In between wing-eating (drums over flats) and nail-biting over our hometown Eagles, the Athena creative team managed to do some thinking on this year’s slate of Super Bowl ads. Here are a few of our favorites.
A Boston Classic
An iconic regional beer, featuring the one and only Kevin Garnett, with a surprisingly wholesome vibe throughout? What’s not to love? The Super Bowl and beer commercials go hand in hand, and in a year with a lot of competition from other quality beverage brand spots, the humor of this commercial separated it from the pack for me.
– Carson Schatzman, Senior Copywriter
Dora & Sylvester Stallone Walk into a Bar
Paramount’s spot merges cartoon characters and actors in a comedic way while also nodding to the variety of the platform’s content. Dora the Explorer holding her signature map while Sylvester Stallone hangs off his own mountain of a face, very creative and ties in perfectly to their tag “A Mountain of Entertainment.
– Wafa Labadi, Junior Designer
Wait, Who Owns Blue Moon?
Molson Coors managed to plug three of their beer brands in their Coors vs Miller battle which turned out to be a Blue Moon commercial. The beverage company also tapped into the Super Bowl betting zeitgeist, allowing fans to bet on things that could happen in the ad. The result? The “top free-to-play lifestyle contest in the history of DraftKings,” according to Molson Coors, and numerous people, including me, reaching for their phones to google “Who Owns Blue Moon?”
– Mike Cloppse, Senior Manager of Creative Services
Popcorners Breaks Bad
Popcorners was one of several brands that tapped into nostalgia for their Big Game ad. And what better way to do that than bringing back Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman and Walter White. The spot felt like you were watching Breaking Bad for the first time all over again!
– Solomon Chaison, Senior Design Manager
Where’s the Remote!?
Rule number one while watching any big game is don’t change the channel, right? Especially during the SUPER BOWL. That’s why I loved this ad. Across the country, people freaked out for about 25 seconds. Instead of laughing at a schtick performance (most SB commercials these days) this ad allowed us all to have a good laugh at ourselves. It was clever, it was calculated, and it was brilliant.
– Ashley Boland, Senior Creative Coordinator
While we enjoyed watching the game, our favorite part of the Super Bowl was working with other Athenians on the NFL’s community impact events.
Read more about our work in this blog.