Last year, we published “How to Critique Super Bowl Commercials” and the details of our proprietary, secret-sauce Super Bowl Commercial Test™. If you applied the test again this year, you discovered that a few more of this year’s ads made it past the five-minute mark for recall of both the category and the brand. The first half aired mostly duds, much like the Chiefs played. But once the halftime show was over, the better ads appeared. They made up for what was an otherwise one-sided drama-free Super Bowl.
You probably have your favorite ads, and we’d love to hear who you crowned the winner(s). Drop us a line at Mark+SuperBowlAds@innismaggiore.com and let us know. Or let us know your losers. Feel free to agree or disagree with us – after all, advertising is about whether the ad made a lasting impression in your mind. Either way, “we listen, and we don’t judge.”
We crowned our champions based on a combination of an ad’s Creativity (did the ad get your attention?), the Idea (was there a positioning/differentiating idea?), and Connection (did the Creativity do the best job at conveying the Idea to viewers). No matter how they were liked or disliked, here’s an explanation of how our panel of experts scored the commercials:
Here’s a scorecard for one of our winners – Booking.com:
- Creativity: 10
- Idea: 10
- Connection: 10
And another for one of our losers – SquareSpace:
- Creativity: 3
- Idea: 0
- Connection: 2
For each, we asked for commentary, and here is a corresponding comment for each of the above winner and loser:
- Winner – Booking.com: “How can you go wrong with the Muppets? In fact, how can you make the Muppets even better? Show that one vacationer’s dream spot is another’s nightmare. This spot was filled with a frenetic flurry of activity, but it delivered in conveying that Booking.com is the perfect way to find the perfect vacation. And in case you “hate everything,” it’s even easy to cancel (thank you, Waldorf and Statler!). The Creative held my attention, the Idea was obvious, and the Connection left a lasting impression.”
- Loser – SquareSpace: “Throwing computers at people by an Irish actor riding a donkey did little to hold my attention. There was no differentiating idea. Wix, GoDaddy, and other platforms make building a website easy too. Complete fail on Creativity, no differentiating Idea, and a zero score on Connection left me feeling like a donkey’s [backend].”
Now that you have a sense for our litmus test, here is our list of the 2025 Super Bowl Ad Spot winners and losers.
Our winners are …
We already mentioned Booking.com and why we gave them a perfect score. There were a few other perfect or near-perfect scores that landed on our winners’ list:
- Doritos (perfect score) – Doritos won again this year, continuing to expand on their Idea of the chip “for the bold.” Using fan-generated ad spots, the winner wasn’t our favorite from those that were made public, but nonetheless, the chosen ad conveyed the bold flavors of Doritos with Creative flair and a perfect Connection to the Idea. Check out this eight-minute YouTube video showing all the fan-generated ad spot finalists.
- Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise (perfect score) – As long as you could put up with the questionable thematic material and the kids were out of the room, this re-visit of the iconic scene from the 1989 movie, When Harry Met Sally, delivered in every way. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were back to re-create the scene, and the line, “it’s real this time” was the icing on the cake (or perhaps, the “real mayo on the sandwich”). Chances are viewers won’t forget this ad anytime soon. That should make Hellmann’s ecstatic, assuming they sell enough mayo to pay for what was probably one of the most expensive ad spots produced.
- Michelob Ultra (perfect score) – Next to Billy and Meg, Willem Dafoe and Christina O’Hara get Oscars for the best celeb acting in any of the commercials. The Creativity of pitting the ultimate “secret pickleball masters” against celebs of all types delivered perfectly on the Idea of Michelob being the “ultra” option to go to [pickleball] war. The product was inserted throughout the spot and remained the focus of the ad, making the perfect Connection of Creative and Idea.
- Reese’s Lava Peanut Butter Cups (minus 1 point for potential overproduction) – This might have been the easiest Idea to connect to the Creative, which goes to show that the product development team might be the real winners in production of this ad. While the connection of volcanic lava to chocolate lava was obvious, kudos to the creative team for not overthinking the Connection. The Idea was clear and the Creative, while potentially being accused of overproduction, was fun and memorable. We could have used a little less freneticism, but one will not soon forget this spot.
- T-Mobile (minus 2 points for little Creativity) – In a world where mobile phone advertising is mostly boring, with little differentiation, T-Mobile wins the race to StarLink. This announcement caught our panelists off-guard and made them sit up and take notice. Is it possible T-Mobile is about to make satellite phones standard? We’re a lot excited at the possibility!
New Entry Winner
Last year’s winner was Poppi and it was going to take a lot for another brand to top that Super Bowl spot. Poppi scored a perfect 10+10+10 on each point of review. This year’s first time Super Bowl advertisers are Spruce, Cirkul, Liquid Death, Duracell, Häagen-Dazs, Instacart, HexClad, Nestlé Coffee Mate, Totino Pizza Rolls, Ritz Crackers, MSC Cruises, NerdWallet, and Bosch. Most of these new advertisers fell short of the opportunity in our opinion, and we put some on our Super Nots list below.
This year’s new entry winner is another liquid … Liquid Death. Known for their zany creativity mostly found on social media, Liquid Death’s CEO noted that linear TV is only worthwhile when 100 million-plus people are actively tuned into watching commercials. We couldn’t agree more. And let’s not forget, Liquid Death has been rumored to have one of the most anticipated IPOs, perhaps in 2025. Though there is no formal filing to date, Liquid Death hired Goldman Sachs in 2023 to explore a public offering. We think this well-timed Super Bowl spot might indicate a soon-coming IPO!
What was their idea? “It’s just water, but it’s still cool.” Exactly their position, and it was well dramatized.
Celebrity Winner
Last year was Addison Rae, not due to her performance re-creating a scene from the iconic Flash Dance, but her social reach. What did it do for Nerd’s? No one can confirm, but we do know that Gummy Clusters – its new hero product – has increased company sales from about $50 million in 2019 to more than $800 million in 2024.
This year, we’re giving the celebrity winner award to Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara. They had the right look in their eyes, the right delivery, and the perfect temperament to pull off their “play for Ultra” in the Michelob Ultra ad. The camera work made them look like pickleball pros, and their acting delighted.
Honorable Mentions
Not everyone gets a trophy, but we thought there were enough decent ads this year. It’s worth giving props to some other brands. Our honorable mentions include:
- Coors Monday Light – Very promotional in nature, but the Creative with the sloths caught our attention and kept it. While the differentiating Idea for the Coors brand falls a little flat, the Connection to the promotion was well done.
- Stella Artois – David Beckham struggles with any script they hand him, but this one had less talking and more action, with cover provided by Matt Damon. The Creative fell short of a top spot, but the Idea of “For those with good taste” connected. The teaser of the “other David” was intriguing enough to maintain the viewer’s attention, and the loose connections to the long-lost David were decently executed. We felt with some script improvements, this one could have made it to the Winners list.
- Budweiser – Who doesn’t love the Clydesdales, but this ad felt eerily similar to last year’s ad. The Creative is heart-touching, so it scored a bit higher on that side of the point total, while the Idea and Connectivity were lost in execution.
- Weathertech – This one took a long while to develop, but it eventually paid off. Creatively, most of our panelists liked it, but like others, the Idea was buried in an overly produced script. Once the Idea was revealed, however, it connected, albeit briefly. Time will tell if this spot moves the needle on Weathertech sales, who made a drastic departure from its typical straight-laced bland personality.
- HexClad – The ad’s title, “Unidentified Frying Object” might have been the most Creative thing about this spot. The script never paid off quite well enough of connecting alien technology to what makes HexClad technology advanced, so the Connection to the Idea was where the points were lost on this ad. However, Gordon Ramsay does well with the script, and our panelists gave it an honorable mention for the storyline.
Split Decision
This was a new award last year, because even we in the world of advertising can’t always agree on a great, or not-so-great, ad. Here are our split decisions:
- Nerds – Surprisingly, Nerds got both good and bad reviews. Many felt the CGI was amazing, but many cited the CGI as the problem. Comments such as “CGI for CGI’s sake – unemotional” and “boring” were the reason we had a split decision. Nerd’s Gummy Clusters are the brand’s Midas-touch, but the split decision fell between being awed by the CGI or bored by it.
