The Super Bowl ads in 2015 seemed to envoke more emotional ups and downs than in previous years. I could be wrong, but it sure did feel that way.
Super Bowl ads traditionally hold a position of extreme importance on game day.
Millions of people watched the Super Bowl ads in 2015. The Super Bowl attracts all football fans, whether their team is playing or not.
The Super Bowl ads, however, attract people who don’t normally have any interest in football.
Every year, Super Bowl ads seem to get more attention than the game itself. But, this year, as ads continue in the trend of coming out days or even weeks before game day, the competition seemed just a little more serious.
The Super Bowl ads in 2015 were sort of a roller coaster of emotion.
There were downright hilarious Super Bowl ads in 2015, like the Snickers ad starring Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi.
Danny Trejo become Marcia Brady in this amazingly funny ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=linSRGYnCcc
Mindy Kaling and Matt Damon made us all laugh, and kind of wish we were invisible, in this Super Bowl 2015 ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrq8ruhmCX0
A surprising offering from German glue maker Loctite had some laughing and some just wondering what they were looking at. Loctite is not a usual competitor in the Super Bowl ad race, but they made a good effort at hilarity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaK85bFQwSM
During the lineup of Super Bowl ads in 2015, there were also tears. Some were happy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkIcfljuPc
(Go ahead and admit you cried like a baby at Budweiser’s lost dog ad. Even if the crying was internal.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsjRRMMg_Q
Some tears were sad, though. I’m not personally sure why they even allow sad commercials during the Super Bowl, but that’s just me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKUy-tfrIHY
This one was just chilling:
What did you think of the Super Bowl ads in 2015? Which one was your favorite?
While most of the world has long since moved on, YouTube has finally announced the winners of its 2014 Ad Blitz, ranking users’ favorite Super Bowl commercials.
It’ no surprise, but Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” took the top spot. It’s currently up to over 47 million views.
Coca Cola’s “America the Beautiful” commercial took second place. That one has over 10 million views.
Chrysler’s “America’s Import” took third place (over 11 million views).
Durcell’s “Trust Your Power” took fourth (22 million views):
Jaguar’s “British Villains’ Rendezvous” rounded out the top five (11 million views):
“Not only did these spots receive the most votes on YouTube, but they also attracted more than 101 million views combined,” says Kariyushi Casper, Ad Blitz Interactive Project Manager.
The list is a bit different than USA Today’s, but everyone seems to love “Puppy Love”.
If you are not into the Super Bowl for the football and competitive sportsmanship, you are probably watching the Super Bowl for the commercials. The Super Bowl’s commercials help make the yearly football championship game what it is, where various brands and companies spend millions of dollars and use unique humor, music, and talent to market their product to you. With the Super Bowl commercials being such an integral part in the Super Bowl, each year, the Gannett newspaper USA Today compiles a list of the best-loved ads during the Super Bowl and ranks them on their well-known “Ad Meter.”
According to NPR, the winner of the 2014 Super Bowl XLVIII ad meter is “Puppy Love” from Budweiser. “Puppy Love” is a commercial that aired toward the end of the game, and highlights a Golden Retriever puppy’s relationship with a Clydesdale, and the puppy’s return back to see his Clydesdale friend after he leaves for adoption. The acoustic hit “Let Her Go” from British folk-rock band Passenger plays in the background during the duration of the commercial.
USA Today‘s Bruce Horowitz describes the functionality of the paper’s “Ad Meter” below:
“For the 26th consecutive year, USA TODAY’s Ad Meter reached out to consumers to vote for their favorite Super Bowl commercials. This online audience of 6,272 preregistered panelists voted from across the country. The game featured nearly 50 commercials that cost advertisers a record $4 million per 30-second slot for airtime on the Fox telecast, which was expected to be watched by up to 110 million viewers.”
With the “Puppy Love” commercial winning over the hearts of various Super Bowl XLVIII viewers, the “Puppy Love” Budweiser puppy now has his own Twitter account, which actually has been active for quite a while:
The “Puppy Love” commercial from Budweiser was not the first to model their staple mascot, the Clydesdales. According to KVOA, Clydesdales first appeared in the Budweiser commercial during the 1986 Super Bowl, and “Puppy Love” is a great way to help display their mascot again.
Various Twitter users have left their reaction to the heartwarming commercial from Budweiser below:
I can't stop watching the #bestbuds ad by @Budweiser. It is too freaking cute. Puppies and horses. LOVE LOVE LOVE.
We’ve covered the USAToday Super Bowl admeter at WebProNews, and now that the Super Bowl is over and all the commercials have been shown, you get to see it in action.
While the admeter for Super Bowl 46 shows Doritos and Bud Light performed well, the one-time king of salacious Super Bowl commercials may have seen their time come to an end. That’s right, both of GoDaddy’s commercials for this year’s big game rank near (or at) the bottom according to viewers.
Apparently, the days of Candice Michelle wooing people with her “wardrobe malfuction” are over. As you can see:
Either GoDaddy needs to start fresh with new faces and a new approach, or they haven’t gotten over the anti-SOPA backlash from January. Considering the fact that the commercials just weren’t that entertaining or titillating, I doubt SOPA had anything to do with the reception. Here are the commercials in question, just in case they escaped your view last night. First, the body painting:
Their second goes by “The Cloud,” and, well, “underwhelming” is a good word:
There’s an extended version of the second commercial, just in case you want to see if it continues to underwhelm. It’s a sad day when the “sex sells” motto is completely and utterly disproved.
