Best of 2015 Super Bowl Ads

This year’s Super Bowl ad season was quite striking in the ads we got to see. It seems that there is a clear trend to move away from the silly and funny type ads we have been accustomed to the last few years in exchange for a more emotional driven type of advertisement that attempts a direct connection with its viewer.

But that doesn’t mean storytelling was the only form of advertising displayed on Super Sunday. We still saw ads like Locktite that just made us smile in a fun, yet awkward way. We also saw ads that spoke into what it means to be a man, yet with contradicting ideas. We also saw ads challenging gender roles of femininity.

And as always, we saw what a gamble it is to purchase ads in the fourth quarter of this game, and this year boy did those purchases pay off. So here’s our list of what we remembered the most from last night.

Car Commercials

Car companies display the most diverse types of ads we saw, and did so in lock-step with the trends of this year. Our most memorable car spot was Chevy’s You Know You Want a Truck spot:

This idea was carried over to all of the other chevy commercials that finally wrapped up their man in a hotel lobby campaign (although Gibby maintains he’d rather a moped).

Runners up in car commercials are:

• Nissan’s “With Dad” Spot
• Dodge’s “Wisdom” Spot

Heart String Commercials

Whatever you think of emotionally charged advertisements, the goal is to make you remember the brand. This spot was so emotionally surprising it was almost seared into our brains.

It really takes some courage and faith in your voice to speak straight to accidental death, and even more so those of children.

In a Super Bowl that was full of heart string commercials, it’s really hard to decide on just one. We saw car commercials make us want to tear up, soap commercials want us to be better men, and a feminine hygiene company get us charged up to give young women the courage they deserve.

So even though this spot had been developed last summer, we feel that the message of the spot ties in so well with their brand that it deserves recognition.

Funny Commercials

There wasn’t a ton of these. As we said, the trend of silly ridiculous commercials seems to have fizzled out. But that doesn’t mean silly can’t be a memorable method of developing advertising.

Not only that, but the winner (to us) in this category is almost as absurd as the spot itself. Loctite, really? Whoever signed off on this hit a home run, good job Loctite.

Branding Commercials

Oddly enough, there really wasn’t a whole lot of spots focused just on the brand being presented. Sure, they all spoke the company’s name, and represented the company well. However, not many were a development of an existing brand.

Here’s where McDonald’s really won us over. Suddenly #lovinit becomes real, and smartly, this campaign runs up until Valentine’s Day.

Commercials We Already Saw

This category appears in every Super Bowl ad collection and this year is no different. Also no surprise are the companies we saw listed here. Companies like Budweiser, Nissan, Victoria’s Secret and all the others who have the market share to purchase these ads could all be on this list.

But the winner of this category wins what is a dubious award as well as a prestigious award. It’s a good ad, because it was well sourced and well produced. But it borrows very heavily from another ad. They both have someone else doing the talking, someone else doing the copywriting. So here’s our favorite commercial we already saw, along with its companion.

And where we saw this? Dodge a few years ago.

That does it for us, what about you? What commercials made you remember them the most?