Let’s start off with our picks for the best:

AXE - Find Your Magic

The male grooming brand, (known as Lynx in Britain), has recently been trying to shake off its jokey, hyper-masculine, teenage boy brand image, and the results have been mixed. One of the more notable campaigns was run in conjunction with charity the Campaign Against Living Miserably to raise awareness of male suicide.

For their Superbowl advert, AXE managed to get the balance of entertaining vs serious just right, telling men that they don’t need a six-pack, they just need to find their own “magic” thing, whether it’s their nose, their suit, or their ability to “rock those heels” or “ride those wheels”. By doing this, AXE has managed to create a funny ad with a serious, empowering message that resonates with men, no matter their race, disability or gender.

Coke Mini - Hulk vs. Ant-Man

A simple premise done well: Ant-Man (a perfect tie-in for the smaller can) steals a Coke Mini from the fridge of Bruce Banner’s lab, which provides an excuse for the Hulk to go on a destructive rampage while trying to catch the tiny superhero.

It may have had an enormous budget, but when treating the Superbowl audience to high-octane action featuring two popular superheroes with top-tier special effects that they would normally find in blockbusters, Coca-Cola couldn’t really go wrong.

Budweiser - Give a Damn

A-List celebrities seemed to be a recurring theme for the Superbowl this year, with some working better than others. Adverts like this and the one above, suggest that those marketers who do spend during the superbowl, are not afraid to go big. Whilst it is hard to deny the appeal of Kia’s “Walken Closet” ad, featuring Christopher Walken talking about socks, I would argue that Budweiser had the best use of a celebrity star in this campaign, where Helen Mirren promotes responsible drinking.

Although it’s a legal requirement in the UK, I find the “always drink responsibly” small text slapped onto the end of alcohol ads a bit two-faced after being shown beautiful twenty-somethings chugging the relevant booze. That’s why it was a nice change to see “notoriously frank and uncensored British lady” Helen Mirren directly calling out people who drive drunk. In addition to raising awareness for drunk driving, the ad also gives Budweiser a bit of class, which is easily done when you have Dame Helen Mirren at your disposal.

And now the bad…

Bud Light - The Bud Light Party

Here’s another beer ad that tries to use A-List celebrities as its focus, but essentially wastes the potential. It seems the ad’s budget was almost entirely spent on high-profile comedians Seth Rogen and Amy Schumer as the leaders of a new Bud Light political party, but this was at the expense of script writers and funny jokes. If anything, having usually entertaining celebrities deliver sub-par comedy only highlights the fact that Bud Light didn’t really have much to say.

Quicken Loans - What We Were Thinking

First time advertisers Quicken Loans tried to convince viewers that its new Rocket Mortgage app, which will supposedly “do to mortgages what the internet did for buying music”, will benefit the economy and inspire a “tidal wave of ownership”. Many users on Twitter commented that the effects of the mass creation of mortgages for people who are financially unstable could be seen during the financial crash of 2008. It certainly looks interesting, and it might even simplify the arduous mortgage application process, but this ad is guilty of oversimplifying some of the major problems facing America (and the rest of the global economy) - in doing so, it seems to talk down to the middle American.

Toyota - The Longest Chase

This ad features a group of bank robbers who are forced to use a Prius as their getaway car, and find out it isn’t such a bad car. Sadly, the spot mostly reinforces the negative stereotypes surrounding Prius’ - numerous people laugh at how slow they are known to be, and the joke that all Prius drivers are smug is resurrected a woman goes on a TV talk show to say that she’s “proud” to be a Prius owner. The ad does raise a smile in places, but it seems unlikely that it would convince on-the-fence viewers to buy a Prius. If you are going to highlight all the negative connotations surrounding your products in your ads, it’s worth putting careful thought into how you are actually going to dismiss them.