175: Super Bowl 2025 recap
The key ingredient is always surprise (or lack thereof)
This is how you do a Super Bowl ad.
No teaser. Absurdly simple. Yet unexpected and big—in this case, Bill Murray’s email.
Wait? What?
In the sea of this year’s celebrity-fueled and AI-themed ads, something as curious and unexpected as Bill Himself stands out. And if you do email Bill, you’ll wind up down a very 2000s era string of odd websites, videos and emails. Probably because Yahoo turns 30th on March 2, 2025. Of course, Bill live-streamed email responses for a bit. Entertainment Weekly has more. Not what you’d expect from a brand you haven’t heard from in a long time. And that sounds like the point.
You don’t expect to see surgeons, airline pilots, and judges chugging from brightly colored cans while a rock band sings, “drink on the job” over and over. Unless, of course, we’re talking about Liquid Death brand water. All the visual and audio trapping of Super Bowl beer ads, with a twist.
The non-alcoholic brands had the smartest strategies. Athletic brewing played on a stupid simple reality—no one remembers their brand name.
I’m not surprised by Nike anymore.
No brand writes voice over the way they do.
No brand pairs artists (Led Zeppelin, Doechii) the way they do.
No brand leverages cinematography the way they do.
Maybe it’s their continued ability to recast their relentless nature with fresh insight that stands them apart.
Football, food and conspiracy theories make for unexpected yet amusing bedfellows, especially if you wrap them in the sultry tones of Matthew McConaughey.
Surprise, this was not the year of big AI ads
Salesforce dramatizing “What AI was meant to be” with Woody Harrelson and McConaughey was overwrought. I kept wondering, what is going on here that’s relevant or insightful to using AI?
ChatGPT’s “Intelligence Age” spot took a really, really long time to deliver a “meh” insight. Tell me something I don’t already know. Unfortunate, given OpenAI’s new CMO was previously at Coinbase when that brand delivered a surprising viral Super Bowl ad in 2022.
Meta’s ads with Chris Hemsworth communicated something about guys acting dumb around art.
So we’re left with Google, who delivered three strong spots dramatizing the utility and benefits of AI across a variety of contexts. All of them deliver a consistent message:
“Whoever you are, jump in, the (AI) water is warm.”
Google Pixel SB’s “Dream Job” nailed several critical themes around AI circa February 2025—the tension of an older (white) dude in a job hunt situation, the practicality of multi-modal conversation, and the ability to stop and restart the way you interact with an AI.
Google Pixel 9 illuminated another facet of human nature. “Does it seem like I know what I’m talking about?” The Pixel SB and 9 ads are two sides of the same coin.
And then there’s scaling.
“I’m not a creative” is a huge insight. Especially in the context of small business. I’ve wrestled with this affliction for decades—we are all born creative; but time, schooling, and culture often drum that reality out of many.
Now here’s Google, at its scale, showing how Gemini AI enables all manner of business owners to shake off the fear of “I’m not” to unlock creativity.
If we’re awarding prizes, Google wins for making AI intriguing, desirable and relevant.
And then there was Kendrick Lamar. Easily the most surprising musical artist of this era. Never mind one of the most talented. And the first rapper to headline a Super Bowl halftime.
I admit I struggled with this performance. So much of the show was Kendrick rapping to steady cam over and over and over and over. Pretty easy to make assumptions and get bored.
And that’s probably where a lot of us stopped. I loved many of the visuals in his halftime show, especially the flag choreography. Apparently the concept was “Kendrick’s life is a video game.” Or, Drake’s career is over?
But Kendrick is all about the details. Those red, white and blue outfits? Prison uniforms. Now what does that flag communicate? There’s a lot going on here, and it’s worth our time to assess and comprehend. Because maybe, as Zactivist explains below, this performance was really about what it means to be an American.
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Here’s Tommie Girl on Kendrick’s reference to Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution will Not Be Televised.” Snoop Dogg thought the show was awesome. I still think a live band would have helped.
Odd and Ends
Speaking of Snoop, I’m a fan of the “No Reason to Hate” message from the Foundation To Combat Antisemitism. Potent stuff. I just wish the cinematography and production value wasn’t trying so hard.
I have not been a fan of the evangelical org He Gets Us. But they deserve credit for letting the Rick Rubin production of Johnny Cash’s “Personal Jesus” do the work in “What is Greatness?”
Perhaps the best bit of copy and performance goes to Harrison Ford in the Jeep manifesto as he swallows the last word: “This Jeep makes me happy. Even though my name is [Ford].”
The play on Matt Damon’s celebrity across Dunkin and Stella was amusing.
It was weird seeing so much flying facial hair, between Eugene Levy’s eyebrows for Little Caesar’s and all the celebrity mustaches for Pringles.
And it’s hard not to like William Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara hustling for Michelob Ultra.