The biggest night for advertisers came and went without much to show for it: The Super Bowl, with its $8 million 30-second commercials spots, usually boasts the best, most interesting commercials of the year. For an event that, this year, drew over 126 million viewers, that’s a lot of eyeballs on your commercial— and with some people tuning into the Super Bowl just to watch the commercials, companies can make a huge impact.
But this year left a lot to be desired: You can tell from the way that TV critics and social media users reacted.
Most of the commercials featured were strange and kind of dull— there was a focus on nostalgia, strange humor, and pre-launched ad campaigns. Here’s our round-up of the commercials to watch (or rewatch) and which commercials you can skip.
What You Should Watch
AKA the best commercials of the Super Bowl
Nike
This year was Nike’s first Super Bowl commercial in almost 30 years. And it harnessed the last few years’ obsession with women’s sports. Featuring Sha’Carri Richardson, A’ja Wilson, Caitlin Clark, Sabrina Ionescu, Juju Watkins, Jordan Chiles, Sophia Wilson, and Aryna Sabalenka, it was insanely cool. It gives the same vibes as Gloria’s monologue from Barbie (2023): The commercial is motivational because it highlights female rage at being underestimated. It’s totally worth watching.
Novartis
When a huge group of cheerleaders came onscreen, it was a bit confusing. When the camera’s focus was on their boobs… even moreso confusing. Where was this going? Novartis cycled through shots of boobs, bras, busty statues and paintings, a woman breastfeeding (perhaps the first time a woman has been televised to this many people while breastfeeding), models, and actors. The commercial used the time to promote early screenings to prevent late-stage breast cancer diagnoses. It was a fun commercial and brought the issue absolutely front and center.
Flag Football
The NFL put together a spoof on classic high school films from the 80s, with 80s-style jocks and nerds. But, a more modern-dressed athlete shows up to stop the jocks from bullying the nerds. She is then challenged by the jocks to face off in a game of flag football. Combining athletic talents and fun plays from this football season’s games, the ad goes on to promote the introduction of girls flag football for all fifty states.
Budweiser
This year’s Budweiser commercial features their famous Clydesdale horses and the underestimation of the smallest of the herd. The ad shows the dependability of the 150-year-old brand. The commercial relies on brand recognition, but does so in a nostalgic way, featuring the Clydesdales and the theme of achievement against all odds. It’s heart-warming and worth watching.
Lay’s
Because everyone knows what Lay’s chips are, the company didn’t need to tell us. Instead, they used their spot to promote their use of family-owned and run farms to provide potatoes for their chips, alongside the care put into their product.
Pfizer
There are some people who have pushed back on Pfizer’s commercial this year but the company shared their commitment to fight for 8 cancer breakthroughs by 2030. Again, by now, the company is relatively recognizable but they used their time to focus on something less well-known.
Dove
Though this is a deodorant, soap, and lotion brand, Dove continues to promote their campaign #KeepHerConfident. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking commercial, even just in thirty seconds; the commercial explains how much young girls’ confidence can plummet as they get older, just by their experience in the world.
Rocket Mortgage
Rocket put together a commercial using Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver to promote the home ownership portion of the American Dream. While, it was not the best commercial out there, it led to a beautiful moment back in New Orleans at the Super Bowl. When the broadcast came back from commercial break, the Superdome was singing along (as seen in the above version of the commercial).
Nerds
While the Nerds commercial does fall under the category of strange anthropomorphized creatures used by a company to sell their product, the commercial featuring Shaboozey was the only ad to feature New Orleans and jazz, the location of this year’s Super Bowl. It was fun and while the creatures were a little strange, they were not alarming as some commercials were.
Duracell
Duracell poked fun at Tom Brady, posing him as a robot. If you’re a fan of football, there are funny jokes included in the spot to make you laugh.
Angel Soft
Angel Soft gave us a 30-second bathroom break—something you may not always be able to get during the Super Bowl. They said nothing about the company, which, if you can’t tell from the ad is toilet paper, but it was a cute way to get people talking.
Taco Bell
Another commercial falling into the category of, “brands you probably already know,” they didn’t use their time to tell us about the latest crispy chalupa quesadilla breakfast item on their menu. They, instead, took the time to thank their customers.
The Worst of the Worst
These commercials are definite skips, especially if weird body things creep you out. So watch at your own risk.
Tubi
The gist of this is that a baby is born with a cowboy hat made of flesh. It’s a commercial for Tubi but it’s freaky and if you’re not into weird body things, this is definitely worth skipping.
Hims/Hers
This commercial started great, explaining that the United States health system is designed to keep us unhealthy. Except Hims and Hers then launches into promoting their unregulated weight-loss drug.
