2023 Super Bowl Commercials: A Recap

This Sunday marked the most important event of the year for the marketing industry and football in America. Super Bowl LVII took place on February 12th, and it had us glued to our seats not just to watch the game, but the commercials as well. It is a power play between the most established brands, looking to get a piece of airtime when millions are watching. This year, securing a 30-second spot cost those brands around $7 million, besides the production costs for the ads.

The Super Bowl commercials contained many celebrity sightings. Brands like Pepsi, Dunkin’, Workday, T-Mobile, Squarespace, Elf Cosmetics, and Pringles all chose to feature well-known TV personalities in their commercials. At the KA Consulting Group, we have selected some of the most striking ads in Super Bowl LVII:

One of the best brand-celebrity pairings from this year’s Super Bowl commercials was Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, and Dunkin’. Affleck, who has been photographed many times with takeout Dunkin’ donuts and coffee, was the perfect match for this commercial. Adding Lopez to the mix brought even more beauty to it.

T-Mobile and Pepsi took celebrity appearances to another level by showing the behind-the-scenes as well. Bradley Cooper starred in a  T-Mobile commercial with his mother, making the brand appear authentic, relatable, and approachable.

Pepsi took a similar approach by breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience directly. Even though Pepsi was not the sponsor of this year’s game, it ran multiple ads featuring Ben Stiller and Steve Martin. With the slogan, “Great acting or great taste?” the two actors invited everyone to see for themselves if Pepsi Zero Sugar tastes as good as they make it seem. A great strategy to drive sales of its Zero Sugar product, that also pokes fun at traditional cola ads where people always seem to enjoy their drinks.

M&M’s had recently announced that the brand would abandon its beloved “spokescandies” due to a controversy claiming that they were “polarizing”. Instead, this year the face of the brand was Maya Rudolph. This turned out to be a PR stunt, similar to Planters’ “Mr. Peanut is dead” announcement at the Super Bowl, just three years ago, where the icon was reborn shortly after. Likewise, M&M’s aimed to gain a higher share of voice with this move and succeeded in doing so. The brand reintroduced its animated candy figures a few minutes later.

Two SaaS companies, Workday and Squarespace, also had celebrity endorsements in this year’s Super Bowl. Finance and HR software provider Workday’s commercial touched on how people tend to cheer up their colleagues with the compliment “you’re a rockstar!”, in a commercial featuring actual rock stars (Gary Clark Jr., Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, and Paul Stanley). Although this ad was definitely memorable and effective in raising brand awareness, it did not speak to what Workday does.

Squarespace made a play on the idea that Squarespace is a website that creates websites, with a commercial featuring Adam Driver and his clones. With its dystopian ad slightly resembling the 1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial, the brand was very successful in getting its message across and letting people know what Squarespace does.

Let us know which ads you liked best from this year’s game.

The KA Consulting Group