In a nail biter, the Baltimore Ravens topped the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl XLVII, during which a half-hour blackout added to the drama. But in between plays there were 10 ads that stood out. Here are the ads that were the buzz around the water cooler — and on social media sites — on Monday.
1. Chrysler’s two-minute spot during halftime was a salute to troops and their families. The ad featured Oprah Winfrey reading a letter from the Jeep brand to encourage families to stay hopeful until their loved ones return.
2. Chrysler also scored with a Ram ad that saluted farmers featuring radio broadcaster Paul Harvey’s 1978 “So God Made a Farmer” address, which talks about the heartiness of farmers. It ran while documentary-style still images of farmers past and present played.
3. Anheuser-Busch pulled at heartstrings with a spot about a baby Clydesdale growing up and moving away from his farm and his trainer. The horse remembered the trainer after returning for a parade, and raced to hug him.
4. Audi’s 60-second ad featured an ending that was voted on by viewers prior to the game. The ad showed a boy gaining confidence from driving his father’s Audi to the prom, kissing the prom queen and getting decked by the prom king.
5. GoDaddy’s spot gathered buzz, although a lot of it was negative. It showed an extended kiss between supermodel Bar Refaeli and a nerdy guy to illustrate the company’s combo of “sexy” and “smart.”
6. Samsung’s two-minute ad showed Seth Rogen (“The Guilt Trip”) and Paul Rudd (“Role Models”) getting called in to do a “Next Big Thing” ad for Samsung. But Rogen and Rudd are agitated once they realize that they’re sharing the spotlight. LeBron James, an NBA basketball player for the Miami Heat, makes a cameo, appearing on the screen of a tablet.
7. Best Buy’s 30-second ad in the first quarter starred Amy Poehler, of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” asking a Best Buy employee endless questions about electronics. “Will this one read ‘50 Shades of Grey’ to me in a sexy voice?” Poehler asks about an e-book reader. When the staffer says no she asks, “Will you?”
8. Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” winners showed the lengths people will go to in order to protect their Doritos. In one spot, a man buys a goat, but when he realizes the goat is eating all of his Doritos, he tries to get rid of him. In another ad, a man and his pals play princess dress up with his daughter to get some Doritos.
9. Taco Bell’s ad showed octogenarians sneaking out to go party, causing trouble and winding up in a Taco Bell parking lot eating tacos — just like their twenty-something counterparts might do.
10. Oreo’s ad featured a showdown in a library between people fighting over whether the cookie or the cream is the best part of the cookie. The joke? The fight escalates into thrown chairs and other destruction, but because the fight is in a library, everyone still has to whisper — even police called to the scene.
Honorable mention: Oreo tweeted an ad during the Superdome’s power outage: “You can still dunk in the dark.”
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