Who's Buying Ads In the Big Game
Marketing professionals' verdict is in: After rating every Super Bowl ad for not only entertainment but effectiveness, the inaugural Ad Age Super Bowl Ad Rank With Morning Consult has ranked every ad for each quality—and picked overall winners. The complete rundown is here. Thank you to everyone who participated.
Find out who's in with Ad Age's annual Super Bowl ad chart, which can be sorted by marketer, agency, category and the latest info. Our definition of a Super Bowl ad includes all national spots between the coin toss and end of play.
Bookmark this page to keep up with every spot in the game as it is confirmed, complete with details on the agencies, creative and where it will run in the game. See all pre-released ads here, the newest on top. Get our Super Bowl Alert Newsletter for breaking news. Find all our Super Bowl ad coverage in one place with our Super Bowl Special Report. And visit the Super Bowl Ad Archive for more than 1,000 commercials dating back to Super Bowl III.
Buy: Despite initially saying it would sit out of the Super Bowl this year to focus more on digital advertising, Wix.com will air one, 30-second spot in the big game thanks to what its CMO says was a last-minute "deal" from NBC.
Creative: YouTube stars Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal will appear in the spot. In 2017, Jason Statham and Gal Godot starred in Wix's action-packed Super Bowl commercial.
Agencies: In-house
Buy: Rapper Pras bought one, 30-second spot for his new digital platform Blacture. The ad is set to run in the third quarter.
Creative: The goal of the spot is to promote black culture and Blacture, which a press releases says will feature content from artists and influencers plus tell stories that are underreported in mass media. The ad follows an NFL season marked by controversy over some players' protests over racial injustice.
Agencies: McKinney
Buy: FCA will run five ads for Ram and Jeep, a record number for the automaker in the game. One ad will air in the first quarter, two in the second quarter and one each in the third and fourth quarters.
Creative: The marketer has not released creative details, however people familiar with the matter say ideas under consideration include making links to the upcoming movie "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," a Martin Luther King speech and a Queen song.
Agencies: DDB Chicago and FCB Chicago are among the agencies expected to be behind the work.
Buy: HBO said on the Friday before the game that it will air a spot during Super Bowl LII, its first commercial in the big game in 20 years.
Creative: The spot will promote the second season of HBO's sci-fi series "Westworld." HBO ran back-to-back Super Bowl ads in 1997 and 1998. Those spots promoted the pay-TV network, not a specific series.
Agencies: In-house
Buy: A 60-second spot that will air during the game; quarter TBD.
Creative: TBD. T-Mobile confirmed Friday that it's returning to the Super Bowl, adding that "Scandal" actress Kerry Washington will somehow be involved, but stopped short of sharing additional details.
Agencies: TBD
Buy: The league will run at least one 60-second ad.
Creative: A teaser from the NFL's twitter handle suggests the ad will include Eli Manning and the New York Giants' offensive line.
Agencies: Grey New York
Buy: A 60-second spot in the second quarter
Creative: The spot will highlight the brand's Rocket Mortgage product. It is Quicken's first Super Bowl effort since 2016, when a commercial advertising the Rocket Mortgage invited backlash as viewers compared it to the sub-prime lending crisis of 2008.
Agencies: Huge
Buy: TBD
Creative: TBD. The company released two 15-second teasers on Wednesday, both featuring "Evelyn," a robot, taking pictures of herself and her food.
Agencies: Droga5
Buy: One 30-second ad in the first quarter, released on Jan. 31, the Wednesday before the game.
Creative: Wendy's is calling out McDonald's for using frozen beef with the snarky wording its social media followers have grown to love. Its second Super Bowl spot (it first appeared in the 2017 game with "Cold Storage") relies on text such as "Skip the hamburgers at the Frozen Arches" and plenty of burger close-up shots.
Agencies: VML
Buy: One 30-second spot
Creative: In the ad, released by Universal the Tuesday before the game, Manning coaches families on how to get the most out of Universal's locations in Orlando and Hollywood. Universal Parks last appeared in the Super Bowl in 2010.
Agencies: Internal
Buy: One 60-second just after the halftime show
Creative: Amazon will use its first Super Bowl ad promoting the Prime service to try priming the pump for "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan," an original series due Aug. 31. It released the spot on Jan. 30, the Tuesday before Super Bowl Sunday.
Agencies: Internal
Buy: TBD.
Creative: Not disclosed. It announced the buy on Jan. 29 via a video on Elite Daily featuring a star of its 2017 ad, Terry Bradshaw, and the star of the new spot, David Harbour of Netflix's "Stranger Things." Tide staged an elaborate integration with the on-screen action for its 2017 Super Bowl ad ("Bradshaw Stain"), which promoted Pods. This year's ad arrives as Pods are in the news for an upswing in social-media videos showing people apparently eating the (inedible) product.
