This year, the Super Bowl was historic, unprecedented and exciting. The commercials, however – not so much. One of the best Super Bowls in recent memory lacked the accustomed number of memorable and entertaining commercials.
But that is not to say that there weren’t some funny, some bizarre and some surprisingly controversial commercials. So, to mark Super Bowl LI and to celebrate the great American tradition of discussing the commercials, here are the Top Five Super Bowl LI commercials:
5) 2017 Kia: “Hero’s Journey”
Melissa McCarthy is a wildly funny when she is given material she can excel with. In Kia’s minute-long commercial promoting the 2017 Kia Niro, McCarthy gets to participate in one of the most tried and true forms of comedy there is: slapstick. McCarthy plays a disaster-prone environmental activist, who is shown repeatedly falling while trying to protect a whale, a tree and a glacier. It’s quite funny, though it does little to promote the actual product.
4) Avocados from Mexico: “#AvoSecrets”
Apparently the Illuminati really likes avocados and its biggest kept secret is just how healthy the avocados are. But the Illuminati is also really bad at keeping secrets.
There is really nothing else that can be said. It’s a wonderfully bizarre concept that, if nothing else, is very memorable. The commercial also certainly advertises the product.
3) Wix.com: “Big Game First Spot”
As with the Kia ad, Wix is smart enough not only to hire celebrities, but they let those celebrities do what they do best. Jason Statham and Gal Godot get into an action-packed fight sequence in a restaurant while a chef creates his website in the kitchen with Wix. Statham and Godot are always awesome to watch, which made the commercial fun and funny. The tagline at the end connects the disruption of the fight scene to the ways the world can disrupt someone’s business. For this reason, the ad does makes more sense than the avocado one, yet the product is not very well highlighted.
2) Anheuser-Busch: “Born the Hard Way”
In today’s polarized climate, a few ads were surprisingly controversial. Most of these ads and the issues surrounding them have been left off this list, but “Born the Hard Way” so beautifully depicts the origins of the Anheuser-Busch company that it must be considered. The ad depicts a somewhat fictional account of the troubles one of the company’s founders faced as he immigrated to the United States. He eventually meets his business partner and they found what would become the biggest beer company on the planet. It’s a moving journey that is cinematically gorgeous and despite not technically featuring the product, the ad does an incredible job associating the origins of the company with its values.
Considering the ad was in production for a long time, it is controversial if this ad is hinting at any recent political actions. It’s just a good old-fashioned American Dream story of the company’s origin.
1) Buick: “Cam Newton”
This ad was far and away the funniest and most entertaining commercial of the night. In the ad, Carolina Panther’s quarterback Cam Newton plays in a pee-wee football league, running over kids, knocking them over with his passes, all because someone doubted that a Buick was, indeed, a Buick. It is both the funniest and most bizarre advertisement and despite not demonstrating the product even slightly, the sheer entertainment value of this ad puts it above the others. Outside of the game, this ad certainly provided the most entertainment during the night.
