Best/Worst Super Bowl Commercials of 2018: We’re having the time of our lives

Tide strikes again

Last year, Tide had two memorable ads in the top ten as Procter & Gamble “cleaned up” in the Best Commercials category.

This year, Tide took over the whole damn show.

That sums up T Dog Media’s twelfth annual Super Bowl Commercial roundup, featuring a marked change from years past – with ads showing social activism and the human side of life, with several heart-tugging ads addressing hurricane relief, cancer, and beating long-odds. Another ad (T-Mobile) addressed pay inequality.

There were also some funny ads – notably the Tide spots and of course, some lame offerings from Sprint and a Dodge truck spot, using Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice in perhaps a new low for advertising.

The Amazon Alexa Ad topped USA Today’s annual Super Bowl Ad Meter, but yours truly found it unexciting – however, it wasn’t among one of the worst. And the M&M spot would have been better if the Red M&M turned into Wil Wheaton – and then get smacked all over the place.

Here are the top ten best and the top ten worst. Promos, movie trailers, and the one featuring a black screen do not count. Keep in mind some of the videos on this page may soon be unavailable.

Best.

1. Toyota, Good Odds. The first commercial to air during the Super Bowl was also the best. Featuring Olympic Gold Medal Winner Lauren Woostencroft This proves anything can be possible it you work hard at achieving your goal – despite the circumstances.

https://youtu.be/sefscV3GvWM

2. The PepsiCo Mash Up (Doritos Blaze vs. Mtn Dew Ice.) This ad with Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman rap-syncing is everything. And more.

https://youtu.be/-XLkru5Nzd4

3. Tide, It’s A Super Bowl Ad. (All four). Yours truly decided to group all four Tide ads into one group, and talk about thinking out of the box with Stranger Things’ David Harbour telling us “It’s A Tide Ad”. Well done, P&G! To see the other ads – all fifteen seconds in length, click here, here, and here.

https://youtu.be/doP7xKdGOKs

4. Groupon, Who Wouldn’t. Tiffany Haddish in a spot where a real-life Hans Moleman gets a football to the groin.

https://youtu.be/GM1QDBvzm1Y

5. NFL, Touchdown Celebrations To Come. It’s the New York Giants’ Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. in an ad parodying Dirty Dancing! And it’s much better than last year’s piece-of-shit TV-movie remake!

To see the rest of the commercials ranked sixth to tenth, click on the links.

6. Avocados from Mexico, GuacWorld. Aww. We won’t get to meet and greet Mr. Man Who Lived Under The Seats on Late Night With David Letterman.

7. Lexus/Black Panther. Not a trailer, but this ad ties-in to the highly anticipated Black Panther movie with terrific results.

8. Rocket Mortgage. Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele) explains to people what they’re really getting. Rapper Big Sean makes a cameo.

9. Tourism Australia, Dundee. This ad featuring Danny McBride and Chris Helmworth had us thinking we were going to see a Crocodile Dundee reboot. Instead, it’s a clever ruse to visit Australia!

10. E-Trade, This Is Getting Old. If you run out of money during your retirement… oh man, you are so screwed.

Honorable mention: Jack In The Box, Jack vs. Martha. Even though this ad only aired regionally (Jack In The Box bolted from the Chicago area by 1980), this commercial – part of YouTube’s Ad Blitz, was completely hilarious. Jack vs. Martha Stewart is a rivalry worth following. But if all fails, Martha could always blow up the box…

Worst.

Surprisingly, there weren’t as many clunker ads this year as there were in the past. But there are always THOSE ads (click on the links to watch)

1. Dodge Ram/MLK. I have a dream… that a treasured civil-rights icon such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would never be used in ads to push a four-wheel drive truck. Did Dodge speak to the geniuses who came up with the Adrianna Furs’ “I Have A Dream Sale”?

2. Sprint, Evelyn. A bunch of robots laughing at a human because he doesn’t use the nation’s worst telecom carrier. Coming up next, the poor sap gets insulted by The Progressive Box.

3. Wendy’s, Iceberg. Burger King made the best anti-McDonald’s commercials.

4. Turisk Airlines, Five Senses With Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz – who appeared in front of a House committee a few years ago over false weight-loss claims, is now pitching a Turisk airline? I’ll drive to Turkey, thank you.

5. Diet Coke, Groove. For a product that tastes like cat piss, their commercials follow suit. Of note is this ranked dead last in USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter.

Halftime Show

This year’s halftime show featured the return of Justin Timberlake – and we all know what happened the last time he appeared. With that said, his performance – a medley of hits and some new material was meh-like. Though yours truly likes a lot of his material, Can’t Stop The Feeling – one of his weakest songs in my opinion – was overplayed to the point of nausea.

Keep in mind a lot of people believed Timberlake didn’t deserve the spot due to him throwing Janet Jackson under the bus during the Nippelgate fallout. Super Bowl halftime shows are often hit or miss, but this one missed by a mile.

Grade: D

Black Screen Of Death

Regarding the commercial with the black screen, NBC had a technical difficulty when they threw it to a break that didn’t exist, and after fifteen seconds, went back to the game. The action resulted in dead air and a black screen. No commercial was scheduled, but the fifteen-second “Black Screen Of Death” resulted in hysteria on social media, which was kind of ridiculous.

Further reading

This is the twelfth consecutive year T Dog Media has done a Super Bowl Commercial roundup. For past reviews dating back to 2007, click here (older videos posted in those reviews may no longer be available.)

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1 thought on “Best/Worst Super Bowl Commercials of 2018: We’re having the time of our lives

    • What happened to Jack in the Box? As a kid I used to go to the one in Glenview on Golf Road and Waukegan Avenue all the time. They had great Tacos and I even used to play the kid board games on their placemats called “The Secret Sauce Factory.” I did just see one at the exit to Litchfield on I-55 near Springfield and regret not seeing it in time to get off the highway and have some of those excellent tacos. There was nothing like them, sort of a deep fried thing completely different from Taco Bell.

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