The 2014 Super Bowl (also known as Super Bowl XLVIII) will go down in NFL history as one of the most lopsided Super Bowls of all time. Thanks to the second half heroics of Peyton Manning, the final score was Denver Broncos 8, Seattle Seahawks 43. (Hat tip to The Simpsons!)
People living under the tyranny of Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles missed almost an hour of the game thanks to an interruption of service. Although the argument could be made that we didn’t miss much, it was still really annoying.
Any and all of that could have been redeemed by a great lineup of Super Bowl TV spots. Let’s face it, there are a lot of people who really enjoy the annual Super Bowl advertisements (sometimes more than the game itself). But this was not a great year for the ads. Very few commercials seemed to hit their mark and inspiration was lacking.
However, there were a handful of commercials that almost made watching this farce of a game worthwhile. Almost.
So here are our picks for the 10 Best Ads of Super Bowl 2014:
Kia K900: The Truth
If I was more of a film purist, I might be offended that Laurence Fishburne reprised his iconic role, Morpheus from The Matrix just to sell a few cars. And I can’t help but wonder if the Wachowskis were okay with this.
That said, this was a really funny commercial with a lot of callbacks to the Matrix films.
Jaguar: British Villains
Apparently, Jaguar is marketing itself as the choice of supervillains everywhere. But it’s hard to go wrong with the lineup of Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong. The production values of this commercial were very impressive and it was easily one of the best.
TurboTax: Love Hurts
This is actually not a very effective ad, as this year’s TurboTax spot doesn’t do much to entice people to actually use it. But this is the best and funniest breakdown of what watching the Super Bowl was like for people who aren’t Denver or Seattle fans.
GoPro: Red Bull Stratos
Most companies will use special effects in their Super Bowl ads to impress potential customers. GoPro outdid everyone by sending Felix Baumgartner 24 miles above the Earth for an amazing freefall that was filmed with an actual GoPro camera.
And the award for the most hilariously bizarre ad of this year’s Super Bowl goes to SquareSpace, with it’s depiction of internet memes and pop-up ads come to life.
