Rating the 2025 Super Bowl Ads

With Super Bowl ads now selling for up to $8 million for a thirty-second spot, it is clear that the extravaganza remains as important as ever for marketing leaders.

For the 21st year, students at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management gathered to review the advertising. The focus: will these spots likely build the business and build the brand? The event is primarily about experiential learning, but the panel’s scores can be insightful.

Using the ADPLAN framework, students evaluated each spot. These were turned into overall grades for each brand: A, B, C, D and F. Brands that ran more than one spot like Meta received an overall grade for the total Super Bowl effort.

Here are some of the highlights from me and my colleague Derek Rucker. You can see all the scores at the Kellogg Ad Review website.

?

The Best Spots: Grade A

Here is our take on all the advertisers that received an “A” from our panel.

Novartis

The top spot this year went to Novartis, with an ad focused on breasts and screening. The spot grabbed attention by celebrating breasts: big breasts, small breasts, all breasts. Although appearing humorous and playful at first, the spot then pivoted to cancer screening, with a serious message on the importance of regular mammograms to detect cancers early.

The backstory is that Novartis makes Kisqali, the first-line treatment for breast cancer that has not spread. So, Novartis has a financial and social interest in women getting screened early.

This was a high-risk spot that according to our panel worked well for Novartis.

Michelob Ultra

How good is Michelob Ultra? Worth playing for. This charming spot featuring Williem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara focused completely on the product: it was all about Ultra. The link to pickleball was timely and a perfect fit with the brand’s fitness positioning. The branding was strong and brand linkage was tremendous.

Google

Last year Google had the top spot in the Kellogg Ad Review. This year it was right up there with a sweet ad about fatherhood. The music was perfect, bringing together classic scenes of parenthood. And the Pixel phone was present throughout, helping the father turn his parenting experience into compelling interview material.

Nike

After many years, Nike was back on the Super Bowl in a big way with two spots that celebrated women in sports. The imagery was powerful – one about achievement, the other about empowerment and flag football. It was all distinctive and consistent with the Nike brand.

We wonder if Nike needs to solidify its roots in the functional offers of its products, but these spots show the potential of the imagery approach.

T Mobile

A classic Super Bowl advertiser, T Mobile was back with an intriguing message about providing satellite coverage across the U.S. The brand successfully communicated a potentially complex message. We don’t know if this is actually a unique or ownable feature, but it seems like it and that might be enough to garner interest.

T Mobile’s offer to give the service to people with Verizon and AT&T was a nice touch and competitive jab.

Lay’s

This spot about a girl raising a potato finished at the top of our panel’s scores. We are split on it. It is a cute story that makes you feel good about Lay’s—a great example of laddering up to an emotional benefit. Who doesn’t like potatoes from American farms?

But one can also wonder about whether the brand can credibly play in the emotional space. Lay’s has plenty of functional distinction in its equity. Also, at least some wondered about the logic of planting a potato to get a potato; that seems inefficient.

Hellmann’s

We can only imagine the expense and complexity of getting rights to this iconic scene from When Harry Met Sally! It all seemed to work well for Hellmann’s: it communicated a very real product benefit in a credible way.

There is a striking strategic shift in this ad: the brand is now talking about its core product use, on a sandwich, instead of its higher-order brand-purpose of reducing food waste.

Liquid Death

For a product that is fundamentally a cute twist, this ad fits perfectly. Liquid Death is just water, presented in a big, colorful, outrageous way. The fact that people buy it suggests that many are willing to spend a little to bring some fun into their life. We get that.

The branding is strong here, it gets your attention, and it delivers the benefit. A very fun and entertaining spot.

?

Very Good Spots: B

There were a number of effective spots on the Super Bowl earning a grade of B. Here are our thoughts on some of them.

Dove

You have to give Dove credit for consistency. The brand has been supporting women and working to address body image issues for many, many years.

This latest spot – Born to Run – delivers the message in a powerful way. The creative and music combine to present a serious cause in a way that fits the festive Super Bowl vibe. We suspect last year’s execution was a bit too serious.

Pfizer

Another pharma company finished strong this year, with Pfizer’s inspiring message about finding cures for cancer.

It makes sense for pharma companies to invest money in boosting their brands. Ultimately, Pfizer wants people to be rooting for the company, not demonizing it. This spot is a good step.

Ritz

Celebrating a product attribute can be an effective strategy. Ritz did just that in its Super Bowl ad, communicating the attribute of salty.