- Uber Eats – This brand was one of our losers last year. However, Matthew McConaughey wins for some of our panelists regardless of the Idea or Connection. The ongoing ad series about “football makes you hungry” has been fairly well executed, but this extended cut on the Idea doesn’t do the brand any favors. A conspiracy theory about football’s eating references did little to make our panelists want to use Uber Eats.
- Novartis – this ad either hit big or hit low. Some were offended by the objectification of women at the expense of a serious issue. Others felt it brought the attention that breast cancer screening needs. However, the challenge for the brand is that most forgot which brand it was regardless of their reactions to the ad, probably because it was an afterthought at the end of the commercial.
- Oikos Yogurt – For our Cleveland Browns fans, using Myles Garrett in the ad brought a positive response. Juno Temple was an interesting pairing, and in the end, the ad received mixed reviews on the Creative. However, the Idea of “Oikos makes you strong” made Connections and in spite of the Creative, had some positive feedback. Those who scored the ad lower simply noted that the ad wasn’t overly memorable.
Heart Strings Award
With much less cultural commentary in ads the past two years – to the elation of most Americans – most brands stayed away from the heart strings and focused on comedy. However, this year’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism Creative was far more effective than last year’s ad. In fact, at our Super Bowl party, most forgot this wasn’t the first Super Bowl for this non-profit organization. Tom Brady and Snoop Dog brought to light the insanity of hatred, and most panelists gave this a very high rating.
Super Nots (like the Chiefs!)
These spots failed the Super Bowl Commercial Test™ for a variety of reasons. Mostly due to a failure to launch, but sometimes because they just came at us with an Idea that was a complete disconnect from the brand, no Idea at all, or an undifferentiated Idea. We already mentioned SquareSpace which received bad grades across the board, so we’ll move to some of the others on the Losers list:
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- Totino’s Pizza Rolls – This one, while high production value, fell flat for our panelists. The narrative dwelt too much time on what was the equivalent of a second grader’s conversation between an alien and two “grown” men. The magic the alien left with the kids at the beginning of the ad had nothing to do with the juvenile dialog between the alien and the adults. The Creative got in the way of the Idea, which was simply “these are really cheap pizza rolls,” so Connection received a big fat zero. And what was up with the alien? At least give us a cute factor at some level!
- Instacart – When an idea leaves you with the impression of the Pillsbury Dough Boy or Mr. Clean, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re advertising Pillsbury or Mr. Clean, but it was so emphasized that most forgot the ad was for Instacart. And what’s with the hot dogs dressed as hot dogs? This was Creative for creative’s sake and had a bad Idea piled on with a horrible Connection.
- MSC Cruises – Drew Barrymore and Orlando Bloom didn’t do the ad any favors, but if you were looking for a good time cruise, this ad brings attention to some cruise features that made our panelists a lot skeptical. Drew singing out of tune and ruining a good “Holiday” song didn’t make up for the questionable cruise feature lineup.
- FanDuel – At what point do we care anymore about the Manning brothers or any other non-kicker athletes being able to kick a field goal? The ad was uninspired and most felt that they’ve had enough Mannings to last more than a lifetime. This got the Snoozer award.
- GoDaddy – We know GoDaddy as a domain registrar. And while most know it builds websites as well, the Creative, Idea, and Connection were all lost on Goggin Noggin. Our panelists all responded with a puzzled, “Wait … What?!”
- Tubi – “Fleshy cowboy hat” boy should be enough to tell you why this ad flopped. It came in dead last on USA Today’s Ad Meter, and well, it should have. Our Super Bowl party and the panelists all exclaimed the same thing: “Gross!” Fortunately for Tubi, there’s a good chance no one remembers this horrible ad was connected to their brand. In our recall test, not one person remembered which brand this ad represented.
We’d love to hear from you with your takes on the Super Bowl Ads and whether the Super Bowl Commercial Test™ worked for you! Send your comments to Mark+SuperBowlAds@innismaggiore.com. Or, if you want to make your advertising Super-Bowl-worthy, contact Innis Maggiore today!