For marketers like us, the Super Bowl is like, well, our Super Bowl. 75% of Americans who planned to watch the Big Game said they were excited to watch the commercials. Excited! For ads! We love to see it.
So, with so many eyeballs and rapt attention, who are this year’s winners and losers?
VIers weigh in on the strategy, execution and efficacy of a few of the splashiest Big Game ads of 2025:
Doritos “Abduction”
“This spot has a really great narrative. From a production standpoint, in the Super Bowl, you’re going to see so many brands jump a shark that’s jumping a shark, with ridiculously elaborate and ornate set ups, spending tens of millions of dollars in production. And this spot was produced by 3 or 4 people in one room. There’s some VFX going on, but if you look at the breakdown, they made it by doing polycam scans of the room and the actor and just made it all in Blender themselves. It shows that you don’t have to spend that much money on production as long as you’ve got a solid idea—and lots of chips.”
Matt Lowery, Creative Director
“Doritos got in early on the ‘hey, you do it game.’ They were like, ‘hey, we don’t really know how to relate to our market, could you do the commercials for us? And then we’ll pick one put that on the air and take all the credit.’”
Beau Leland, Senior Video Editor
Uber Eats “A Century of Cravings”
“Honestly, there was nothing about this commercial that screamed “UberEats”. Obviously, the branding is evident throughout but I associated this commercial more with just football in general than I did with UberEats. I kind of like that? Going overkill on a brand can be exhausting in traditional media commercials, but I never experienced any sort of exhaustion with this.
From a digital perspective, this is fantastic creative. You get the viewer hooked immediately with a standout influencer (McConaughey) and keep the viewer guessing by continuing to showcase various talent across numerous different verticals/channels. View Rate would be off the charts for this creative in a TrueView campaign. In today’s world, it’s incredibly difficult to a keep a viewer’s attention for a full 15-second ad, let alone a 30-second ad. This one keeps you locked in the entire way, and it’s a full minute long. Again, the talent kills it here. I’m not sure if it’s cheaper to use eight celebrities for two seconds each than it would be to have them all active throughout the entire commercial, but this obviously worked.
I’m not sure what to say about this commercial in regard to brand loyalty. We are a DoorDash household and I don’t think this does much in terms of converting me to UberEats, especially considering there isn’t any sort of incentive provided. If anything, it does give me a more positive opinion of the UberEats brand and will make me more attentive to their commercials moving forward.”
Austin Chappell, Senior Digital Strategist
“I do fully believe in the conspiracy that football makes you hungry. I’m always eating something when I watch football. BUT, this ad won’t do anything to sway me into ever ordering UberEats. I would rather go pick up food myself.
I also think this is a spot made only for the Super Bowl. Since the brand isn’t overtly evident until the final CTA, I think you’d lose the value of precious impressions if this were to run on social when people are living their everyday lives, in a hurry and not primed to watch an ad for its entertainment value. Unless you view to the end or watch closely, I think the average viewer could mistake this for a Doordash ad, or even a big pizza chain.
There are a lot of different directions they can take this creative, so I’ll be interested to see more iterations and how they extend it to different mediums, like the banner they hung on Ceasars Superdome. I thought that was a great extension of the campaign.
This had to have cost a fortune. It was clever, but was clearly expensive. It will be interesting to see if there’s any ROI.”
Kaitlin Smith, Digital Strategy & Insights Lead
Lay’s “The Little Farmer”
“I hate this commercial. I like what they were trying to do—the concept was there and it almost got there—but something was lacking for me.
It’s cute and I like the little girl, and I like the song a lot. But the song feels like something from Wes Anderson, so that’s what I was anticipating from the spot and it never delivered. I think it ended up feeling gross.
We saw a trend of patriotism in ads this year that you can definitely see at play here. This one is touting the American farmer and trying to be “So God Made a Farmer,” but it doesn’t get anywhere close to that for me.
For what’s got to be the biggest potato chip day of the year, I just wouldn’t spend $8 million to run this ad.”
Jacquelyn Berney, President
“This spot is going to score well in the Ad poll. There’s a lot of pressure when you’re producing Super Bowl spots to do something that everyone loves. And that was the goal here, I’m sure. But, I don’t think it’s going to do a lot for Lay’s from a sales standpoint long-term.
