Today is not February 12, 2023, which means Super Bowl LVII is officially over. The game itself was a blast to watch and kept me on the edge of my seat from the start of the first quarter to the end of the fourth. I fall into the crowd of folks that show up just for the finale and the spectacle of it all. However, this year, I showed up to watch my birds win the biggest sports event of the year. As a Philadelphian, Super Bowl LVII will go down in infamy since the birds choked and gave up a big lead. The loss sucked, but there was still more on the line for me in Super Bowl LVII than just the commercials. Speaking of commercials- let’s talk about some of the best and some of the worst commercials from Super Bowl LVII. Here are a few of the more memorable commercials, for better or worse, that aired during Super Bowl LVII.
Super Bowl LVII Commercials
Good Honorable Mentions: Downy McBride, Sarah McLachlan for Busch Light, Breaking Bad PopCorners, and Ben Stiller with Steve Martin for Pepsi
Bad Dishonorable Mentions: Kevin Hart for Draft Kings, Diddy making a Diddy, Rockstars for Workday, everything about Jesus, and Jack Harlow‘s Doritos
#1 Good: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” Trailer
The magic of the “Indiana Jones” movies is all in the complexity of the journeys. Sure, it’s about a guy finding mythical totems and artifacts of legend while fighting literal armies, full-on cults, and aliens. That’s beside the point, because these films are fun and exciting (for the most part). With the newly released trailer for the fifth installment of the franchise, we get a lot of what looks like very exciting action pieces, cool new characters, and an overall fun new adventure. Although, there was not a whole lot given about the plot or what will be going on. The trailer excited me for what could be coming our way later this year.
#1 Bad: “Ant-Man for Heineken”
The Marvel Marketing System is quickly becoming more nonsensical by the day. Call me a man of sensible direction when it comes to marketing products, but personally this one made little sense. Everything would have been fine if this wasn’t a Marvel crossover with Heineken. I have nothing personal against Heineken, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, nor Marvel, but that combination of elements in an unfunny shilling of major corporations that make no sense mixing together. Who was this for? Marvel fans are generally younger audiences and if they consume anything alcoholic it won’t be a straight beer. Adults who drink Heineken are not going to be excited to see Ant-Man with a refreshing and ice cold Heiney. Who was this for?
#2 Good: “Will Ferrell for Netflix and GMC Motors”
For those who currently have negative perceptions of Will Ferrell, you are allowed to have that opinion. Personally, there is nothing quite like seeing The Anchorman himself pop up on screen at any point in time. His newest advertisement for Netflix and GMC Motors is one that genuinely made me laugh and react. The ideas of Ferrell being in these shows may not be so funny if they actually happened but getting little snippets of him in “Stranger Things,” “Squid Games,” “Bridgerton,” and “The Walking Dead” were all played perfectly. He’s just a funny guy. It’s hilarious and is one that was funnier for me with no sound on. Maybe that taints whether this was good or bad, but for my money, Will Ferrell with long hair and a “Hellfire Club” shirt talking to a middle schooler in a parallel dimension is really funny.
#2 Bad: Anything with Rob Gronkowski
If there’s anything that makes me groan audibly and loudly, it is the existence of former Buccaneers tight-end Rob Gronkowski in any commercial. Luckily for me there weren’t too many during the show. I won’t make any baseless claims about his athletic career, but any time he pops up I want to walk away from my screen. It would be weird if someone playing in this bowl showed up in a commercial in the middle of the game, but it was much stranger seeing The Gronk do a commercial for insurance during a game that wouldn’t have featured him even if he still played. This one is more of a personal disliking for Gronky Bullwinkle appearing in things unrelated to the NFL, but the groans persisted.
#3 Good: “Run With It”
The commercial opens with reporter Erin Andrews interviewing the MVP of the Flag Football World Games- Diana Flores. At first I thought this was a real interview, but then it very much was not. Everything ramped up very quickly when Andrews tried to steal Flores’ flags.
This commercial ruled on every level. Not only was it awesome to see an encouraging message about pushing for women in all forms of football, and major sports all together, but also this commercial was a hilariously hard hitter. Immediately after Erin Andrews tries to grab the flags off of Flores there is a major conspiracy against Flores to stop her. With a loaded roster of cameos, including internet celebrity Mr. Beast of all people, this commercial was exciting. Flores busts through doors, falls through tables, body checks security against walls, and does whatever it takes to escape.
