Superbowl - DATS - Top 10: This Year’s Superbowl Ads Ranked By Us
Each year, teams around the world are given the biggest budgets, the biggest stage and the biggest brief in the world of marketing; create a Superbowl ad.
Work on Superbowl adverts (or commercials, as the Americans say) begins up to a year before the ad actually airs. Brands pay in excess of $5m for just 30 seconds of airtime, making it some of, if not the most, expensive and valuable TV real estate in the world.
Marketing agencies, like ourselves here at DATS, also have a crucial part to play. The sheer scale, expectation and deliverables that come with embarking on a Superbowl campaign are so intense, that almost all brands will defer to a highly-esteemed agency to do the work for them. As an agency ourselves (we’re yet to do a Superbowl ad!), we thought it would be fun to rank our team’s favourite picks from this year’s lineup.
In 2022, all successful Superbowl ads have a few things in common;
They must evoke emotion, just like any other good piece of marketing
They must position and engrain the brand and their products into that emotion, enough so that people remember it the morning after
They must be relatable to the viewer; they need a point of familiarity so they can feel involved.
They must facilitate easy follow-up and buzz on social media
So we’ve included the following criteria in our rankings;
Emotion Score
Product Positioning Score
Relatability Score
Social Media Score
So, lets get started!...
10. Planters - Mixed Nuts: Feed The Debate (VaynerMedia)
For this year’s #BigGame, Planters created a clever promo for their Mixed Nuts snacks. They recruited stars Joel McHale and Ken Jeong, who both recently starred in the cancelled-too-soon TV Show, “Community” together. They started a debate about their product which may well continue for viewers at home, poked fun at America’s instinctive tribalism, and used celebrities to make the ad relatable, emotive and highly shareable on social media.
Emotion: 6/10
Product Positioning: 8/10
Relatability: 7/10
Social Media: 7/10
Final grade: 7/10
9. ClickUp - The Declaration: Stop working like it’s 1776 (ClickUp)
On ClickUp’s website, they say “One major thing that sets ClickUp apart from other productivity platforms is definitely our sense of humour,” and they nailed that message home with this year’s Superbowl Ad (their first venture into advertising during the #BigGame).
They nailed their value proposition home by recreating the Declaration of Independence, but with a twist. One of the founding fathers had lost some crucial documents, and only when ClickUp offered a solution, was America saved. They also followed their ad up with a great social media competition which extended the campaign’s value.
Emotion: 8/10
Product Positioning: 8/10
Relatability: 5/10
Social Media: 9/10
Final Grade: 7.5
8. Mcdonalds - Can I Get Uhhhhh (Wieden&Kennedy)
This year, Mcdonalds chose to hone in on what is, perhaps, the most relatable element of the McDonalds experience: The Drive Through. They conjured up a very meme-worthy catch phrase, had a surprise appearance from Kanye West, and drove home the (quite true) message that picking your McDonalds order is no easy feat for anyone. They followed it up with a simple but effective blurb on Youtube & social media which just said “yes u can”.
Emotion: 5/10
Product Positioning: 8/10
Relatability: 10/10
Social Media: 9/10
Final Grade: 8/10
7. Crypto Com - The Moment of Truth (SpringHill)
If there was one thing that defined this year’s Superbowl ad landscape, it was Crypto adverts.
They were everywhere, which is not surprising. Trading platform crypto.com separated themselves from the pack with a simple but effective ad that encapsulated the crypto ethos; futuristic, risk-taking, ambitious and fun. They gave the viewer some great relatability by creating a CGI, 2003-era, Lebron James, who meets current day Lebron James and they both have a conversation about the future. The ad also had a viral reception on Twitter, a place packed full of crypto fans and Lebron James fans.
Emotion: 6/10
Product Positioning: 8/10
Relatability: 10/10
Social Media: 9/10
Final Grade: 8.25/10
6. Alexa - Mind Reader (Lucky Generals)
What’s more relatable than Amazon’s Alexa chirping up at the wrong time? Even if you don’t own one yourself, I’m sure, by this point, you’ve seen someone get angry with an Alexa because it’s just TOO responsive. Well, the team at Amazon did a great job of poking fun at people’s worries about AI, by creating a scenario in which Alexa could read a couple’s minds. That couple just happened to be everyone’s favourite; Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost.