There is a swell of patriotism right now, so the American potatoes angle may be the strategy, I don’t know. It helps of course. But farmers eating chips on their porch at the end doesn’t make me crave a Lay’s potato chip. And frankly, I can never eat just one. They’re really good.
The spot has good production value, was executed well, has good music and all of those things. I just don’t think it’s going to do much. Maybe they will have a made in the USA execution ongoing, which could make me change my mind.
In my opinion, the last line of the song should be: Here’s a spot abut a spud, strategically I think it’s a dud.”
Tim Berney, CEO
Coors Light “Case of the Mondays”
“What are the sloths doing? Whose commercial is this? Overall, I hated this.
I think it may have resonated better with men, who are more likely to be the target audience here. It just didn’t hit well with me.
I will say, I do like the physical aspect of being able to go and buy a case of the Mondays. And I liked their tease for the campaign, intentionally misspelling refreshment on an ad and blaming it on a case of the Mondays. Unfortunately for Coors, Starbucks is also doing a Monday-after-the-Super-Bowl incentive, where you can get a free tall coffee all day. For me personally, that’s a better Monday cure.”
Kaitlin Smith, Digital Strategy & Insights Lead
“Taking a fresh approach to their creative is a great move for Coors Light. They’ve had some solid commercials in the past, but all I can really think about from older commercials is the classic silver bullet plowing through a house or running down a mountain.
The creative really picks up as it goes on, moving from a few longer shots in the beginning to a fast, cinematic approach as the commercial unfolds. I absolutely loved the bang-bang feel of back-to-back-to-back laughs, and that really sold the commercial for me. On that note, I would worry a bit about the start of the commercial because I think it fails to present direction and I’m honestly not sure where it’s going until ten seconds in when the sloth is typing. As marketers, we know it’s important to capture a viewer’s attention as quickly as possible. It might fit well here considering it’s a Super Bowl commercial and you get the added benefit in terms of having viewers more locked in on commercials than usual.
Also…no branding until 45 seconds in? I struggled with that on the first watch through but after watching it again, I noticed the brand colors evident throughout – the color scheme on the computer, the signage in the grocery store, the lighting in the bike class, the ticker in the news scene – it’s everywhere.
From a messaging perspective, the Case of the Mondays hits. Coors Light is already a well-established brand and is a top tier domestic beer product. Thinking from the perspective of Coors Light, what’s the best way to increase sales for your product other than encouraging consumers to drink on a day when they wouldn’t normally be doing so?”
Austin Chappell, Senior Digital Strategist
Google Gemini "50 States 50 Stories"
“I look at Super Bowl spots through a strategic lens. I think this spot will score pretty well. More importantly, it will help Google achieve the growth they need—they reported a decline in growth last week in their quarterly earnings report. It would be great if they extended the campaign with lots of small business support programs, since they need the small business revenue to grow and can’t count on large companies as their bread and butter any longer.
One thing I noticed is that this spot promotes AI in general as much as it does Gemini, which is fine because as AI grows, so will Gemini’s revenue. Of course, their overall goal is increased market share for Gemini.
I felt the comments from small business owners are spot on. They obviously talked to lots of small businesses to get a perspective on their greatest challenges—and then used Gemini to address or solve them.
I’m sure many in our industry will be threatened by the marketing aspects of AI—concepts and copy, etc. Personally, I am not. It still takes a strategic team to execute any and every campaign, even if AI helped get it started.”
Tim Berney, CEO
“I think this is a great spot, I just don’t think it’s Super Bowl worthy. It doesn’t feel like it broke through to me. There was probably a better time to have aired this. People aren’t going to stop in their tracks and think, ‘Oh my God, that was the best commercial I ever saw.’ It’s not share worthy, no one’s saying, ‘Hey, you have to see that ad.’ And in a sea of funny, awesome, incredible ads at the Super Bowl, it just gets lost.
This spot is definitely a step up from the one Google ran for Gemini at the Olympics—that was terrible. In a leadership role at a small business, I definitely appreciated the way they positioned AI as a helpful tool for me in an administrative way, not in a way that it’s going to take away my creativity or a child’s voice.”
Jacquelyn Berney, President
We could go on for days. (Could you tell?)
We’re passionate about all things marketing, ROI and branding. So, the next time you need something Super Bowl worthy for your brand, give us a shout. We’d love to help you create something awesome, inspiring AND effective.
