A comprehensive look at last night's battle of the brands at Superbowl XLVII

Date
4 February 2013

Some things around the Superbowl are predictable annual occurrences. The same joke about superb owls being made all over Twitter, Brits who have no idea about American football casually dropping phrases like “Hail Mary Pass” into conversation, and of course the eagerly anticipated advertising bonanza. With a 30-second spot apparently costing up to $4 million but an estimated audience of more than 90 million people the pressure is on for all the brands lining up for the evening’s bug creative showdown.

They range from cheesy (Budweiser’s equine adventure) to sexy (Megan Fox in a bath for Motorola), cinematic (Mercedes’ spot stars Willem Dafoe as the devil) to controversial (Soda Stream’s spot has apparently been pulled after complaints from Coca Cola and Pepsi). It’s interesting to say various brands go down the interactive public vote route although it still feels like a gimmick rather than a genuinely interesting creative strategy, although Ford’s script written through Tweets is better than most.

For my money Audi, Taco Bell, Fiat and Mercedes and Samsung all did well, but I’m sure you’ll have your favourites from those collected below, and taken as a whole it’s an interesting lesson in how big brands interact with mass audiences.

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

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