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How about that Super Bowl? Am I right? Okay, so while I was physically present during the entirety of what I’m sure was a really good game of football, sports aren’t really my jam. This is Campus Life, though, so you will be receiving my abundant opinions. What on? The commercials, of course.
This was a really solid year of advertising as far as I’m concerned. While I’m hesitant to risk promoting any brands for fear of perpetuating the often injust mode of capitalism, I’ll still go ahead and tell you about the funniest commercials of the 2020 Super Bowl.
Side note: I did say funniest. There were several serious commercials that were very well made; some were even downright emotional. While I do appreciate those, I would feel bad to put them next to something like the #Snickershole or #Babynut.
One more thing before I begin — as someone with no background in propaganda or advertising, it seems to me that some common factors that lead to a successful commercial are use of familiar celebrities, allusions, well known music and puns. A whole lot of all of that.
Avocados From Mexico promote their avocados by using Molly Ringwald in a commercial spoofing those three in the morning infomericals with absolute bonkers products for your avocado. Avocado tracksuits? Check. Avocado pool floats? Check. Well done, avocado sales team.
In a commercial more aptly timed than any other I’ve ever seen with the February 2 Super Bowl game Bill Murray resumes his “Groundhog Day” lead with the same initial misery. It’s a Jeep commercial, so there’s Jeep propaganda, of course, but it’s good to see some more solid Murray antics.
Doritos are chips. I’m not sure they are good enough to warrant a wild west dance showoff between Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott to “Old Town Road.” Still a solid commercial.
Reese’s take 5 and office puns — Do you like Reese’s? Not even important. Do you like puns? That’s what matters for this commercial. Reese’s has made visual puns over many of the classic idioms used when people are ignorant of something—born yesterday, living under a rock, head in the sand and more.
The Mountain Dew “Shining” commercial — a reimagining of The Shining with Bryan Cranston to promote a sugarless Mountain Dew. It recreates the iconic “Here’s Johnny” scene with Tracee Ellis Ross as the wife. The commercial recreates the flooded elevator with soda rather than blood and includes an absolutely delightful image of Cranston as the twins.
Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, start off a very well made commercial for Amazon Alexa that takes a trip through history and how people managed to live without digital assistants. This commercial has everything I need. Mostly Ellen.
Turbotax dance commercial — This commercial serves as an excellent reminder that sometimes simple, visual comedy really hits home. The entirety of this commercial is just a song about taxes and a variety of people doing a dance where they wiggle their legs, but it works.
If there was a more solid punchline during the Super Bowl than “I thought it said Mark’s water,” then I didn’t notice it. Also, this SodaSteam commercial featured the hero of all elementary school science classes: Bill Nye. That’s certainly enough for me.
I never thought the day would come that a Rocket Mortgage commercial would be even remotely notable, but they’ve done it. The visual of Jason Momoa peeling off his muscles like they were a costume is about as alarming as it is funny, but being taken off guard is what gives this commercial its comedic power.
Snickers creates a musical commercial poking fun at some of the issues of today like stupid baby names and corporate spying through our home technology. Their solution is dropping a massive Snickers bar into the Earth. That is a choice.
How many Sci-fi allusions does it take to make a stellar WalMart commercial? However many it was they used in Walmart’s Super Bowl commercial this year.
In a series of five commercials featuring Charlie Day, Tide manages to make the point that they’ve created a laundry soap that will remove stains long after you’ve gotten them. Whatever, that’s nice. What I do care about is the impressive use of the periodic reappearance of a stressed Charlie, who just wants to get his laundry done.
My favourite subplot of the 2020 Super Bowl was the Death and Revival of Mr. Peanut. Is it absolutely ridiculous? Yes. Has the Planters marketing team hit on something wondrous? Also yes. If you haven’t seen the two relevant commercials, check them out!
If you really need to burn some time or need a laugh, try one of these.
