Super Bowl XLV: The Best Commercial Ever

Added on Feb 03, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

By now everyone knows that the Super Bowl is not only a huge event for the booking making industry–it’s also the biggest day for the advertising industry and the TV commercials broadcast during the game have become a big storyline. You can even bet on Super Bowl commercials at some sportsbooks. Last week we reported on the advertising industry journal Advertising Age and their readers poll to determine the worst Super Bowl commercial in history. They’ve also been doing a survey on the *best* Super Bowl commercial of all time and they’ve narrowed it down to two finalists:

APPLE’S ’1984′ COMMERCIAL

This iconic commercial introduced the Macintosh computer to the masses and really started off the trend toward ‘high concept’ Super Bowl ads. Some would say that it has become ironic, with Apple and Steve Jobs exercising the kind of unilateral control over the iPhone and other products in the same way they criticized PC makers from doing in this spot:

COKE’S ‘MEAN JOE GREENE’ COMMERCIAL:

While Apple’s commercial may be more ‘edgy’, this one definitely had more mainstream appeal. At the time ‘Mean Joe’ Greene was not unlike James Harrison now–a tough, some would say dirty, player that struck fear into the hearts of opponents. This commercial became one of the iconic ads of the era and boosted Greene’s marketability. If you don’t think it’s cute you should check to make sure that you’re a human and not a cyborg:

FWIW, I voted for the Coke spot. As of 9:30 AM Pacific on Thursday the balloting is fairly close but the ‘Mean Joe’ commercial holds a 55% to 45% lead over the Apple ’1985′ spot.