It's not easy for a pitch that revolves around auto safety to also be funny. With the help of Bruce Willis, former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Fred Armisen and RPA, Honda’s longtime agency, it happens in “Hugfest.” And that was enough for Honda to set itself apart from the many other auto advertisers in the 2014 game.

The opening line, however, was a little unfortunate, given the on-field shellacking that was well underway by the time "Hugfest" aired in the third quarter. The Seahawks wound up trouncing the Broncos 43 to 8, with Denver's only score coming on the final play of the third.

Honda's Super Bowl advertising with RPA dates back to the 1990's, including "Grow Up" (1995), "News" (1997) and "Family Negotiations" (1999).

Director: Craig Gillespie, who also directed the feature film “Lars and the Real Girl” as well as Super Bowl spots such as Snickers' "Game," Audi's "The Commander," Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret's "Awesomer," CareerBuilder.com's "Casual Friday" and Cars.com's "Timothy Richman" and "David Abernathy. Production company: MJZ, a frequent winner of Creativity and Advertising Age’s Production Company of the Year honors. Director of photography: Gyula Pados. Executive producer: Emma Wilcockson. Line producer: Deb Tietjen.

Agency executive VP/chief creative officer: Joe Baratelli. Senior VP/executive creative director: Jason Sperling. Creative director/art director: Chuck Blackwell. Creative director/copywriter: Ken Pappanduros. Art Director: Ben Tolbert. Copywriter: Chris Juhas. Senior VP/chief production officer: Gary Paticoff. VP/executive producer: Isadora Chesler. Digital project management/program manager: Elizabeth Goldstein.

Editorial: Union Editorial. Editor: Jim Haygood. Executive producer: Michael Raimondi. Producer: Joe Ross. Assistant editor: Dylan Firshein. 

BRAND: Honda

YEAR: 2014

AGENCY: RPA

SUPERBOWL: XLVIII

QUARTER AIRED: Q3