As Super Bowl LII approaches, even non-football fans are looking forward to the big-money ads set to feature throughout the game.
With the Super Bowl typically drawing over 100 million viewers in the U.S. alone, advertising time doesn’t come cheap.
Sports Illustrated reports that a 30-second spot for this year’s big game cost advertisers about $5 million. For comparison, a 30-second spot in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series went for about $500,000.
As has become tradition in the YouTube era, many of the big-ticket spots have already been released online.
From ads designed to tug the heartstrings, such as Budweiser’s spot showcasing its efforts to deliver water to disaster-hit parts of the U.S., to ads meant to draw laughs, such as Danny DeVito appearing as an M&M candy, this year’s crop of ads features a few standouts.
So far, the biggest viral hit might be a series of spots put together by Tourism Australia made to look like movie trailers for a sequel to the legendary Crocodile Dundee films of the 1980’s.
Featuring an all-star cast heavy on Aussie-born stars, the spots had many convinced an actual movie might be coming:
Meanwhile, M&M’s opted to go the surreal route, with a spot showing one of their long-running candy mascots becoming human.
Some may remember Budweiser’s iconic ‘Whaaaazup!’ catchphrase from a campaign that ran from 1999 to 2002. In 2018, it looks like Pringles chips is looking to take the catchphrase crown. Wow.
Speaking of Budweiser, the company has gone with another emotional spot in light of a tough year of natural disasters for many parts of the U.S.
Lexus has opted to tie-in with the upcoming Black Panther movie for an action-packed spot.
And Febreze has finally admitted what most people are using its de-odourizing spray for, with a one-minute spot featuring a man whose —bleep— doesn’t stink.