Five Top Commercials for Super Bowl XLVII

This year's Super Bowl was the most viewed and the most active on social media. Given its huge audience, Super Bowl advertising can give brands prominence. Yet, this prominence comes at a high price: The average cost of a 30-second advertisement was around $4 million this year. Many viewers are only watching the game to see the commercials, since they're expecting high quality entertainment in the ads. The following is a list of five of the top ads:

The Budweiser Clydesdales ad had many viewers dabbing their eyes. With Fleetwood Mac's rendition of “Landslide” in the background, the commercial follows a trainer as he spends years preparing an infant horse to join the Budweiser horse team. After bonding with the horse, he gives the horse to the team and viewers' hearts wrench while he mourns the horse's departure. The trainer finds that the Clydesdales will be in town, and so he goes to visit his old horse friend. During the parade, the horse seems to ignore him, but as the crowd clears the horse gallops toward him and ends in a touching hug between the man and Clydesdale. The Clydesdales hold memorable brand imagery for Budweiser, in which the ad was successful in portraying.

Best Buy succeeded with celebrity endorsement in their ad. Amy Poehler seems like a person we'd picture shopping at Best Buy. They kept the scenes entirely within a Best Buy, so as to not forget what brand the ad is for, while showing many of the electronics customers can try out while in the store. Poehler is charming in her fast-paced dialogue with the worker as she wanders through the store, trying out the different products.

There were two Doritos ads shown during the Super Bowl, one featuring a Doritos-eating goat and the other with a crossdressing dad. In the first ad, a bearded, lonely man buys a Doritos-eating goat from an injured man, thinking he would be able to share a special bond. But the owner doesn't realize until too late that the goat is addicted to the chips. The goat screams the next morning when it discovers the Doritos have disappeared; the owner was hoarding the Doritos in his bedroom and crafting a “Goat 4 Sale” sign, much like the one the previous owner had. The commercial ends as the goat attacks. The second commercial opens with a little girl wanting her dad to play princesses with her. The dad declines, saying he has to go play football with his friends, but she tempts him with a bag of Doritos. The next scene shows his friends discovering him covered in makeup and in a princess dress, but instead of bullying him for it, they join in also when they see Doritos in the mix. One man even wears the wife's wedding dress, much to her chagrin when she catches them. Both ads are to tempt the viewers to want to try Doritos and see what all the fuss is about. Why would a goat become obsessed over them? And why would a dad go through the potentially embarrassing act of crossdressing with his daughter?

With Fun's hit song “We Are Young,” playing in Spanish, this commercial displays really old people engaging in teenage behavior. After breaking out of their retirement home, a few old folks take on the town: they get outrageous tattoos, crash some clubs, involve themselves in some public displays of affection and finally get some late night Taco Bell. They live the life that most teenagers would be jealous of.