Pringles and Little Caesers
These two commercials fall into the category of weird facial hair themes. In one, Eugene Levy’s eyebrows fly off his face and in the other, multiple mustaches, including James Harden, Adam Brody, and Nick Offerman, fly off faces. It’s unclear what this facial hair strangeness has to do with the actual products. Of this category, these are definitely the least weird commercials but it’s alarming to see Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid without a mustache.
Mountain Dew
If you’ve never wanted to see Seal’s head CGI-ed onto an actual seal, this commercial is not at all worth watching. The commercial was to promote Baja Blast Mountain Dew but the inclusion of Seal seems to just be because he’s a celebrity and that’s the trend.
Coffee Mate
This ties with the Tubi Flesh Cowboy Hat commercial for the most physically uncomfortable commercial aired. It seems that Coffee Mate is a party for your tongue? This definitely falls under, “don’t watch.” Don’t believe me? Social media users are vowing not to buy Coffee Mate products because of the commercial.
Leaning on Brand Recognition (for good or for bad)
Google AI
Google used their ad to promote their AI’s capabilities to help prepare for your dream job and support your family. It pulls on your heart strings, but if you have negative feelings towards AI, this probably will leave you conflicted.
He Gets Us
He Gets Us introduced itself last year at the Super Bowl as a company related to Christianity and also, possibly, supporting the people around us. They used the same goodwill vibes in their commercial. However, they rely on the audience knowing what “He Gets Us” is actually for, beyond something related to Jesus and Christianity. It’s unclear in both this year and last year’s commercial that the mission of the company is to reconsider Jesus’ life.
Liquid Death
Since Liquid Death looks like a can of beer, has a skull on the front, and is literally called, “Liquid Death,” the company used their commercial to promote the water brand as, “Safe For Work,” assuming the audience knows (or can figured out) that this is just water.
Homes.com
Homes.com brought us back to Dan Levy and Heidi Gardner in their Homes.com commercial roles, trying to convince their lawyer they can say that Homes.com is the best; they even bring in Morgan Freeman. But beyond the name, they don’t explain what it is or why anyone would bother using it. They then put on a second Homes.com commercial later in the night, building on the first, which was more effective than the first.
Squarespace
Squarespace seemingly created a spoof of Banshees of Inisherin (2022) but it was not a very effective commercial. It just showed Barry Keoghan riding a horse, throwing open laptops at people. It’s worth watching, mostly for you to determine for yourself if you like it or not.
Ads That Miss the Mark
NerdWallet
NerdWallet shows a Beluga whale telling a guy to get NerdWallet. It was a pretty simple commercial but it didn’t really make any sense — why did NerdWallet choose to CGI a Beluga whale??
Poppi
The Poppi marketing team is under flack for its recent moves, including controversial marketing strategies involving influencers and vending machines. But that’s a whole other story.
Disney+
The Disney+ commercial left a lot to be desired. With so much content to pull from, their ad was a bit boring, especially when compared with other ads the company has produced, like this one from last year.
Dunkin’
Dunkin tried to harness the public discussion over its 2024 Super Bowl Commercial with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Jennifer Lopez. But this year’s commercial was trying too much with Affleck, his brother Casey, and former Patriots head coach Bill Belichik. It was disappointing and there was way too much going on.
Honorable Mentions
Uber Eats
If you’ve watched commercials for the last few months, you may have seen Matthew McConaughey making the claim that football was made to make us hungry for food. You may have also seen the Charli XCX x Martha Stewart Uber Eats commercial. In New York City, Uber Eats even had signs on bus stops teasing the Super Bowl commercial. This new commercial tells us the imagined history of this conspiracy theory and includes a Greta Gerwig cameo. The set-up for the commercial was fun although the commercial was a bit of a let-down.
Instacart
Instacart’s commercial pulled famous company mascots to run through the streets to one house. It was cute, with fun Easter eggs, but it was also a bit overwhelming.
Cirkul
Adam Devine, while shopping, is reminded by his wife, Chloe Bridges, to get a Cirkul but he can’t find it. Instead of ordering one water bottle, he ordered a thousand— Cirkul announced that a thousand random homes would receive Cirkul bottles through the mail. And people did!
Fetch
The Fetch commercial was a bit boring, giving us a spokesperson explaining what Fetch is. But then he prompted the audience to download the Fetch app in order to possibly earn money in the last two minutes of the game.
This is not the full line-up of commercials featured during the Super Bowl. You can find all of them here, rated by USA Today. What did you think of our round-up? Did you agree?
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