Agencies: Not disclosed. Saatchi & Saatchi handled the 2017 appearance.
Buy: Paramount is running one ad in the game.
Creative: Paramount will use the Super Bowl to promote its new "Mission: Impossible" movie.
Agencies: In-house
Buy: One 30-second ad in the second quarter
Creative: The ad will help introduce Diet Coke's overhauled logo and packaging. Although it declined to discuss details of the spot when it announced it on Jan. 29, its new marketing approach steers clear of big female pop stars like Taylor Swift that have endorsed Diet Coke in the past and calls on lower-profile endorsers such as includes Gillian Jacobs, known for roles in NBC's "Community" and Netflix's "Love," and Karan Soni, an Indian-American actor known for playing a supporting role in "Deadpool." Sibling Coca-Cola is also running an ad.
Agencies: Anomaly Los Angeles
Buy: E-Trade is running a 30-second spot in the second quarter of the game, returning after a five-year hiatus ("Save It").
Creative: The ad will continue E-Trade's recent "Don't Get Mad, Get E-Trade" campaign and highlight the perils of not planning ahead for retirement by showing several seniors forced into jobs like lifeguarding. It released a teaser on the Thursday before the game.
Agencies: MullenLowe
Buy: A 90-second spot in the fourth quarter promoting the Alexa voice assistant
Creative: In a Jan. 26 teaser featuring CEO Jeff Bezos, Alexa has lost her voice. In the full spot, released the Wednesday before the game, celebrities including Cardi B and Gordon Ramsay pitch in as substitutes.
Agencies: Lucky Generals and Amazon's internal agency, D1
Buy: The premium laundry detergent is making its third consecutive appearance in the big game. The length of its ad has not been determined. It debuted in Super Bowl 50 with a 15-second ad and returned in 2017 with 30 seconds.
Creative: The ad will again star actor Peter Hermann, presumably reprising his role as the "Professional."
Agency: TBD
Buy: One 30-second ad in the second quarter
Creative: The spot, released on Jan. 25, follows an unusual odor-free defecator along with friends and family "awed by his fecal anomaly." Febreze aired its first Super Bowl ad in 2017 ("America's Halftime Bathroom Break").
Agency: Grey New York
Buy: Hulu is returning to the Super Bowl for its second consecutive spot and its third overall since it became available in 2008.
Creative: TBD. Hulu aired a spot for its critically acclaimed original series "The Handmaid's Tale" during last year's game. The streaming video platform previously aired Super Bowl ads in 2012 ("Hulubratory") and 2009 ("Alec in Huluwood") but 2017 was the first time it aired a commercial in the game promoting one of its original series. It went up against Netflix, which promoted "Stranger Things", and at least in terms of entertainment programming, AMC, which bought 15 seconds to hype the return of "The Walking Dead," not to mention all the programming Fox promoted during its telecast.
Agency: TBD
Buy: Verizon will return to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2011, the company said on Jan. 19. It declined to describe its plans further.
Creative: Not disclosed.
Agency: Not disclosed.
Buy: One 30-second ad, part of a back-to-back assemblage with a spot for sibling brand Doritos.
Creative: Morgan Freeman and Missy Elliott will appear in the pitch, which promotes the line extension lemon-lime flavored Mtn Dew Ice. The Doritos ad stars Peter Dinklage and Busta Rhymes. The Dew spot will be the brand's first Super Bowl outing since its strange but attention-getting "Puppymonkeybaby" ran in 2016.
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Buy: A 30-second commercial
Creative: The company's fifth consecutive Super Bowl ad will star Keanu Reeves, a long-time Squarespace customer, according to Squarespace. Reeves uses the platform for his motorcycle business Arch, the company says. Squarespace released a teaser on Jan. 24 showing Reeves riding a motorcycle through the desert. The full ad, out on the Wednesday before the game, shows Reeves standing on a motorcycle for more of the spot.
Agency: internal
Buy: One 30-second spot in the third quarter to promote the Kraft as a brand. Kraft Heinz has previously bought time to promote Heinz, Mio and Planters.
Creative: The ad will continue the approach from an online effort, "Family Greatly," that began in December. It features real families rather than established actors. To do that it, it plans to harvest families' actual Super Bowl Sunday moments from social media and weave them into the spot, the marketer said Jan. 29. (That means no pre-release is possible.)
Agency: Leo Burnett
Buy: The luxury auto brand will run one 30-second ad in the third quarter.