No organic or all natural offerings here: just delicious salty crackers.

Angel Soft

It is always fun to see innovative ideas on the Super Bowl, and Angel Soft had one: a 30 second bathroom break.

This is a memorable execution that will leave people feeling good about Angel Soft. Differentiating toilet paper in a meaningful way is a difficult task. Better, perhaps, to position your brand as the one that understands your world.

Nerds

Sometimes a spot just fits a brand: this was the case with the Nerds Gummy Clusters ad featuring a festive New Orleans scene and the brand’s spokesperson, Shaboozey.

The basic message: What a Wonderful World where we can enjoy the incredible Nerds Gummy Cluster candies.

Duracell

Tom Brady freezes mid-delivery as he runs out of batteries. The problem? Someone didn’t use Duracell.

This is an effective bit of brand building, reinforcing the core product benefit.

Uber Eats

Many people thought this spot would finish in the top group, but we think it is well placed with a B. Or maybe even that is a little bit generous.

The creative, clever spot focused on the idea that the NFL was just a conspiracy to sell food. And, when you want food, you should think Uber Eats.

This all is distinctive, but the brand linkage is weak. Most of the spot is creative NFL and food messaging, but has nothing to do with Uber Eats

Stella Artois

This was a big spot for Stella. It built the brand through the effective use of David Beckham and Matt Damon and positioning Stella as a brand for people with taste and “For moments worth more.”

Notable Spots

There were many interesting ads on the Super Bowl this year. Here are a few that struck us.

Jeep

One of the most iconic spots of the evening came from Jeep and Harrison Ford, continuing a Stellantis tradition of creating high-impact, big-budget, high-order spots and launching them as a surprise.

We liked this spot: great product focus, tremendous linkage to the brand, important thoughts about freedom and choice and life and getting along.

Jeep has been struggling in recent years; this ad is a good reminder of why the brand matters.

Bud Light

This ad finished in the middle of the pack but is a very solid effort from Bud Light. The suburban scene fits the moment and the concept that Bud Light brings the fun comes across. Branding is very strong throughout.

Budweiser

The great Clydesdale debate continues: do spots featuring these characters sell beer? This year AB InBev released a charming sixty-second spot ahead of the Super Bowl. For the Super Bowl, it trimmed it to a thirty-second spot and lost some of the impact. Still, it is hard not to like this advertising and think it helps the Budweiser brand.

Coors Light

There are a handful of Super Bowl ads that go down in history as famous examples of linkage trouble. Cat Herding and Terry Tate are two of them. Joining this esteemed group might be this year’s Coors Light spot that featured very entertaining sloths.

The problem? The sloths weren’t really linked to the brand. We still aren’t sure how the best way to cure the Mondays is with Coors Light. Though perhaps there is some advice about hair of the dog….

Him’s and Her’s

There is a high impact but complex spot. Start with the fact that we believe this company doesn’t have the patent to produce GLP-1 products; the company only is allowed to produce because Novo is having trouble keeping up with demand. And then this spot seems to violate a host of regulations on healthcare advertising. There are no side-effects, no discussion of risks, no fair balance. We wonder how this was approved.

?

Weaker Spots (D)

A few spots missed the mark this year.

Chat GPT

Many people were eager to see what Open AI would do with its first ever Super Bowl spot for Chat GPT. The result? A strange ad featuring dots turning into images. We suspect there was some remarkable story being told with the pictures, but our panel couldn’t see it and neither could we. Overall, this was a weak ad for positioning, linkage and amplification.

If they didn’t, perhaps they should have developed the ad with Chat GPT.

In a vivid example of how our approach at Kellogg differs from reviews that focus on purely artistic concerns, the New York Times reviewer declared this was the best spot of the year.

Squarespace

A big spot for Squarespace this year, but yet another disappointment. The town crier tosses computers with websites to people in the Irish village. We are once again left wondering: why is Squarespace a better place to build a website? We suspect there is general agreement that websites are good, so this commercial isn’t really news. Maybe next year.

Coffee mate and Tubi

These are two very different brands, but they share at least one thing in common: a Super Bowl ad with negative amplification.

The Coffee mate spot feaured a long tongue that danced around in apparent joy from the Coffee Mate. The overall impact was disturbing, and it did not leave our audience excited about the brand.

The Tubi ad focused on a person born with a head shaped like a cowboy hat. We understand the point: people are born different and like different things, and Tubi has offerings for everyone. Unfortunately, the disfigured and disturbing head overwhelmed the message.