Emotion: 7/10
Product Positioning: 10/10
Relatability: 9/10
Social Media: 7/10
Final Grade: 8.5/10
5. Squarespace - Everything to Sell Anything (Squarespace)
One of the surprise runaway hits from this year’s set of Superbowl ads, we didn’t see one person complain about Squarespace’s ad. Through simple storytelling, clever celebrity leveraging (Zendaya and Andre 3000 are the perfect pull right now) and some great choreography. The ad’s clever use of alliteration aligns Squarespace and alliteration together in viewer’s minds, meaning they don’t just remember the ad, they remember the brand and their products too.
Emotion: 7/10
Product Positioning: 9/10
Relatability: 9/10
Social Media: 9/10
Final Grade: 8.5/10
4. FTX - Don’t Miss Out (DentsuMB)
Another crypto highlight, the exchange and trading platform, FTX, found a clever way to poke fun at the Crypto sceptics and dooms-dayers.
Who better to recruit for the idea than the king of cynicism himself, Larry David? (If you’ve ever watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, you know what we mean!). The ad places Larry at crucial points in human history, and has him make momentous, sceptic decisions that result in catastrophe. At the end, he’s is told about FTX and crypto, and reacts in a similar way. The ad simply ends with one message; ‘Don’t be like Larry.’
Emotion: 7/10
Product Positioning: 10/10
Relatability: 8/10
Social Media: 10/10
Final Grade: 8.75/10
3. Michelob Ultra - Welcome to the Superior Bowl (Wieden&Kennedy)
Michelob Ultra is a rising star in the world of lite beer, and has been treated as such by parent company Anheuser-Busch (who also owns Superbowl favourite Budweiser) with over four minutes of spend totalling over $30M.
Michelob’s ad uses a clever combination of nostalgia, starpower and aesthetic to create an ad you could watch over and over. The ad has a 70s theme running throughout and features multiple callbacks to classic films like The Big Lebowski (they even have Serena Williams turn up in an outfit from the movie as a surprise at the end). With a star-studded cast from Peyton Manning to Steve Buscemi, this is ad is so well executed, everyone wants to tell everyone about it. Not just because it subtly raises some great points about gender equality in sports.
Emotion: 8/10
Product Positioning: 8/10
Relatability: 10/10
Social Media: 10/10
Final Grade: 9/10
2. Liquid Death: Breaking The Law (Liquid Death)
It’s basically a beer ad. But for water. And that’s why it’s so effective. We’d never heard of Liquid Death, the rockstar water brand from the US, until this ad. But it’s so daring, so shocking, and ridiculous that everyone was locked into it from beginning to end.
This is a brand who’s self-aware about their products, unique in how they market them and isn’t afraid to push the envelope in any direction. The ad is on its way to going viral and has completely divided the online audience. Some people are still laughing. Some mums are furious. But they’re all still feeling the emotion from the ad 48 hours later.
A huge win for a fairly small company, with an even smaller creative team, who must be grinning after scoring higher in ratings than most big agencies did.
Emotion: 10/10
Product Positioning: 10/10
Relatability: 8/10
Social Media: 10/10
Final Grade: 9.5/10
1. Coinbase - QR Code (Coinbase)
Each year, there is normally an ad that is completely clear of the rest of the field. Someone who has thought completely outside of the box for their campaign and ends up shocking everyone. This year, that was Coinbase. Coinbase basically did…. Nothing with their ad. And they didnt just buy a 15 second slot. They played it for a minute. Watch it and see what you think for yourself, we don’t want to ruin it for you.
Just know that their website crashed instantly from the amount of traffic it got them. And social media went insane. Other brands scrambled to jump on the hype train and make replica ads of their own. This tweet sums it up perfectly:
Literally $0 of production costs & @coinbase just won the Super Bowl.
— Alex Lieberman (@businessbarista) February 14, 2022
Emotion: 10/10
Product Positioning: 10/10
Relatability: 10/10
Social Media: 10/10
Final Grade: 10/10