My 6 favorite Super Bowl ads of 2021

I didn’t make an ad for the “big game” this year, so who really cares about my opinion. Here it is anyway.

Shitting on Super Bowl ads is easy from the cheap seats. Was not a fan of all the stock footage anthems (and the ones that felt like stock footage anthems.) Looking at you Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s, Guaranteed Rate, Indeed, and Robinhood — I know production is hard in the Covid times, but that’s a LOT of money to spend to air a pitch video.

Not sure I needed a political lecture from Jeep this year (and “meet in the middle” is a little too “there are good people on both sides” for my taste.)

But there were some good ones. Here were my six faves:

Amazon

Great performances and really funny. They ran the :60 on the broadcast, but the :90 is that rare :90 when you’re actually grateful for a little more of the story.

Michael B. Jordan is great in this, but the wife and husband steal the spot.

You can watch the :90 here:

Michael B. Jordan Is Sexy Alexa in Amazon's Hilarious Super Bowl Ad

Cadillac

Sure, my enjoyment of it was based on nostalgia for the original movie (but us GenXers are the target market, so it sorta works.) And Chalamet IS baby Depp, so the casting was great.

Winona and Timothée with the nostalgia O.D.

Miller Lite

They didn’t actually run an ad in the game itself, but this hijack stunt is really great. Lots of earned attention for the price of a print ad and one ridiculously long URL.

Miller Lite Punks Mich Ultra With 836-Character, Calorie-Burning URL

Oatly

Yeah, the ad itself was terrible (that was sort of the point), but they did this nice side promotion where you could get a free “I Totally Hated that Oatly Commercial” t-shirt for the time you wasted watching the ad. I like it when brands don’t take themselves too seriously. (Yes, I did snag one of the the shirts.)

Self deprecating sense of humor FTW

Reddit

Buying a 5-second ad is definitely a way to stand out. Felt very on-brand, especially since you had to go online to figure out what you just saw. A regional buy that “hacked” its way into the national conversation. (It would have been cooler if they only aired it once; in my market it showed up twice.)

How it showed up in the broadcast

Freeze frame

Rocket Mortgage

I’m not sure we’re talking about all-timer Super Bowl spots, but two solid, funny ads is a win, this year.

Honorable Mentions: Bud Light Seltzer Lemonade, M&Ms, and Huggies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Kovacevich is a creative director and the founder of Agency SOS. You can read all his musings about the advertising biz here.