Before the celebrity and movie trailer-ridden Super Bowl commercials we know today, there was a world where advertisers only had to pay $37,500 per slot. Now, in Super Bowl LVIII, a 30-second slot can run you $7 million. A higher price means higher quality, with the ads more pleasing to look at in terms of visuals. To make back the money they spend on high-quality cameras – even though $7 million is barely a dent in their massive swimming pool of money – companies play their ads all over your feeds days before the big game, doing away with the past sense of anticipation. Ads are now full of celebrities whose names I should know, but instead, I just tell my family, “Hey that guy looks kinda familiar.” Most people, who have even a shred of facial recognition talent, love seeing that one guy from whatever movie, but because this is my ranking, any ad that would be considered a highlight because of a charismatic actor will most likely not show up. From the well-received “The DunKings” commercial, I recognized one out of 20-ish celebrities I should know in today’s pop culture-obsessed media. I don’t have the nostalgia associated with the “Like a Good Neighbaa” ad, and all ads desperately trying to connect with Gen-X don’t do it for me. That said, here is my definitive ranking of the Highlights and Lowlights from the 2024 Super Bowl ads.
Highlight
“Perfect 10” – Kia
Perfect 10: The Kia big game commercial featuring the 2024 Kia EV9
I will admit I did tear up a little at this car ad. Any commercial with a child and old people has a chokehold over my tear ducts. A common trend in modern car ads is to show the car’s ability to go off-road, but I have never felt the need to leave the beautifully paved road with a Shell on my right and a giant fast food chain on my left. Instead of showing how your company’s car can traverse snowy trails, show me some heated seats and a nice backup camera. All this is beside the point. If you can make a commercial that makes me cry, you deserve to be a highlight.
Lowlight
“Temu’s Superbowl Ad” – Temu
Temu’s Big Game Ad Encore TV Commercial 2024
If you put aside the fact that Temu takes personal information and sells your data to other companies (according to CNBC), this ad sucked. For spending $21 million on all their ad slots, they could have gotten rid of one ad and spent the $7 million they would have saved on creating an ad that didn’t make me want to poke my eyes out. The sheer number of colors and poorly designed characters never should have made it past the first round of testing. Temu’s sister company, Pinduoduo, has been accused of hosting sales of counterfeits and illegal goods. Two Pinduoduo employees tragically passed away in 2021, leading to investigations over working conditions (from CNN). While there hasn’t been any evidence of poor conditions in Temu’s facilities, speculations are rising. All of this is to say, don’t buy from Temu and support local businesses if you can.
Highlight
“Micheal CeraVe” – CeraVe
“Michael CeraVe” I CeraVe Super Bowl (Long Form)
In this commercial, Micheal Cera pitches CeraVe moisturizing cream as his invention, only for the dermatologists who created it to shoot down his idea. This ad lets the viewers know doctors created the cream, while also appealing to Micheal Cera fans (such as myself). Even though I have awful facial recognition, Micheal Cera is hard to miss. As a bonus, the Deep Hydration CeraVe Moisturizing Cream works really well.
Lowlight
“Less Social Media, More Snapchat” – Snapchat
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8se06u
Snapchat put out this weird oxymoron Super Bowl ad, claiming people should use Snapchat instead of other social media because it’s … not social media? Now while Snapchat doesn’t have the ability to like people’s posts, it still has stories, short-form content you can scroll on, and celebrities. While the app hopes to show itself as a social media alternative, the backlash it faced for this commercial proved its hypocrisy. I also wasn’t able to find a video posted by Snapchat for this article, leading me to believe they deleted the video altogether.
Highlight
“Born to Play” – NFL
NFL Super Bowl LVIII || Born to Play
As I said before, a commercial with kids has an astronomically high chance of making me cry. This ad from the NFL stars a boy named Kwesi who hopes to play football with his favorite football athletes was no different. While I cannot name a single one of the players, the message and beautiful cinematography shot this ad up to one of my favorites.
Lowlight
“Nerds Big Game Commerical ft. Addison Rae” – Nerds
NERDS Big Game Commercial ft. Addison Rae | Official :30 | 2024
This commercial made me uncomfortable, and ads aren’t supposed to do that. A big pink blob dances and releases a ton of nerds to jump onto it, in a scene I can only describe as squirmish. I have always had an aversion to the Nerds mascots on television. Don’t get me wrong, I love Nerd Gummies and the inevitable cancer they will give me from all the red 40, but the 3D renderings of their likeliness don’t share that love. At the end of the ad, Addison Rae makes a cameo. I don’t enjoy the sheer amount of celebrities in today’s ads, trying to cram in as much ethos as possible, but Addison Rae was the nail in the coffin for me. Her shot of eating the bag of Nerds was unnecessary to the point of laughability, which is exactly what I did when the somewhat irrelevant TikTok star showed up. If the Super Bowl is reading this, make all celebrity cameos celebrities I enjoy. You can email me for my notes app list.
At this point, the likelihood of actually reading my rambling below the YouTube videos is close to none. To make up for the dwindling attention span in the 21st century, here are the rest of my standouts in no particular order.
Highlights
In e.l.f we Trust | e.l.f Cosmetics Game Day Commercial 2024
Super Bowl LVIII (58) Commercial: Pluto TV – Couch Potato Farms (2024)
Paramount+ Super Bowl Spot | Sir Patrick Stewart Throws a Hail Arnold | A Mountain of Entertainment™
Dove “It’s the Hard Knock Life” Super Bowl LVIII (58) 2024 Commercial
Etsy “Thank You, France” Super Bowl LVIII (58) 2024 Commercial
Lowlights
RFK Jr’s Super Bowl ad(Go read on the controversy behind this, it’s hilarious)
Bass Pro Shops 2024 Super Bowl Commercial – Making Memories On The Water
And finally, every single Movie Trailer that I had to see instead of watching funny Super Bowl commercials.
