And now for a commercial break

With the lowest historic attendance, Super Bowl LV quietly swept into our Sunday night. For those who are Roman numeral challenged, no, Louis Vuitton did not sponsor this year’s big game. If you’d like to take a commercial break from your Hangouts and Zoom calls, here is my yearly write-up.

As I do every year, I round up a view of the year’s Super Bowl commercials. First, Tom Brady didn’t appear in any commercials this year but he did win an important game. But like Brady’s continual appearance, number 7 here, you can still count on celebrity-studded commercials amid a year in which big brands Heinz, Kia, Hyundai, Budweiser, Coke and Pepsi benched themselves and stayed out of the $5.5 million dollar per ad line up. What was clear was how many of this year’s crop of commercials were marked by brands trying to own the #hashtag with pre- during and post-game social media plays. 

But the slew of spots still offer entertainment value. Here’s my list of notables. 

Tide makes, maybe not Super Bowl epicness, but certainly an entertaining spot featuring Jason Alexander’s ever reacting face on a used and abused hoodie. If anything, I did learn clothes are not real clean until it’s #Tideclean. 

Cheetos brings back "It Wasn’t Me" (when did nostalgia only go back 7 years?) with Shaggy, complete with his Hugh Hefner smoking jacket. Mix in real life couple Milas Kunis and Ashton Kutcher for flavour and you have what may be the new post Trump mantra of plausible deniability. Even if you're caught orange handed. 

Meanwhile over at Doritos, the snacky snack, began with a teaser the prior week with #FlatMatthew. Which, of course, is TV commercial celeb fave, Matthew McConaughey. His flattened presence graced the small screen here. Perhaps having voice and CG image only throughout may have been the less costly creative way of having him appear, other than the actual 2 seconds. Though there were cameos by Mindy Kaling and Jimmy Kimmel. 

In what could be this year's most costly promotion of more than $5 million for air time plus a $1 million prize, you wonder if Mountain Dew really needed to have actor and former wrestler John Cena hawk the contest. Definitely won’t be making Dwayne Johnson jealous for this part. The offer itself seems good enough to ensure a high YouTube count of repeated pause and plays. That being, winning $1 million if you can count the number of bottles seen in the commercial. 

And another instance of the pitch being more exciting than the commercial comes in an even more appealing contest, of sorts. From SpaceX who is providing a seat at the spaceship table with the first civilian mission to space. See website for details but Captain Picard would be proud. 

Which leads us to the spot for Paramount’s new streaming service, which is the new tech term for re-runs. But past shows need not lose their appeal as seen here on top of a snowy mountain, which funnily reminds me of the Paramount logo (oh wait, I get it) where the likes of Patrick Stewart along with barkeep Stephen Colbert, whom has the best line, welcomes everyone from Tom Selleck to James Cordon to Bob Square Pants as well as Beevis and Butthead, RuPaul and many, many others. 

Compared to the clean designs of Google Home and Apple HomePod, Alexa has always been the slightly ugly sibling. That is until this year’s new design and its humanized form of Michael B. Jordan as a re-imagined Alexa experience. He of sexiest man alive status becomes a woman’s fantasy experience while reading, complimenting in French and being everything else that Alexa does. 

I wonder how many of us are students of Bud Light Super Bowl advertising. For those who aren’t and want to be educated, watch and learn. Or not, as this year’s spot brings ghosts and stars of Bud Light super spots of years past. Gracing the 60 seconds is Post Malone from 2020, the doomed Bud Knight from 2019, Cedric the Entertainer from, oh never mind. Go to their archive if you want to relive them. But maybe watch with a beer in hand. Which may be the point. I love you, man. 

Let’s Grab A Beer by the world’s largest beer company, Anheuser-Busch, takes on a decidedly human touch with their commercial that sidelines their usual brands but puts the importance of human interaction and connection front and centre. Over a beer, of course. Thoughtful, nonetheless. 

And less interesting but here for your celebrity viewing curiosity is Lil Nas X for Logitech, Dolly Parton’s side gigging her voice for SquareSpace, Martha Stewart and John Travolta who at his age can still dance better than I can for lawn fertilizer Miracle-Gro and Wayne’s World’s Mike Myers/Dana Carvey X Cardi B for Uber Eats's local restaurant initiative (all the while cutting delivery driver’s fees). 

The more interesting ones are GM's. Case in point, Will Ferrell in an extended commercial, wherein he heads to Norway. It's a competitive stance against the country’s outpaced electric vehicle count while for some inexplicably reason brings Awkfina and Kenan Thompson along almost literally for the ride. What you might enjoy seeing more than Ferrell’s entertaining presence is the automaker’s very sexy looking, Tesla-rivaling EV concept vehicle. 

And while you're at it, watch the equally entertaining Cadillac spot with with Winona Ryder reprising one of her 90s roles with Timothée Chalamet as “Edgar" Scissorhands

And finally, M&Ms does purposeful advertising, a welcome and clever relief to previous sitcom spots of animated candy bites, by using M&Ms as olive branch offerings of apologies. The casting was as well thought out. I laughed instead of getting infuriated with a “Karen”, chuckled instead of eye-rolling over a gender reveal party, and nodded as Canadian Dan Levy further cemented his fame with his appearance here following his hosting SNL. 

We needed The Weeknd doing the half-time show to complete the picture and make us Canada proud. Now back to your latest round of Zoom calls.