10 Great Super Bowl Ads You Can Expect to See on Sunday

10 Great Super Bowl Ads You Can Expect to See on Sunday

Nobody's quite sure when it was that Super Bowl advertisements became just as deeply embedded in the American consciousness as the game itself. But almost everyone is willing to acknowledge that when it comes to the reasons why Americans tune in for the big game, the commercials rank almost as high as the play on the field--for some fans, even higher.

Today we live in a world where Apple's 1984 Macintosh commercial is probably as well known as Marcus Allen's touchdown run, and Danica Patrick disrobing for GoDaddy is just as likely to come to mind when someone mentions the words "Super Bowl Sunday" as John Elway laying his body on the line for the Broncos.

Jim Cooney, President of Rhode Island-based PriMedia, says that the 1984 Apple spot was the one that did it for him. Even today, with entertainment options proliferating, he says the Super Bowl remains the paramount opportunity in advertising. "From a media buying perspective, it's the most people you can reach in the U.S. at one time--plus a bonus audience watching overseas."

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Simple ads work

While ads often veer towards the outlandish, it can be the simplest ads that stick with viewers, even years later. Cooney remembers Master Lock's 1974 Super Bowl campaign depicting a combination lock that refuses to open even it is seen being shot by a rifle in slow motion. Master Lock invested their entire annual budget into that Super Bowl ad--a gamble which ended up paying off. "You got one shot at it," he said (pun perhaps intended). "It was pretty powerful imagery--I remember that still to this day."

Cooney indicated that this year, Super Bowl advertisers risks a lower-than-average payoff, because the teams going head-to-head (the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks) may not be able to draw as high a number of viewers as other teams from bigger media markets might have. Considering the amount of time and creative capital that companies invest in commercials, the stakes for advertisers can be enormous. "Normally, people can say based on what the matchup is that its worth it," said Cooney. "This year, it's a little bit more of a roll of the dice."

In the run-up to this year's Super Bowl, several companies have already made their spots available. Whether this additional exposure leading up to the big day will make the ads even more valuable--or where these particular spots will rank in the pantheon of Super Bowl greats--remains to be seen, until next week.

 

Check out ten great ads you can expect to see in the Super Bowl in the slides below.