Creative: The ad will include a tie-in to Marvel's upcoming "Black Panther" superhero movie, for which Lexus has secured product placement for its 2018 Lexus LC. The Super Bowl ad will feature the 2018 Lexus LS 500 F Sport performance sedan. Lexus released an extended cut of the commercial on Jan. 25.
Agency: The ad is by Lexus' multicultural agency, Walton Isaacson. Walton Isaacson is behind a "Black Panther"-themed Lexus ad that will run prior to the Super Bowl later this month.
Buy: After first saying that it would run two 60-second spots, one in the first quarter and one during halftime, Toyota said on the Friday before the game that it had picked up another ad, 30 seconds long, for the second half.
Creative: The first ad will plug Toyota's new global Olympics sponsorship, continuing a global campaign called "Start Your Impossible" that debuted in October. Toyota released it along with the late-add :30, an edited-down version of a longer "Mobility Anthem," on the Friday before the game. The halftime ad will be more vehicle focused.
Agencies: The Olympics ad is by Saatchi & Saatchi and Dentsu, while Saatchi will handle the second ad by itself.
Buy: One 30-second ad, announced on Jan. 11, called "This Is Pepsi."
Creative: The commercial, released the Thursday before the game, includes Cindy Crawford in a reference to her iconic 1992 Pepsi Super Bowl ad, in which the supermodel appeared in jean shorts and a white tank top as two boys gawked. The remake is a little more G-rated: Her son, Presley Gerber, appears, along with glimpses of previous endorsers for the brand, a tactic that could help erase memories of the brand's Kendall Jenner misfire in 2017. Justin Timberlake is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show sponsored by Pepsi, so his presence will undoubtedly be woven into the brand's marketing.
Agency: The Creators League, an internal shop
Buy: Monster Products will make its Super Bowl debut, the company announced during the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
Creative: Rapper Iggy Azalea will star in the spot, which will promote the brand's new wireless earphones AirLinks Elements.
Agency: TBD
Buy: One 15-second spot, the first for the Intuit corporate brand.
Creative: Intuit plans to introduce two characters during its Super Bowl spot, which the company describes as " playful," that will play prominently in its brand campaign.
Agencies: Phenomenon and Passion Animation Studios
Buy: One 60-second commercial. This will be TurboTax's fifth consecutive Super Bowl spot.
Creative: TBD. TurboTax's last Super Bowl ad featured Humpty Dumpty to promote SmartLook, a live video connection to a TurboTax expert, credentialed CPA or enrolled agent to answer customers' questions.
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy
Buy: Pringles will air its first big game commercial in Super Bowl LII, where it will face rival salty snack Doritos. The 30-second spot will run during the second quarter of the game.
Creative: Pringles will use the ad, which it released on Jan. 25, to kick off its new "Flavor Stacking" campaign for 2018. Former "Saturday Night Live" star Bill Hader will appear, highlighting the idea of stacking various flavors of the potato crisps to concoct unique flavor combinations. Rhys Thomas, who previously worked with Hader directing and producing shorts for "SNL," is directing the commercial.
Agency: Grey New York
Buy: Groupon will air one 30-second spot in between the third and fourth quarters. This is the first Super Bowl commercial for the e-commerce company since its first foray into the big game in 2011 with "Tibet." Starring Timothy Hutton, the commercial opened like a pledge drive to help the people of Tibet, but it quickly turned to Hutton promoting a discount for Tibetan food. The spot was criticized for making light of the plight of the people of Tibet. Two other Groupon spots during that game starred Cuba Gooding Jr. and Elizabeth Hurley, with themes of saving the whales and rainforest "causes."
Creative: "Girls Trip's" Tiffany Haddish stars in Groupon's Super Bowl 2018 spot, which it released on Jan. 25. Haddish recently told a story about taking Will and Jada Pinket Smith on a swamp tour in Louisiana purchased through Groupon during an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" that went viral. Haddish ranks in the top 1 percent of most frequent Groupon purchasers according to the company.
Agency: O'Keefe Reinhard & Paul
Buy: The automaker, an NFL sponsor, confirmed in December that it is buying in-game time for 2018 and said in January that it will comprise a fourth-quarter :60.
Creative: The automaker will continue its "Better Drives Us" theme. In 2017, Hyundai shot a commercial during the Super Bowl and aired it in the post-game. In the spot, "Operation: Better," three overseas troops watched the Super Bowl in 360-degree immersive pods and surprised by virtual reunions with their families at the game. On Jan. 19, it released a teaser for the 2018 spot promising to "surprise millions." On Jan. 29, it said it will again incorporate footage from game day, combining it with pre-shot content. This time the ad will promote a nonprofit group, Hyundai Hope on Wheels, that battles pediatric cancer.
