For many folks, one of the reasons to watch the annual Super Bowl extravaganza is to benefit from the effort and creativity put into ads by the various companies that buy airtime during the game. Especially when we know that the average cost for a 30-second spot this year is $5.6 million… up slightly from the $37,500 it cost for the same ad in Super Bowl I.
For car enthusiasts, the pleasure is twofold since a good number of those ads that enliven the event have to do with the automobile (or these days, mainly SUVs and trucks!).
So here they are, in order, from best to worst.
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1 - Jeep Gladiator
The gold medal in the Super Bowl Car Ad Contest goes to Jeep, which brought together some of the stars from the movie Groundhog Day, including actor Bill Murray reprising his famous role as Phil Connors. We can see him in the same city where the film was shot (Woodstock, Illinois); there he meets Ned Ryerson, played by Stephen Tobolowski, and the mayor of the city, Buster Green, played by Bryan Doyle Murray. This time, however, as he discovers something new in the village – that would be the Jeep Gladiator – cranky Connors starts to enjoy the repetition of Groundhog Day.
This commercial is not only the best of this Super Bowl, it's certainly one of the best automotive ads in the history of the annual classic.