Thursday, February 13, 2025

February 5, 2025

Watch These Super Bowl Ads Solely For The Entertainment Value And Star Quality [Videos]

We've got David Beckham and his long lost brother, Matthew McConaughey’s conspiracy theory, Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady getting real about hate, and Gordon Ramsey being dissed by Pete Davidson.

[Image: Stella Artois]

We’re not watching these early-release Super Bowl ads for the products. We’re watching for the sheer entertainment value and star quality that big brands like Stella Artois, Uber Eats, Pringle, Booking.com, Doritos and so forth invest in to become even bigger.

However, in the end, it doesn’t matter why we watch because we’re watching anyway – and that is precisely why big brands fork out a lifetime worth of salaries for a short stint in the football arena.

These brands do not take the Super Bowl ad spot lightly. In fact, 2025 hit a record as the first year where an ad went for $8 million for a 30-second spot.

One of the reasons that the cost keeps increasing is because the audience keeps increasing. They know people are staying tuned in, they’re engaging, but also, it’s about the halo effect. This means that if you have 30 seconds in the Super Bowl, you know that people are going to be talking about it on social, you know that every media brand out there is going to be talking about it and covering it. 2OV included.

Now, we’re not even seeing one or two celebs in an ad but an ensemble cast because brands know what the people will tune in for. This year, there are also tons of ads that reboot old faves, like Hellmann’s take on When Harry Met Sally, Häagen-Dazs riding with Fast and Furious, Mountain Dew Zero Sugar claiming to make The Shining better, and Bud Light turning into a Game of Thrones trailer.

Let’s dive in and enjoy, shall we? Points to you if you don’t get any cravings or fall into a frenzy of shopping.

Starting off strong with the ad for Stella Artois, where David Beckham gets to meet his long-lost twin who was raised in America, ft. Matt Damon.

Then we have Uber Eats, returning to the Super Bowl for the fifth consecutive year with a new ad starring Matthew McConaughey playfully suggesting that football was invented to sell food, ft. Greta Gerwig, Martha Stewart, and Charli XCX.

Next is Bud Light’s epic Game Of Thrones plug, with Bud Knight’s head being crushed by the Mountain like Oberyn Martell before one of Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons shows up and scorches everything, revealing the video to be a promo for GoT season 8.

Then we have a commercial presenting Danny McBride as Brian Dundee, the son of Crocodile Dundee, who travels to Australia for an epic adventure through the Outback alongside Chris Hemsworth. You might be disappointed to learn this is not actually a trailer for a movie but a tourism ad for Australia.

Also in the vein of piggybacking off cult classic shows and movies, Bryan Cranston topped all his reprisals as Walter White from Breaking Bad when he played Jack Torrance from The Shining in this commercial for Mountain Dew Zero Sugar.

Stars of the Fast and Furious franchise took a SLOWER ride with Häagen-Dazs for the ice cream maker’s first-ever Super Bowl commercial.

There’s also O.C. actor Adam Brody at a party when he realises they’ve run out of Pringles. His strange call for help sends moustaches across the country flying to his aid, flying off the faces of basketball star James Harden, American football coach Andy Reid, comic actor Nick Offerman, and Mr Potatohead. The moustaches then converge on a supermarket, grabbing all the Pringles to take to the party.

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal recreate their legendary deli scene from the 1989 movie When Harry Met Sally.

There’s also Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara creating a dynamic duo on the pickleball court.

Then Gordon Ramsay faces his toughest kitchen yet when a new alien species visits Earth in an ad for HexClad Cookware, only to be thoroughly dissed by the ultimate alien Pete Davidson.

While all the ads featured so far are fun, the big exception is this thought-provoking ad with rapper Snoop Dogg and American football star Tom Brady listing a series of increasingly ridiculous reasons why they “should” hate each other, highlighting the stupidity of prejudice.

Agh, that seems to be a fine place to leave you – spread the love, not your money!

[Source: Creative Bloom]