Top-5 Super Bowl commercials of all-time
Published
Super Bowl Sunday wouldn’t be complete without the TV commercials that air during one of the most-watched sporting events in the world.
The year-round tradition of gathering around the television on a Sunday in early February to watch the biggest NFL game of the season draws a lot more than just sports fanatics in part due to the time when there is no football going on – during commercial breaks and at halftime.
Publicists and marketing experts everywhere prepare to showcase their best work in front of millions of eyes glued to a screen in one of the most important commercial nights of the year.
This yearly event has produced dozens of iconic moments and popular culture references that have echoed throughout generations. From memorable like Gatorade’s “Jordan vs. Jordan” in 2003, to bizarre like Mountain Dew’s “Puppy Monkey Baby” in 2016, there is no shortage of commercials to choose from when building a list of the top Super Bowl ads of all time.
Hopefully that list will grow longer as Super Bowl LVII approaches on Feb. 12, at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona, where the winner between the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday afternoon’s NFC championship will face the winner between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC title game on Sunday night.
That said, after careful considerations, these were selected as the not-at-all-controversial Top 5 Super Bowl commercials.
- Volkswagen’s “The Force” (2011)
Millions of kids around the globe have pretended to move objects with their minds to feel like a character on Star Wars, and all of them – and their parents – liked this commercial where after multiple failed attempts by a mini-Darth Vader he finally gets his break through when a Volkswagen car starts with only the power of his mind – or his dad’s remote keys, either or.
- Pepsi’s Cindy Crawford commercial (1992)
It’s not all puppies, monkeys and babies for one the most famous pop brands in the world. In 1992, supermodel Cindy Crawford starred in this iconic new-can reveal for Pepsi in a moment that is remembered almost as much as the clash between the Buffalo Bills and the Washington Redskins.
- Coca Cola’s Famous “Mean” Joe Greene commercial (1980)
“Mean” Joe Greene might have made a career out of terrorizing quarterbacks on the field, but outside of it one of his most famous accomplishments was this commercial for Coke where he sipped – rather unceremoniously – on a pop offered by a young fan after leaving a game with an injury, before offering his now-iconic “Hey kid” line and throwing his game jersey towards him thus giving birth to “Nice” Joe Greene.
- Budweiser’s “Wassup” (2000)
Maybe the most quoted commercial of all time, the catchphrase “Wassup” still lives on to this day as a popular culture reference of the early-2000s.
Not bad for an ad, which was inspired by the short film True, where most actors portraying buddies enjoying a beer only had to memorize a single sentence.
1. Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” (1984)
There is something to be said about the simplicity in some of these ads that have made history. In Where’s the Beef? – a direct poke at competitors like McDonald’s and Burger King – three elderly ladies complain about the lack of meat on cheeseburgers while repeatedly asking “Where’s the Beef?”, which apparently would never happen at a Wendy’s restaurant. The iconic slogan soon became an extremely versatile and popular catchphrase people would use when questioning the quality or substance of a product or an event or a thing.
Highlights include a Fast and Furious movie montage where one of the Where’s the Beef? elderly ladies executes drifts that would make Dominic Toretto proud to get to a fast-food franchise to ask about the whereabouts of the meat.