The Best Car Commercials from Super Bowl 2019

Spending outrageous sums of money for a Super Bowl spot. It’s a time-honored tradition that’s a little strange. Kinda like using Roman numerals instead of actual numbers. This year, advertisers shelled out around $5 million for 30-seconds during Super Bowl LIII.  While the Big Three automakers here in Detroit decided to spend their ad dollars elsewhere this year, a few other car companies anted up. 

In today’s world of Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, you wonder why they still do it. Here’s why (other than free tickets for the client): it’s still the world’s biggest live televised event, drawing more than 100 million viewers in the DVR era of skipping ads. Nothing’s even close. Great Super Bowl spots get talked about after the game. Sometimes, people even remember what company did them. 

Here are a few spots worthy of confetti and a Super Bowl LIII Champions t-shirt.

Hyundai - This commercial stars a great performance from Jason Bateman who, in my opinion, is great in every thing he’s ever done. It also captures the absolute dread I feel about car shopping, likening it to a vegan dinner party and colonoscopy. 

Audi - In the spirit of Field of Dreams, a man has a heavenly experience with Audi’s first purely electric model, the Audi e-tron. Just when it was getting as boring as the game, there’s a memorable twist. Which is a tough nut to crack.

Mercedes-Benz - This ad features a guy changing the world Bruce Almighty style with voice commands. They had me at hello, starting the spot with a guy eating while watching the Masters (my favorite pastime). Apparently money was no object in this ad, which also featured Ludacris, Free Willy and Wile E. Coyote. 

Walmart - Ok, it’s not technically a car commercial, but it features the Dumb and Dumber van, Ectomobile and the Griswold Family Truckster, so I’ll allow it. After getting the rights for these 12 iconic movie cars, the $5 million was probably chump change for them.

Dodge Ram - This is smart, simple and on-brand. Featuring a totally relatable conversation—after the game is over, who really remembers what wacky idea went with what product? And here’s the kicker: they saved $5 million by running it on social media instead of the Super Bowl.

Ernie Perich is owner and creative director of Perich Advertising + Design in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over his 30+ year career, he’s helped suppliers and automakers reenergize their brands, differentiate and grow. Through his blog, 0-60 Branding, he shares what he’s learned along the way.