5. FedEx – Cast Away
It’s one thing to create a memorable Super Bowl ad, but to parody a recent film at the same time? FedEx really nailed it in 2003 with this hilarious send up of Tom Hanks’ role in Cast Away.
After a life changing ordeal on a deserted island, a disheveled FedEX delivery man finally makes his delivery. And the look on his face after he sees the package’s contents is priceless.
4. Coke – “Hey Kid, Catch!”
In the ongoing Super Bowl cola wars, Coke still has the edge over its competitors, thanks to Pittsburgh Steelers legend “Mean” Joe Greene and a young boy played by Tommy Okon.
As part of the “Have a Coke and Smile!” campaign, the kid offers “Mean” Joe a Coke after a particularly brutal game sends him limping to the locker room. In return, Joe offers the kid his game jersey… and the TV audience ate it up.
Amazingly, this ad was so popular it spawned a TV movie, and a legion of parodies since it debuted in 1979. Joe Greene even got in on the joke, as he appeared in several of the parodies as himself.
3. Budweiser – “Bud”, “Weis”, and “Er”
Long before he went on to direct The Pirates of the Caribbean, Gore Verbinski struck gold in 1995 with “Bud”, “Weis”, and “Er” aka The Budweiser Frogs.
It’s a deceptively simple concept, as three frogs burp out the syllables of Budweiser before putting them in the correct order. David Swaine, Michael Smith and Mark Choate came up with the concept, which grew into a massive ad campaign for Budweiser.
The frogs struck a chord with the Super Bowl viewers and the rest was history.
2. Nike – Hare Jordan
In 1992, someone at Nike and Warner Bros. came up with the idea of teaming up Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny for a Super Bowl ad. It’s not as if Jordan didn’t have charisma, but something about Bugs Bunny’s presence in the ad allowed Jordan to really pop as a personality.
The ad was so popular that a sequel ad was created a year later that featured Jordan and Bugs taking on Marvin Martian and his monsters in basketball. And from there, Space Jam was born as a feature length film.
1. Apple Macintosh – 1984
When it comes to Super Bowl ads, it always comes back to Apple’s 1984 commercial. To put it simply, there’s not a compelling argument against 1984 taking the top slot on this list. Thirty years after it aired, this ad is still the gold standard of Super Bowl commercials.
Back in 1984, Apple was seen as David to IBM’s Goliath in the world of personal computers. Apple played into that perception by casting IBM in the role of Big Brother in director Ridley Scott’s 1984 ad. The imagery and themes are also directly lifted from George Orwell’s famous novel, 1984.
In the commercial, a beautiful young woman (representing Apple) wakes up the brainwashed masses by tossing a hammer through Big Brother’s command screen. In that act, she saved humanity from conformity before the voiceover promised that Apple’s Macintosh would show the world why “1984 won’t be like 1984.”
It was amazingly effective. Although Apple struggled for several years, it’s grown to become an even bigger giant than IBM. Apple is now the establishment. And perhaps someday, someone will throw the hammer at them and usher in a new era…
