Monster.com was, for a time, the place to find a new job online. Its 1999 Super Bowl ad effectively used kids to exploit adults’ feelings of dissatisfaction with their career path, striking because its young stars were striving for something besides the top job.
Should a brand’s advertising ever show its competitor’s products? That may be par for the course today, but Pepsi took a big risk with this 1996 spot, wherein rival delivery guys bond, then fight again, over a glass of Pepsi-Cola. Ads like these gave rise to the general rule that you’ll never see the dominant competitor in a corporate rivalry show their rival’s wares in an ad. Meanwhile, it laid the groundwork for now-famous comparison spots like Apple’s iconic “Mac vs. PC” ads.
Here’s an ad that actually got Snickers into quite a bit of hot water, though if you don’t take it too seriously, it’s actually very amusing.
The ad opens with a couple guys working on a car, something many consider to be a relatively masculine affair. One of the guys pulls out a Snickers and starts eating it. Noticing the delectable treat (but not the guy eating it), the other fellow goes to town on the opposite end, Lady in the Tramp-style. The two men then share an accidental moment of unintended intimacy — recoiling with horror, one says, “I think we just accidentally kissed,” followed by “Quick! Do something manly!” For some reason, doing something manly means opening your shirt and ripping out a handful of chest hair.
Whether or not this is how most men behave (it’s not, especially the chest hair part) isn’t really the point. The ad is funny because of its stupidity, but it also works for Snickers by saying the candy is so good this might happen (though if you pay attention to who’s eating a foot in front of you, it probably won’t). The company took a lot of flack over the ad, which was ultimately pulled off the air, but … come on. You laughed at it, too. It’s okay to admit it.
How do you make a dog cry? That’s the question posed by this Budweiser ad from Super Bowl XXXIV. The spot opens on a Western film scene with a dog sitting atop the corpse of a man, but the dog looks way too happy. A director calls “cut,” and it’s time to motivate the dog. The solution is to have Rex think about his absolute worst day — luckily, the dog understands English, because that’s exactly what we’re treated to.
We then see Rex on a beautiful day — he notices a Budweiser truck passing by, and decides to follow it. He leaps into the air to cross over the fence and face-plants into the van that’s parked there. The dog howls remembering this and pleases everyone on-set. The ad is all about the desire to get a Bud (and how much dogs love their beer, evidently). It’s funny and ridiculous at the same time, but also perfect for a brand that is best known for its silly commercials starring animated beer bottles, frogs, and just about anything else you can think of. Fermented bread was never so adorable.
This 2015 PSA from the NO MORE movement, which featured a real 911 call, became the first-ever Super Bowl commercial to address domestic violence and sexual assault. The airtime was donated by the NFL as part of a campaign to manage controversy surrounding its handling of former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s assault of his then-fiancée. NO MORE ran a similar ad in 2016 that also garnered major attention.
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