The annual buzz surrounding Super Bowl commercials is nearly as fevered as the anticipation of the Big Game. Loyal sponsors such as Budweiser, Doritos and various car companies have to get really creative to keep coming back year after year.
Popular athletes such as Michael Jordan and Mean Joe Green have made entertaining appearances in a variety of spots, but it seems — when looking back over the history of these ads — that actors willing to spoof themselves a bit make the most impact.
Sometimes, though, the right Super Bowl commercial — as was the case with an obscure 80-year-old actress named Clara Peller who famously asked “Where’s the beef?” in a Wendy’s ad — can make you a star.
Below are our picks for the Best Super Bowl commercials.
1. Eminem for Chrysler
While the camera pans over a scene of Midwestern misery — smokestacks pumping into a cloudy sky, the ominous Interstate overhead — a gravelly voice asks, “What does this city know about luxury? What does a town that’s been to hell and back know about the finer things in life?”
The man in the Chrysler commercial is talking about Detroit, the once-lustrous city that gave us everything from the auto industry to Diana Ross and the Supremes, but steadily slid until finally filing for bankruptcy in 2013.
When this artful music video aired during Super Bowl XLV (2011), Chrysler was a struggling company, having declared bankruptcy itself in 2009 earlier. To promote its model the Chrysler 200, and the city itself, the company spent about $9 million and hired director Samuel Bayer to create a gritty valentine to the city, spotlighting its classic buildings and even the Diego Rivera mural in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
About one minute in, Michigan native Eminem gets behind the wheel of a sleek Chrysler 200 to drive down Woodward Avenue while his Oscar-winning song, “Lose Yourself” plays in the background. He pulls up in front of the fabled Art Deco palace, the Fox Theatre, and walks up on stage where a choir sings. He turns to the camera and says, “This is the Motor City. And this is what we do.”
2. Monster.com
Super Bowl commercials don’t usually make social statements, but Monster.com’s “When I Grow Up” ad from 1999 could not have done a better job promoting the Web site’s employment service. And the message was driven home by a collection of children who looked into the camera and made deadpan comments about the futility many Americans find in the workplace.
3. Wendy’s, “Where’s the Beef?”
In this 1984 commercial comparing the relative worth and size of fast-food hamburgers, an 81-year-old actress named Clara Peller stared at the puny patties on fluffy buns offered by the competition and angrily demanded, “Where’s the beef?” Those three words became the catchphrase of the day, and Wendy’s sales jumped 31 percent, worldwide, in 1985.
4. Clydesdale Brotherhood
Probably the best beer commercial ever made. Budweiser pulled out all the stops in the 2013 ad, set to the plaintive bars of Stevie Nicks’ “Landslide.” In the footage, we see a horse trainer raising a Clydesdale from birth and grooming it for its place in the company stables.
The trainer goes to Chicago to see the Clydesdale march in a parade and wonders if the horse will remember him. Of course, the horse does, and before the trainer can drive away, the animal breaks free of the pack and has a heartfelt reunion in the middle of street. Hokey? Yeah. But it was an audience favorite.
5. Old Spice, “The Man Your Man could Smell Like”
“Hello, ladies,” says buff actor Isaiah Mustafa, clad only in a towel, having just stepped out of the shower. “Look at your man, now back at me. Sadly, he’s not me.” The thrust of the piece is that were any man to use Old Spice instead of “lady-smelling body wash” he could smell like the sexy guy in the commercial.
After the commercial aired on the Super Bowl, it went on to win the Grand Prix in June 2010 for film at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and won the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2010.
6. Apple, “1984”
The Macintosh computer was introduced to the world during Super Bowl XVIII and played off themes described in George Orwell’s novel “1984.” Directed by Ridley Scott on a budget of about $370,000, it has earned a place in the Clio Awards Hall of Fame. Advertising Age also placed “1984” on its list of the 50 greatest commercials.
7. Cedric the Entertainer for Bud LightThis
This 2001 ad is a scream. Cedric the Entertainer sits down on a couch in his lair with a beautiful young woman while some Barry White-flavored music is playing in the background. Just when things are about to get busy, she purrs, “Why don’t you get something to cool this fire down?”
Cedric repairs to the kitchen, grabs two cold Bud Lites from the fridge and, in his excitement, shakes them up and does a little dance. He returns to the seduction room and opens the bottle. The shaken-up beer sprays all over his date’s face. Filmed by Fusion Idea.
8. Honda, “Matthew’s Day Off”
Matthew Broderick is one of those actors that comes off best in small doses. And here in this Honda CR-V ad from 2012, he gleams. Gleefully spoofing his breakout role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Broderick calls his agent and says he’s too sick to work that day on a film.
He tools around Beverly Hills, rides a roller coaster, coughs on cue when the office calls him on his car phone, goes to the track and even chases children at LA’s Natural History Museum. A complete joy ride.
9. Farrah Fawcett/Joe Namath for Noxzema
A bit of nostalgia from the early 1970s. The primitive production values of this commercial scream “low-budget,” but it features two American icons in their prime. Jets quarterback Joe “Broadway Joe” Namath looks in the camera and says, “I’m gonna get creamed.”
OK, it’s a little high-school, but the pre-Seth Rogen moment is saved when beautiful Farrah Fawcett steps into the frame with a dollop of Noxzema shaving cream in her palm.
10. Audi, “Prom”
You can’t go to the prom without a date, right? You can if you drive an Audi S6. In this to-the-point ad from 2013, Audi proves that cars can do anything: cure the blues and give you the courage to kiss the prom queen.