The Super Bowl isn’t just for die-hard NFL fans anymore. It’s for all of us. The Super Bowl gives us an excuse to get together with friends, eat pizza and wings, drink some beer, enjoy an epic live performance and watch some sports. Most importantly, however, it gives us a chance to see the year’s most epic commercials the first time they air on TV.
The Super Bowl’s commercials are a cultural moment every year, largely because epic brands bring all the stops out for the iconic advertising slot. Honestly, The Super Bowl is the only time we can actually look forward to breaks in programming.
Every time the game breaks, we can either expect a guest appearance from a favourite celebrity, to get our heartstrings pulled on by emotional narratives, or to just sit in awe of the innovative commercials some of our favourite brands come out with.
If you missed any of the great commercials from yesterday and are suffering from a serious case of FOMO, you can watch some of the best ones (in our opinion) here and join in the fun:
Who knew how badly we needed to see Rachel Dratch, Chris Evans, and John Krasinski bust out a Bostonian accent? (FYI they're all from Boston- we had to Google it too.) Hyundai’s Super Bowl commercial game was strong with it’s star-studded cast of actors showcasing the “Smaht Pahk” feature of its newest model. Yeah, this is a car of the future — it can park itself. It’s a pretty smaht cah if we do say so ourselves.
It turns out that the only thing better than Pickle Rick is Pringle Rick. There’s a lot to love about this commercial that combines the salty and satisfying snack of Pringles with the hilarity (and bizarness) that is Adult Swim’s Rick & Morty. An episode where Morty becomes famous for a spot in a Pringle Super Bowl commercial writes itself.
Comedic Super Bowl commercials are always balanced out with some spots that just pull on your heartstrings like this year’s Verizon commercial.
The sweet commercial is touching and reminds us just how powerful the internet is by showing how the 5G network can be used to make a positive impact. For example, we see a firefighter using the technology to see through smoke and save a life. Cue the tears.
No one expected such a serious and heartwarming commercial from this iconic beer brand, but Budweiser outdid themselves this year with their American hero commercial. In their coveted Super Bowl spot, the brand highlights the lives of a diverse group of American heroes who all differ in race, gender, shape and personality.
A special thank you goes out to whoever chose to put Netflix’s Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness in a commercial. The comedian and hair guru who is as fabulous as his name is long, stars in this Pop Tarts commercial, and perfectly delivers the iconic line “ time for this snack to get a snack’’ before realizing that craft services just isn’t going to cut it. Hunny, who gave you permission to steal the Super Bowl?
Pepsi is known for its iconic Super Bowl commercials with past commercials starring the likes of Britney Spears, Beyonce, Cardi B and this year the brand delivered yet again.
This year’s commercial showcased the brand’s new matte black packaging, and starred Missy Elliot and H.E.R “painting it black.” This year’s commercial brought a unique fierceness to Pepsi that the world needed to see.
Cheetos’ Super Bowl ad gives us the (surely authentic) story of how MC Hammers “You Can’t Touch This” Helps out a normal guy eating Cheetos avoid toughing anything. 20 years after the song was released, MC Hammer returns in this hilarious Super Bowl ad that reminds us that, when faced with cheeto fingers, you can’t touch this or that or anything.
Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ "Old Town Road" first dominated the radio, and now it’s dominating the Super Bowl Doritos commercial. The commercial stars Sam Rockwell dramatically delivering the song’s catchy lyrics as a brooding western monologue.
Mountain Dew channeled The Shining for its commercial announcing its new product, sugar free Mountain Dew. The effect is a lot less scary than the original Stanley Bubrick film and a little bit sweeter (just minus the sugar).
Even in a progressive world, it seems like sometimes there’s not enough room for a women’s opinion. Olay uses the pun #makespaceforwomen in its empowering and inspiring commercial that stars Lilly Singh and Busy Phillips as astronauts and Empire’s Taraji Henson as their mission commander. The brand asks us to make space for these women who are taking space by storm to promote their newest skincare line.