The Super Bowl is a magical time and place for brands. A rare and brief three-or-so hour moment when people want to see commercials. Every marketer’s Xanadu.
What defines a great Super Bowl ad is obviously subjective, no matter what the Ad Meters, and any number of other measurement tech tells you. Hell, even your own brain might be lying to you. The real scorecard is unique to each brand and what it considers the worth of up to $40 million or more in investment around the game.
My criteria for a good Super Bowl ad remains relatively simple: Is it fun or emotional in a way that is both entertaining and memorable? An easy question to ask, but as each year proves, much more difficult to answer.
Before I get into my top 5 list, here are the honorable mentions.
The coffee wars come to the Super Bowl! I’m a fan of Dunkin’s work with Ben Affleck, created by Artists Equity Advertising (the ad arm of Affleck and Matt Damon-founded Artists Equity). This year’s spot was a funny take on the coffee wars, using a part-Warriors, part-Anchorman dynamic to continue the adventures of the DunKings.
I also really liked Starbucks’ “Hello Again,” by Anomaly, which aimed to remind us why we liked the brand in the first place. However, the spot could be used as a case study in how crucial the right song can be, because this ad wouldn’t hit nearly as hard without AC/DC’s classic “Thunderstruck.”
After 27 years, it’s about time we saw another Nike commercial in the Super Bowl. “Hare Jordan” is arguably a Top 10 all-time Super Bowl commercial, so getting the swoosh back feels right. Now in “So Win,” the brand used Led Zeppelin and a murderers’ row of female superstars to stylishly continue its swing back to the ultra-competitive attitude Nike was built on.
My admiration for what FanDuel has created with “Kick of Destiny” is well-documented, and continues this year. While the main event isn’t technically an in-game ad—this year cleverly embedding itself within the Fox pregame show—it remains one of the best-ever Super Bowl brand ideas.
Speaking of all-time big game brand ideas, another shout-out to Doritos for bringing back “Crash The Super Bowl” after an eight-year hiatus. The spots were fun, funny, and the contest remains a benchmark in fan participation.
And lastly, a shout-out to the brands that decided to go full emosh and actually pulled it off with impressive results. The NFL’s “Somebody,” Lay’s “Little Farmer,” and Google’s “Dream Job” all struck a nice balance for the brands and the moment.
OK, now on to my top 5 ads of the 2025 Super Bowl.
Stella Artois “David & Dave: The Other David”
It’s a premise that could be explained in one line: David Beckham finds out he has a secret American twin named Dave. This is Artists Equity Advertising’s first Super Bowl spot for a brand that’s not Dunkin’, and here we have the company’s other co-founder Damon in a starring role.
I spoke to execs at the agency for a story coming out later this week, and they told me the brief from the brand was to shift Stella’s image in the U.S. as an upscale beer to more of a quality everyday beer. Enter Dave Beckham. We’ve seen David pitch for the brand plenty of times, in ads, on Hot Ones, and beyond, but here we get to see a funnier side of the soccer legend.
Mountain Dew “Kiss From A Lime”
Mountain Dew has long-been one of the more experimental Super Bowl advertisers. In 2021, it enlisted John Cena to challenge viewers with a contest to be the first person to tweet the correct number of Mountain Dew Major Melon bottles that appeared in the ad for a chance to win $1 million. In 2018, it partnered with sibling brand Doritos for a surreal rap battle between Peter Dinklange and Morgan Freeman. And of course, 2016 gifted us the classic “Puppymonkeybaby.”
This year the brand went all in on the big game version of unhinged. Seal as a seal? Directed by Taika Waititi, not only is this absurdity bullseye consistent with the soda’s identity when it comes to the Super Bowl, it delivers an on-brand ear-worm care of a 1994 love ballad. What’s not to like? (It’s still in your head, isn’t it?)
Uber Eats “A Century of Cravings”
Uber Eats made a relatively late decision in September to completely change its Super Bowl plans—a planning process that typically starts in July. A spot starring Matthew McConaughey, in which he floated a conspiracy theory that the function of all sports is to act as a catalyst for us to eat more food, got a great response. Could they continue that in the big game? Short answer: yep.
Here it goes deeper. Not deep like finger-rolling a booger in your Lincoln deep; just different deep. A decade on, The McConaissance is still deep in its commercial era, and here the Oscar winner keeps the streak alive by giving us a history lesson of his earlier conspiracy.
It’s a fun instalment of an overall celebrity-soaked ad strategy that manages to stand out, even as Pringles put up a strong challenge to its multi-celeb approach.
“I think people now have a clearer understanding of our brand and tone because we’re consistently showing up with a very specific type of spot that is landing a specific type of humor,” Uber’s head of marketing for North America Georgie Jeffreys, told me last week. “Even if the message changes, the core tenets of our brand are the same.”
Bud Light “Big Men on Cul-De-Sac”
Just like at a bar, it was a close call between this and Bud Light’s blood rival Coors Light. Both ads are really funny and pretty much exactly what a light beer ad in the Super Bowl should aim for.
What puts Bud Light over the line here is how it not only meets the above criteria, but does so with solid brand consistency. A great big game ad that doesn’t feel like a one-off is often a rare species. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Post hit the field for Bud Light, and the work Gillis has done over the past year has completely reinvigorated the brand’s personality.
Todd Allen, Bud Light’s senior vice president of marketing told me that it was a no-brainer for the brand to keep the momentum going and continue to lean into Gillis’ brand of humor. “There’s absolutely no bigger stage to deliver a laugh than the Super Bowl, and when you combine a comedic powerhouse like Shane with Bud Light, I think we have a winning formula,” said Allen.
Liquid Death “Safe For Work”
I mentioned the importance of the right song earlier with Starbucks, and here it applies just as much, but in a totally different way. Instead of relying on a classic song or new hit banger to tap into the audience’s existing affinity, Liquid Death crafted its own hilarious, pseudo-country jam about drinking on the job.
The cops are drinking, the surgeons are drinking, the pilots are drinking, the court judges, the football refs, even the school bus drivers are all drinking on the job.
Liquid Death is no stranger to celebrities. It’s worked with Martha Stewart, Bert Kreischer, Tony Hawk, and more. But here, the brand shrewdly avoided any big names knowing full well it’s exactly the opposite of what the majority of Super Bowl advertisers would do. The sharp contrast between the parade of celebrity pitchfolks and this lack of Hollywood star power, makes the ad stand out for all the right reasons.