Does GoDaddy’s failure with their latest round of Super Bowl commercials mean this is the end of trying to create sexual tension between viewers and Danica Patrick is at an end or is there still room for titillation, as long as the quality of the commercial lives up to the hype? Or is this a simple case of GoDaddy backlash?
Last year, Volkswagen treated us with perhaps the best commercial of 2011. Yes, I’m talking about the Darth Vader kid trying to use the Force to start his father’s Passat. Last year’s commercial was so incredibly popular, its YouTube posting has received almost 50 million views.
With that in mind, it only makes sense that Volkswagen keeps with the Star Wars theme, something they already demonstrated a willingness for when the car company dropped “The Bark Side” commercial. You can add another one the pile now that Volkswagen has debuted their “The Dog Strikes Back” offering, which follows the exploits of Bolt as he tries to get in shape enough to chase the new Volkswagen Beetle.
The commercial in question:
As you can see, what starts out as a “aww, that dog is too cute” offering quickly becomes a visit to the Mos Eisley cantina, as the familiar denizens — provided you’ve seen the original Star Wars movie — debate which commercial was better, last year’s with the Darth Vader kid or this year with the dog. When one suggests this year’s version is better, Darth Vader himself shows up to set the record straight via a well-timed Force Choke.
While the commercial was cute — although, it lacks the sweet innocence last year’s had — the fact that Volkswagen was compelled to leak it before this weekend’s Super Bowl brings CNBC scribe Darren Rovell’s query to the forefront — is releasing these kinds of commercials before the Super Bowl a mistake? From Rovell’s perspective:
Think of it this way: If a company believes that it will break through the clutter, and most who have Super Bowl ads do, the value of the ad is worth more if it’s a surprise. And the value of those YouTube hits are worth more as well.
Do you agree with that standpoint? Should advertisers hold their ad copy until the big game is actually on the air? Considering the fact that last year’s awesome Volkswagen/Darth Vader commercial caught everyone by surprise, Rovell might be on to something here.
The NFL’s granddaddy of them all takes place this Sunday when the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers meet in Super Bowl XLV, and it promises to be one of the most-watched sporting events ever. Keeping with tradition, the commercials that will be shown during the game are receiving a fair amount of hype as well.
In fact, some say the only reason they even watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials. Whether that’s true or not, the sheer cost of these adverts — $3 million for 30 seconds of airtime — have helped spawn a culture of Super Bowl watchers who pay active attention to the products being hawked when the game takes one of its many commercial breaks.
Oh, and we weren’t just spouting hyperbole about Super Bowl XLV being one of the most-watched televised events, either. Last year’s record of 110 million viewers — an all-time high for TV program — is expected to be eclipsed.
Like Bloomberg points out, if you’re ads will be playing in front of record-sized audience, $3 million is something of a bargain.
As for the commercials themselves, the anticipation is apparently at an all-time high as well. What else would explain Audi developing three and four minute trailers for commercials that won’t run as long as the productions promoting them?
In the Washington Post, there’s a list of the ten most anticipated commercials, and although they concentrate more on the companies involved than on the ads themselves, it’s a good guide of what you can expect.
Currently, the buzz is around the following companies:
Audi
Anheuser-Busch
Best Buy
CareerBuilder.com
E-Trade
GoDaddy
Pepsi
Skechers
Snickers
Volkswagen
Naturally, your intrepid WebProNews crew wasn’t satisfied with text descriptions of what we can expect, so we jumped on YouTube and found video footage for most, if not all, of these anticipated commercials. Enjoy.
Audi — here a couple of the trailers mentioned above. Welcome back Kenny G:
A-B/Budweiser — unfortunately, there wasn’t much footage of Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl offering, so here’s a cute ad they’ve already released this year:
Best Buy — the electronics retail king is releasing a Justin Bieber/Ozzy Osbourne collaboration thing, and although it hasn’t leaked, there are some web reports about it:
CareerBuilder.com — it looks like the job site is continuing their tradition of offering underrated, amusing gems:
E-Trade — the talking baby is back, or never going away, depending on your perspective, and this is the uncensored version of what we’ll be seeing on Sunday:
GoDaddy — yay, more faux titillation from everybody’s favorite domain registration company. This year, Jillian Michaels joins the crew:
Pepsi — they cola company has an Eminem/Lipton Brisk claymation offering, of which there is absolutely no footage. They’re also showing their “Pepsi Max: Crash the Super Bowl” winner, which apparently came from this group (?):
Skechers — the trendy shoe company is — *gasp* — using a trendy spokesperson, Kim Kardashian, for their multi-million dollar investment. The enablers at E! are all over it:
Snickers — keeping with their Betty White/Abe Vigoda commercial, this year’s offering brings Richard Lewis and Roseanne Barr back into our households. Is this reason to rejoice or turn it to Puppy Bowl VII? It depends on your tolerance level for people that talk with their hands and sassy “housewife” types:
Volkswagen — this is truly saving the best for last. By now, this commercial is pretty viral — over 5 million views on YouTube already — but it could very well go down as one of the best Super Bowl commercials ever; and no, that’s not just the Star Wars fan who drives a Jetta talking, either:
And then there are all the movie trailers that will be shown, of which, there are many, including Captain America and Super 8.
After the game, if you’d like to react to the commercials you’ve seen — Game? What game? — there are a multitude of channels you can do so, including AdBlitz’ YouTube channel where users can vote for their favorite. The winning commercial will be crowned accordingly.
What are some of your favorite Super Bowl commercials from previous years? Let us know in the comments.
