Super Bowl Ads: My Top 3

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Did you also watch the Super Bowl just for the ads? Which ones topped the rankings for you?

This Super Bowl LVII was one to remember. The game was exciting, tense, and full of suspense until the very end. And what about the Rihanna halftime show? Many viewers tuned in to watch the superstar perform live for the first time in six years, and announce her second pregnancy.

Some of you may have also chosen to watch Justina Miles, the now Internet-famous ASL performer that stole the show.

All in all, this was a great Super Bowl with ratings reaching an average audience of 113 million, across linear TV (106 million) and streaming (7 million.)

But if you are like me, you may have also tuned in for the ads. Super Bowl ads are known to represent the best of the best, with brands and agencies working sometimes for as much as a year ahead to be ready for the Big Game. And of course, we are all waiting for the day-after judgment: which were the best and which failed to hit the mark.

These things are very subjective, of course. I for one decided on my top 3 based on specific criteria:

Did it make me stop whatever I was doing and captured my attention?
Did it make me laugh, cry, or have any sort of emotion?
And finally, but surely, most important, did I remember which brand was advertised after the end of the game?

I ranked all the Super Bowl ads I could remember, giving them a grade based on each of the above. And these are my top 3 Super Bowl ads for 2023.

1. RAM trucks – “Premature Electrification” – 4.8/5

If your thing is humor, you absolutely must remember the ad from RAM trucks. “Premature Electrification” won the ad meter as far as I am concerned, because it used humor to talk about a real insight: Electrical cars are the future, but whatever we have seen so far is just not there yet.

Agency: Highdive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iaUoJUdTk4

2. Mr. Peanut – “The Roast of Mr. Peanut” – 4.7/5

Mr. Peanut came back to the Super Bowl this year with what I think was its best performance yet. “The Roast of Mr. Peanut” is without a doubt the funniest play on what the product really is: roasted peanuts. It’s simple, funny and on-point.

Agency: VaynerMedia

3. The Farmer’s Dog – “Forever” – 4.5/5

The actual winner of the USA Today Ad Meter, “Forever” by The Farmer’s Dog is everything we expect from a great Super Bowl ad: a story full of love, laughter, happiness, and sadness, as a chocolate lab and a girl who loved him traveled a 60-second journey through life that seems to set the viewer up for a jarring conclusion.

Agency: In-house / The Farmer’s Dog