10 most memorable Super Bowl ads from 2014-2024: VCCP study

If you ever felt like you’d forgotten all the Super Bowl commercials a week after the game, you’re not alone, but you’re probably wrong. But if you think they don’t make Super Bowl ads like they used to, you may be right, because a study finds spots from recent years relatively forgettable. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Click here Of the 10 most memorable Super Bowl ads of the past 10 years, only three aired during the 2020s, according to a study by independent agency VCCP and Cowry Consulting. Given that it was a memory test, conducted through a mix of unaided and aided recall among 1,000 people in the U.S., it’s remarkable that seven of the most memorable commercials didn’t air in the current decade. The overall winner, Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” from 2014, is the oldest on the list. And the median age of ads in the top 10 is seven and a half years. Most memorable Super Bowl ads from the past 10 years Brand Ad detail Year 1. Budweiser Puppy Love 2014 2. State Farm Like a Good Neighbaaa 2024 3. The Farmer's Dog Forever 2023 4. Hyundai First Date 2016 5. Mr Clean You Gotta Love a Man Who Cleans 2017 6. Heinz Weiner Stampede 2016 7. Doritos Ultrasound 2016 8. E-trade Morgan Stanley Pickleball Babies 2024 9. M&Ms Human 2018 10. Planters Crunch Time 2019 Source: VCCP/Cowry Consulting In terms of what made them memorable, eight of the 10 are funny, but two of the top three fall into the heartwarming/makes-you-want-to-cry category, including “Puppy Love” and “Forever” for The Farmer’s Dog. Two relied on surprise, including “Ultrasound” for Doritos, a “Crash the Super Bowl” entry that ends with an unborn infant, mom, dad and doctor screaming. Watch this year’s Doritos Crash the Super Bowl-winning ad Celebrities figured into four of the ads—Arnold Schwarzenegger (and Danny DeVito) for State Farm in 2024, Kevin Hart for Hyundai in 2016, DeVito for M&M’s in 2018 and Alex Rodriguez and Charlie Sheen in Planters’ 2017 ad. Ads with cute dogs rated better overall than those with celebrities, including the Budweiser and Farmer’s Dog ads and No. 6 “Wiener Stampede” for Heinz in 2016. No agency had more than one in the top 10. Two came from shops now part of Stagwell—Anomaly and 72andSunny—and two more from Omnicom (BBDO and Goodby Silverstein & Partners). Publicis Groupe (Leo Burnett) and WPP (David) had one each. The remaining four came from two independents (Highdive and VaynerMedia) and two in-house (Farmer’s Dog and Innocean, which is independent but affiliated with Hyundai). Cowry Consulting’s tests included showing respondents snippets of Super Bowl ads to see if they recalled them and what brands they were for and having people rate full Super Bowl ads on such factors as humor, emotional response and other elements. Then, after a distraction exercise, such as doing math problems, people were shown long lists of Super Bowl ads they’d seen and asked which they remembered, said Martin Coomber, head of strategy for VCCP U.S. That helped identify what factors led to memorability, he said. And among those were humor, emotion, surprise and audio elements. For example, State Farm’s 2024 spot with Schwarzenegger repeating “Like a good neighbaaa” repeatedly worked on the humor, character and audio hook fronts. NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today That more recent Super Bowl ads are less memorable is linked to “trends, which we’re seeing more and more in advertising, which actually go counter to what we found is the right way to create memorable advertising,” Coomber said. One is reliance on celebrity for the sake of celebrity, which isn’t necessarily linked to the brand. While some of the most memorable ads did have celebrities, they were all used as characters in the ads, not for the sake of their celebrity status. “Celebrities aren’t necessarily a shortcut for memorability,” Coomber said. “We’re big proponents of enduring brand equities and enduring brand platforms” that stand the test of time, he said. So the State Farm ad worked in part because it was playing on a well-established brand slogan, he said. Also read: What viewers want and don’t want in Super Bowl ads Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” wasn’t just about a cute dog, but the cute dog’s interaction with one of the brand’s trademark Clydesdales. Heinz may have had cute dogs, but they were running into the arms of people dressed in Heinz packaging. Planters’ “Crunch Time” used humor and action, with the brand’s Nutmobile racing to get to A-Rod. E-trade’s “Pickleball Babies” used characters linked to the brand for years. Mr. Clean built a story around its brand icon as a character. And while Danny DeVito showed up in the 2018 M&M’s ad, he was alongside the brand’s iconic speaking spokescandies. There are lessons here to apply beyond the Super Bowl, too. “After the Super Bowl is over, we go back to our day job,” Coomber said. “It’s amazing how much we sort of forget about those critical elements and get back to performance marketing. We forget about all of those wonderful things in terms of telling a story that’s engaging, emotional, brings people joy and makes people laugh.” Watch more of the 10 most memorable ads and revisit all of the in-game commercials from the past decade—and earlier—in Ad Age’s Super Bowl Ad Archive. Loading…

The 10 most memorable Super Bowl ads of the past decade suggest recent ones were largely forgettable

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