Agency: Innocean, Hyundai's agency of record
Buy: Anheuser-Busch InBev, which holds exclusive beer advertising rights for the Super Bowl, will use its time for four brands. It will air a 30-second spot for Stella Artois, the brand's first appearance in the Super Bowl since 2011. Bud Light will get one 60-second ad and one 30-second spot. And Michelob Ultra and Budweiser will get ad time as well.
Creative: Stella Artois, which on Jan. 16 became the game's first advertiser to release its Super Bowl spot online, is using its time to promote its ongoing "Buy a Lady a Drink" campaign, a partnership with Water.org to provide clean water to developing countries. Bud Light continues its medieval-themed "Dilly-Dilly" campaign, creating a new minute-long spot to complement a 30-second cut of this pre-existing :45; it released the new :60, starring the "Bud Knight," on Feb. 1. Budweiser released its one-minute ad on Jan. 26, revealing that it was excluding the Clydesdales for the first time since 2001 and instead promoting AB InBev's philanthropic water giveaway program. Mich Ultra on Jan. 29 released a minute-long cut of one ad starring Chris Pratt, saying the game would also include a sequel.
Agencies: Stella's spot was created by Mother, which has long worked on the brand. Wieden & Kennedy New York is on Bud Light. Anomaly—which was behind Budweiser's headline-grabbing Super Bowl ads for the past seven years—did not handle the 2018 spot for the brand: Those duties went to David of Miami.
Buy: Avocados From Mexico will air one 30-second spot, making its fourth consecutive appearance in the big game.
Creative: It will continue with its humorous approach and plans to highlight the versatility of avocados beyond guacamole. In a teaser released Jan. 24, actor Chris Elliott vamps with the produce.
Agencies: It's working with creative agency GSD&M, media agency Havas Media and Richards Lerma for social media and digital execution.
Buy: Coke confirmed it will have a spot in the big game, its 12th Super Bowl appearance.
Creative: After the beverage giant re-ran an old ad in last season's Super Bowl, it made a new spot for 2018 and released it the Thursday before the game. Sibling brand Diet Coke is also getting time in the 2018 game.
Agency: The marketer has recently given Fitzco/McCann several high-profile assignments, but Wieden & Kennedy will handle this spot.
Buy: Doritos is back in the Super Bowl after sitting out last season when it ended its "Crash the Super Bowl" contest soliciting ideas from consumers.
Creative: The ad, paired back-to-back with a commercial starring Morgan Freeman for sibling brand Mtn Dew Ice, will star Peter Dinklage promoting the Doritos Blaze line extension. PepsiCo released a preview for the effort on Jan. 17 and another, adding Missy Elliott for Mtn Dew and Busta Rhymes for Doritos, on Jan. 24.
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Buy: Kia will run a 60-second spot in the third quarter, continuing its nine-year streak.
Creative: A 15-second teaser released Jan. 25 shows Formula One and Indianapolis 500 champion Emerson Fittipaldi preparing to race against a mystery competitor. The full spot, released on the Thursday before the game, reveals him to be Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, who rediscovers his youth behind the wheel of a Kia Tinger performance sedan. It is the first high-profile ad under new marketing chief Saad Chehab, who came from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, where he worked on several iconic Super Bowl spots, including its "Born of Fire" ad featuring Eminem in 2011.
Agency: David & Goliath
Buy: M&M's is returning to the Super Bowl after a three-year hiatus with one 30-second spot running in the first quarter.
Creative: M&M's released a teaser of its spot on Jan. 22 revealing actor Danny DeVito lolling in a pool of chocolate. It's a nod to M&M's creative of yore: For many years, M&M's commercials ended with the red M&M rising up through a pool of liquid chocolate. The full spot, released the Monday before the game, also features a guest appearance by YouTube star Todrick Hall. M&M's previewed its commercial to a handful of film critics and captured their reactions, which were then shared during the "Critics' Choice Awards" on The CW. The brand last appeared in the Super Bowl with a 2014 spot starring Yellow M&M ("Delivery").
Agency: BBDO New York
Buy: The maker of car mats will return to the Super Bowl for its fifth consecutive appearance with one 30-second spot.
Creative: TBD. Known for its made-in-America message, WeatherTech's 2017 spot "Tech Team" introduced an action hero who jumps from a moving WeatherTech van to a customer's vehicle and places a WeatherTech FloorLiner in time to avert a catastrophe. In a teaser for the 2018 spot released on Jan. 30, WeatherTech promised no puppies, pretty girls, goats, singers or even spoken words.
Agency: Pinnacle Advertising