These Super Bowl ads will make you laugh, get scared — and grab the tissues
People love to analyze the Super Bowl ads almost as much as the big game.
We’re no different.
You don’t have to know a lick about football to appreciate the work that goes into some of these oh so strategic marketing ploys that are sure to get water cooler conversation going the following day.
They sure cost enough: Fox is charging as much as $5.6 million for a 30-second spot.
We analyzed a handful, and here are a few things that may happen to you during the breaks in the action.
You’ll be inspired
We dare you to not give something to that homeless person with a sign after seeing this one. Oakland Raiders running back Josh Jacobs rides around in an SUV with a little boy (his younger self!) while touching piano music plays. “You gotta believe in yourself and be tougher than the world around you and push yourself to be someone, and I promise some day you will be,” says the NFL star. It ends with Jacobs, who was living out of a car and hotels for a time growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, running onto the field in triumph. According to AdWeek, Kia is spotlighting homelessness: For each yard that’s gained during the Big Game, the car company will donate $1,000 to the cause.
You’ll laugh
Unless you’ve been living under a distillery, you know Post Malone likes beer. To show his support, the pop star is starring in not one but two ads for Bud Light Seltzer. The catch: Starting Thursday, fans get to choose which one makes the cut by voting for either #postystore or #postybar on social media. Both show the “Rockstar” singer’s biological command center (in the form of actors with similar face tattoos) as the entertainer tries the new product. Both are funny, and we predict either one will slay.
You’ll feel afraid
Bryan Cranston, how we’ve missed you. The “Breaking Bad” star plugs Mountain Dew’s latest sugar-free soda by channeling Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” Cranston does a dead-on impression of Jack Torrance, nailing the horrifying scene where the insane character puts an ax through the door, slides his face through the crack and screams, “Heeeeeeere’s Mountain Dew Zero!” We especially love the green liquid seeping out of the elevator at the end.
You’ll bawl
Insurance company New York Life is going to be responsible for some tears Sunday night, when all we wanted to do was watch sports. The narrator starts the waterworks, explaining the four words the ancient Greeks had for love — different terms for friends, siblings and lovers. The fourth word is “agape, the most admirable,” she says. “It takes courage, sacrifice, strength.”
During the piano-laced voice-over, a father is seen doing his daughter’s hair, a mother kisses her baby, friends shave a cancer patient’s head, an elderly man is hand washed by his son. The spot ends with, “Be good at life.” Slicing onions over here.
You’ll feel ancient
For those of you who still think of as Molly Ringwald as the sassy yet lovelorn teenager in “Sixteen Candles,” prepare to have your mind warped. The 51-year-old actress is a frumpy-ish avocado pitch woman now and this ad is a throwback we’re not sure we wanted. MC Hammer, in the Cheeto’s Popcorn clip? Totally fine.
