2016 Super Bowl commercials
Puppy Monkey Baby and Mountain Dew Kickstart
(Social Underground YouTube Channel)
The Super Bowl is the by far the biggest day of the year not only in sports, but in the world of marketing as well. This is the time when companies’ bring their A-game and try to make their commercial as memorable as possible whether it be with humor, wit, inspiration or just plain weirdness.
This year, celebrity appearances seemed to be a common theme for better or for worse.
Skittles held up their bizarre reputation with a shrieking Skittle-made portrait of Stephen Tyler, Liam Neeson used his serious charm to advertise a new LG television and Bud Light brought out a star-studded cast of Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer, Paul Rudd and Michael Peña to advertise their beer in a patriotic fashion.
T-Mobile teamed up with rapper Drake and made fun of shoe-horned product placement. The ad took place on the set of Drake’s cellphone themed music video, “Hotline Bling” and joked that their competitors would ruin the song with data information and fine print.
Jeff Goldblum sang the classic Jefferson’s theme song in an ad for Apartments.com, also featuring an unexpected cameo from Lil’ Wayne.
Snickers continued their popular series of commercials where people just aren’t themselves when they’re hungry. This time they dressed the strange and intimidating Willem Dafoe in a Marilyn Monroe dress, a joke that probably got a mixture of laughs and squirms across the world.
Kevin Hart played the role of a nosy, over-protective father spying on his daughter’s date to show off Hyundai’s new car tracking feature.
Walken advertising for KIA
(KIA Motors America YouTube channel)
But perhaps the most memorable commercial of the entire day involved a guy walking into his closet to find Christopher Walken playing with socks. He then uses his quirky personality to make an analogy for why KIA cars are superior and the audience is left wondering what just happened. Hate it or love it, no one will be forgetting Walken with socks on his hands any time soon.
The strangeness did not end there as Mountain Dew promoted their kickstart beverage with a terrifying creation that called itself “Puppy Monkey Baby” and did a dance that caused a universal cringe from viewers.
Audi put out an advertisement as they do every year, however instead of using cameos or jokes, they went straight at our emotions with a commercial featuring a retired astronaut. He is taken on a ride in an Audi R8 that is so fast, it takes him back to his memories of the space launch. As if there weren’t enough onions being cut already, it was accompanied by the song “Starman,” sung by the recently deceased David Bowie.
Advertisers took some risks with this year’s lineup. It’s tough to say if they payed off, but a few of these commercials will be burned into our memories for a long time.
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