This was an overall fun commercial with a fantastic message at its center. I legitimately never thought I would say that about an advertisement, but here we all are. The NFL will not allow the trailer to be posted here, but you can click the link. I highly recommend you do, because I think this was the best one out of all of the Super Bowl LVII commercials.
Diana Flores in “Run With it” for The NFL in Super Bowl LVII advertisement
#3 Bad: Brie Larson, Jon Hamm, and Pete Davidson for Hellman’s Mayonnaise
This Hellman’s advertisement played out like the actors never fully learned their scripts. Making the joke, “Oh, Pete Davidson really is in everything,” as he is in this commercial isn’t funny. Stop feeding into the joke. This whole commercial was just so unfunny in every way. The lack of confidence anyone had in any of their jokes, as well as the lack of actual humor in these jokes, were so surface and weird that it frustrated me a bit more than it actually should have. It’s so stupid. Davidson at one point says “I’m going to eat you guys” to Brie and Hamm, who are small in his fridge. In almost any other context this could have been funny, but the whole commercial did the Marvel thing and was like “Look you know them! You like them! Laugh and consume our product.” Hellman’s took the mayo this year for the blandest commercial during Super Bowl LVII.
#4 Good: Everything promoting Tubi
Tubi is a fantastic streaming service. It has everything from “The Green Mile” to “Dance Moms” to “Most Xtreme Challenge” to “All That Jazz” to Syfy monster horror flicks like “The Area 51 Incident.” To see Tubi finally marketing itself incredibly well is so nice to see. They had every single person watching the game panicking with their tv spot that showed the menu select Tubi. Then they went the most bizarre route ever and had Frank The Bunny from “Donnie Darko” capture people then throw them into giant holes in the ground. The whole thing is a joke for going down rabbit holes of content and that is really funny. Tubi killed it this year and if you don’t watch anything on Tubi then you don’t really like feeling happy.
Bad #4: Donald Faison, Zach Braff and, wait… John Travolta for T-Mobile
“Scrubs” was a great show. “Grease” was a very good movie. I don’t mind seeing Braff and Faison back together doing commercials for T-Mobile. I don’t really want to see John Travolta anymore. Why did this commercial get made? The whole advertisement was weird, but not offensively bad until the point I realized this is actually really weird, I don’t really like it, and I’m sad because Olivia Newton-John passed away. No offense to Mr. Travolta, but he isn’t the main reason people watch “Grease.” Maybe I’m crying about this more than I should be, but it just feels so bizarre. Why are Turk and J.D. singing “Summer Loving” with John Travolta about phone coverage and data plans? Media crossovers like this are fine, but bizarre ones like this make me madder than I should be.
#1 Both Good and Bad: Binky Dad
Kia’s newest commercial for their Kia Telluride X-Pro follows a dad on a mission to get his infant’s binky from their home after they already arrived at a restaurant. There is some stuff worth cheering for, stuff to ironically get excited for, and stuff that makes no sense. The commercial gets silly very quickly and makes the dad an international hero- cool. The “Rocky” theme starts playing- okay. But why though? Oh, look he did a stunt out of a giant construction pipe- awesome! Yeah, man, go Binky dad! Wait, are those references to the OJ Simpson chase? Oh man. Take all of this how you will or just completely ignore this since it is a commercial, but the very strange mix of everything going on is so strange it kind of worked in selling me on the car model.
#2 Both: The Roast of Mr. Peanut
Remember two years ago when Mr. Peanut was hanging from a tree with comedian Matt Walsh and Wesley Snipes? How could anyone forget when he sacrificed his life to save the two actors? Remember how it was the saddest day of your life? Remember when they rebirthed Mr. Peanut and it was so weird? The answer to all of those should be a yes, because nothing else in this world is more important than Mr. Peanut lore.
This year, the fat cats in corporate thought we would all forget what they did to our boy by putting him in a Comedy Central style comedy roast to promote their new roasted peanut flavor. This commercial was both good and bad, to me, because while it’s nice to know that Mr. Peanut is only in verbally painful situations instead of life-threatening situations, I still feel like everyone is being deprived of the important story of Mr. Peanut’s life. Shameful and deplorable behavior from the fat corporate cats that don’t want me to care about Mr. Peanut’s life.
The mix of good and bad commercials within each annual Super Bowl is not anything new, but I think this year had some decent stuff. The good was good and the bad made me mad, for some reason. We saw some cool new trailers, some exciting promotions, and some confusing messages. There was a lot to take in from the big night and the commercials all helped fuel that big fight feel of the Super Bowl. That’s what I thought, but what about you? What did you think of the commercials and advertisements from Super Bowl LVII?
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