Super Bowl LVIII was a thriller, with Kansas City defeating San Francisco 25-22 in overtime to win their second straight title. But despite the excitement on the field, for a group of Michigan State University faculty members, the main draw wasn’t the football — it was the ads.
For the 27th year, faculty in the MSU College of Communication Arts and Sciences ranked the ads that aired during the big game.
Robert Kolt, professor of practice emeritus in the MSU Department of Advertising and Public Relations and creator of the ad-watching tradition, said faculty rank ads based on creative messaging, strategy, production quality, branding, ad execution and level of uniqueness and memorability.
“Audiences have high expectations for ads in the Super Bowl,” said Kolt. “This year, there were a lot of good Super Bowl ads featuring lots of celebrities, animals, animation, babies and humor — all formulas for success.”
According to the MSU faculty, this year’s top ads were:
The faculty ranked ads from NFL Shop and Homes.com among the game’s worst.
The Super Bowl regularly delivers the largest audience on American television, with over 100 million viewers. For the second consecutive year, advertisers paid a record-high average $7 million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad.