Who won the Super Bowl? The Broncos. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. We’re here to talk about the brands who won the Super Bowl.

In my mind there are three big winners of the Super Bowl. Three who made better ads or had better promotions or better social. Those are:

Drum Roll Please

Hyundai. T-Mobile. Budweiser.

Hyundai

Last week I read that Hyundai had purchased three different commercial spots for the game on Sunday and kind of groaned. Their previous spots haven’t gotten me extremely excited, so I had no reason to think these would be great. Boy was I wrong. You can watch the three spots they had below. Enjoy.

All three ads were stellar. They showed different creative strategies, but they all still managed to stay very on-brand. I was extremely entertained by all 3 spots, but along with that, they were able to easily communicate product benefits that made sense to me rather than just showing a car driving down a road in the middle of nowhere like most car ads.

Well done Hyundai.

T-Mobile

Wow T-Mobile. Long proclaiming themselves the uncarrier and providing some of the best service in the cellular game, T-Mobile came out guns blazing in the Super Bowl with two ads that were not only funny and irreverent towards the industry but extremely relevant. Let’s start with Drake.

Hotline Bling. The video that rocked the world last year, made by the hip hop artist that is probably the most influential in the industry. It was the perfect chance for T-Mobile to take a shot at AT&T and Verizon where they took the chance to remind us that the big carriers can ruin the best things.

Oh Steve Harvey. This spot was great. Taking full advantage of one of the biggest pop culture stories of early 2016. Well done T-Mobile.

However, something to me seemed a little fishy here. T-Mobile bought this media placement well in advance of Super Bowl 50. My question is, did their agency wait around until one month before the Super Bowl with no creative direction for this ad, and they came up with the idea, signed the contract with Harvey, shot it, and got it on tv in time for the Big Game? What if they planned Steve Harvey’s gaffe at Miss Universe to leverage for their Super Bowl spot? However, this is all just a theory.

In reality, this is just a fantastic commercial that did a great job utilizing a huge story to take another big shot at Verizon.

Overall, T-Mobile did a great job of continuing to show off their message of not being bound by what the mobile carrier space is doing right now and taking advantage of huge media stories of the past year.

Budweiser

I’m not going to talk about a single spot that Bud aired last night. On the contrary, I’m going to talk about the free advertising that Peyton Manning handed to them on a single platter at the end of the game.

Now many, like myself, immediately thought, “how much did Budweiser pay for that promotion?” Well, apparently they paid nothing. So Peyton just loves Budweiser? Well, not quite. He owns part of one of their distributors, so he does have some vested interest.

Regardless of payment or other interests, this still sold Budweiser a ton of beer yesterday. In fact, I would guess it sold more beer than any of the spots they ran yesterday. In fact, that one mention was worth almost $14 million.

It just goes to show, earned media is still better than paid.

Credits

Hyundai

CMO: Dean Evans,

Sr. Manager Advertising: Monique Kumpis

Agency: Innocean Worldwide

“Ryanville”

CCO: Eric Springer

GCD: Barney Goldberg

CD: Bob Rayburn

AD/CD: Shane Diver

CW/CD: Max Godsil

DIRECTOR OF INTEGRATED PRODUCTION: Carol Lombard

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Nicolette Spencer

PRODUCER: Jimmy Romero

HEAD OF ACCOUNT SERVICES: Marisstella Marinkovic

GROUP ACCOUNT DIRECTOR: Michelle Agnew, Nicole Timerson

ACCOUNT SUPERVISOR: Allison Morrissey

MEDIA: Ben Gogley, James Zayti

HEAD OF STRATEGY: Frank Striefler

PLANNING DIRECTOR: Kathleen Kindle

PM: Suzanne Cheng

BUSINESS AFFAIRS: Lisa Nichols

“The Chase”

CCO: Eric Springer

GCD: Barney Goldberg

CD: Bob Rayburn

ACD AD: David Mesfin, Chris Lynch

ACD CW: Nick Flora

DIRECTOR OF INTEGRATED PRODUCTION: Carol Lombard

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Brandon Boerner

PRODUCER: Melissa Moore

HEAD OF ACCOUNT SERVICES: Marisstella Marinkovic

GROUP ACCOUNT DIRECTOR: Michelle Agnew, Nicole Timerson

ACCOUNT SUPERVISOR: Allison Morrissey

MEDIA: Ben Gogley, James Zayti

HEAD OF STRATEGY: Frank Striefler

PLANNING DIRECTOR: Kathleen Kindle

PM: Suzanne Cheng

BUSINESS AFFAIRS: Krista Horn

“First Date”

CCO: Eric Springer

GCD: Barney Goldberg

CD: Bob Rayburn

ACD AD: Jose Eslinger

ACD CW: Carissa Levine

DIRECTOR OF INTEGRATED PRODUCTION: Carol Lombard

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Harry Lowell

PRODUCER: Shefali Valdez

HEAD OF ACCOUNT SERVICES: Marisstella Marinkovic

GROUP ACCOUNT DIRECTOR: Michelle Agnew, Nicole Timerson

ACCOUNT SUPERVISOR: Allison Morrissey

MEDIA: Ben Gogley, James Zayti

HEAD OF STRATEGY: Frank Striefler

PLANNING DIRECTOR: Kathleen Kindle

PM: Suzanne Cheng

BUSINESS AFFAIRS: Lisa Nichols

T-Mobile

“Restricted Bling”

Agency: Publicis Seattle

Client: T-Mobile Super Bowl

Dir. of integrated production: Corey Bartha

Head of Broadcast: Adam Oliver

Producer: Ryan Shanholtzer

Chief creative officer: Andrew Christou

Executive creative director: Jason Lucas

Creative director: Earl Wallace IV

Sr. copywriter: Dan Peterson

Group account dir: Adam Thomason

Head of business affairs: Deb Groth

Traffic mgr: Tina Mulcahy

Production Company: Prettybird

Director: Paul Hunter

Co-Founder: Kerstin Emhoff

Vice-President/Executive Producer: Ali Brown

Head of Production: Tracy Hauser

Line Producer: William Green

Editorial Co: Arcade Edit – LA

Editor: Kyle Brown

Asst. Editor: Andy Trecki

Managing Partner: Damien Stevens

Executive Producer: Nicole Visram

Sr. Producer: Sasha Grubar

Telecine: CO3 – LA

Colorist: Dave Hussey

Executive Producer: Ashley McKim + Rhubie Jovanov

Producer: Liza Kerlin

Online & VFX: Method

Managing Director:

Creative Directors/Partners:

Executive Producer: Robert Owens

Sr. Producer: Paula S. Jimenez

Lead Flame: Wensen Ho

2D artists: Aaron Neitz + Justin Monnier

Audio Post Co: Eleven

Mixer/Sound Designer: Jeff Payne

Assistant: AJ Murillo

Exec Producer: Suzanne Hollingshead

Producer: Melissa Elston

Entertainment Marketing Consultant: Platinum Rye Entertainment

Founder: Ryan Schinman

Dir. of Talent Procurement: Marissa Klaff

Music:

Licensed Track: ‘Hotline Bling’ by Drake

Music Licensing: Platinum Rye Entertainment

Sr. Dir. of Music Supervision + Licensing: Susan Schwartz

Talent:

OCP: Jerry Lambert

OCP: Brian Husky

OCP: Alison Martin

OCP: Drake

Announcer: Jeff Johnson

Agent: Mike Karr / SBV LA

“Drop the Balls”

Advertising Agency: Publicis, USA

Production Company: Prettybird

Editorial Company: Arcade

VFX/Post Production: Timber

Creative Directors / Partners: Jonah Hall, Kevin Lau

Executive Producer: Sabrina Elizondo

Producer: Megan Kennedy

Lead Flame: Miles Kinghorn

Flame Assist: Branden Harden

Compositors: Daniel Raschko, Mark Robben, Brian Sales

CG Modeling, Particle vfx, Lighting, Animation: Brad Hayes, Casey Benn

CG Tracking: Matt Merkovich

Design + 2D Animation: Kevin Lau, Dan Blank