre commercials that have become a staple of popular culture. For some, the commercials that are the most appealing part of the broadcast. In fact, Nielsen Holdings - an American market measurement firm - once reported that 51% of viewers prefer the commercials to the game itself.
Super Bowl commercials’ origin story revolves around Joe Namath - once quarterback of the New York Jets. The ads weren’t famous until Namath, in 1973, appeared in a shaving cream commercial for Noxzema - waiting for his face to be ‘creamed’ by soon-to-be Charlie’s Angel, Farrah Fawcett. It’s regarded as the first high-profile Super Bowl advertisement, before brands like Apple took them to new heights - creating what was essentially the first ‘viral’ Super Bowl commercial. ‘1984’, their much-hailed ad directed by Ridley Scott, put Super Bowl commercials on the map while promoting their first-ever ‘Macintosh’ computer. It aired just once, but news channels worldwide played it for weeks. It drove the sales of approximately $150 million worth of Macintoshes in just three months and arguably instigated the demand for ‘viral’ commercials during the Super Bowl.
In 1967, the cost of an advertising slot was just $37,500. In 2024, it is estimated that companies paid an average of $7 million for a 30-second commercial slot during the broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII. The biggest brands seek the biggest platforms, and the Super Bowl gives them that - with Super Bowl LVIII seeing 123.4 million viewers across all platforms in the U.S. alone - making it the most-watched telecast in history. Brands must aim to make the most of their investment; the use of bizarre plots, celebrities, special effects, catchphrases and comedic value all aim to make their commercials the most memorable of the bunch and the most shareable on social media. The commercial segments have become a title-game in their own regard, as brands battle it out to ‘win’ the commercial breaks. The biggest ‘winners’ of the Super Bowl era have arguably been Old Spice, Tide, Volkswagen, Amazon, State Farm, Budweiser and Snickers to name a few.
Snickers’ now-familiar ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ catchphrase was born in 2010, in an ad featuring an 88-year old Betty White playing football in a local park. Budweiser’s ‘Wassup?” was featured in 1999, and eventually mutated into ‘Dilly Dilly’ in the late 2010’s. Bud Light even collaborated with HBO’s Game of Thrones in a crossover that caught everyone off guard. Volkswagen, in 2011, promoted their new ‘Passat’ car with a rookie Darth Vader trying to wield the force on household items. Tide, with the help of Stranger Things and Black Widow star David Harbour, interrupted other memorable ads by proclaiming that they’re all in fact Tide ads, due to the actors’ clean clothes.
In recent years, iconic adverts such as Amazon’s Alexa losing its voice before being replaced by a host of celebrities, State Farm welcoming a new employee in Canadian superstar Drake and Uber Eats showing Jennifer Anniston, David Schwimmer and David Beckham forgetting key parts of their lives at Super Bowl LVIII, all have captured the headlines during their respective Super Bowls. With the ads getting bigger and better every year, we can only look forward to what’s to come in 2025.
