Photograph: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features
Sunday saw the 46th running of the Super Bowl, but nobody in mediaville really cares too much about the action on the pitch, rather it’s all about the advertisements. The Super Bowl is known to have the most expensive television advertisement segments in the world, and the companies that purchase the space don’t just push out adverts from an existing campaign – oh no!
Infact, the fifty or so adverts that are screened during the ad-breaks on US television are of the highest quality, usually featuring well known celebrities and film star cameos. This year saw an awesome re-make of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with Matthew Broderick revisiting his role as the slacker student for Honda. Other adverts featured Jerry Seinfeld, David Beckham, even Elton John made an appearance.
Over the past two years, the adverts have begun to be shared online and the interaction of fans on social networks has increased at a huge rate. Half of the advertisements for this year’s Super Bowl were shared on YouTube ahead of their television debut; undoubtedly this was to increase reach of their expensive mini-films as few were repeatedly run during the game. And, at $3.5 million for 30 seconds of ad-space during the game, you can’t really blame the advertisers!
It wasn’t just video that saw huge interest. On Sunday, the final three minutes of the game saw over 10,000 tweets per second – incredible! A majority of ads featured links to Facebook pages over corporate websites, and hashtags were de rigeur too.
Anyway, without further ado, here are our favourite ads from the ‘Bowl. Who won the game? The Giants. Who won the advertising war? You decide...
James
Honda
The Dictator
Audi
Pepsi
Chevrolet
Samsung
Volkswagen