The best advertisements of all time

This list includes the spots (like Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign and Snickers’ Betty White cameo) that transcended advertising and became genuine pop culture sensations.

Explore an archive of Budweiser’s past Super Bowl ads

With about 47 of them airing over the past few decades, Budweiser’s Clydesdale ads have basically become synonymous with the Super Bowl—but how many have you actually seen? From 1991 to 2024, this website includes many of Budweiser’s most famous Super Bowl ads.

Pepsi dominates the list of the highest-rated Super Bowl commercials in history

The Super Bowl features the two best NFL teams, playing American football at the highest level. While the games may be forgotten by fans whose team didn’t make it, no one forgets the commercials.

A 1973 ad is credited with accelerating the Super Bowl advertising craze

The Super Bowl’s history as an advertising phenomenon began in earnest during the 1970s. In 1973, for instance, Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett starred in Noxzema’s “Cream Your Face” ad, which Smithsonian Magazine says helped establish the game “as an event for advertisers.” Read this article to learn more about how the Super Bowl became advertising’s, well, Super Bowl.

Watch Budweiser's 2026 Super Bowl ad

Budweiser's Super Bowl LX commercial is called "American Icons" and features a Clydesdale foal.

From 1989 to 2022, Anheuser-Busch had exclusive alcohol ad rights to the Super Bowl

That meant if an alcohol company was not owned by Anheuser-Busch (and later after the merger, AB InBev), it could not advertise during the Super Bowl. This monopoly was part of how Budweiser became known for its Clydesdale Super Bowl ads.

The most iconic vintage ads

Looking at vintage ads can provide a deep dive into the history of how businesses communicate with their customers. This archive of some of the most iconic print and out-of-home ads of all time breaks down why each ad resonated at the time (think brutally honest copywriting, and long copy that is a pleasure to read). See ads from Porsche, Listerine, and more.

Apple’s '1984' ad aired once during the game and permanently shaped their advertising

During Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired its dystopian “1984” commercial once to a mass audience, introducing the Macintosh and positioning Apple as a challenger to IBM’s dominance in personal computing.

Some found the Temu ‘Shop Like a Billionaire’ Super Bowl ads out of place in the Big Game

“It had no A-list celebrities or beloved cultural touchstones; not a single heartstring was tugged,” wrote one writer of the Temu ad that aired five times during the 2024 Super Bowl.

Watch a comprehensive history of the Super Bowl

This video traces the Super Bowl's history from its origins through major games, ads, and cultural moments, offering a comprehensive overview of how the event evolved. Note that the video covers through the 2020 season.

See the evolution of Super Bowl logos and how the NFL refined its visual identity over time

Tracing Super Bowl logos from early, varied designs to today’s standardized look shows how the NFL adapted to shifting design trends, television demands, and brand strategy.

A 30-second Super Bowl 2026 ad is expected to cost $8M

By 2026, a single 30-second Super Bowl ad is projected to cost $8M. Advertisements for Super Bowl I in 1967 cost from $37,500 to $42,500 for a 30-second spot.

Go inside the ranch where the famous Budweiser Clydesdales live

Budweiser's famous Clydesdales, including the ones you see in Super Bowl commercials, live a cushy lifestyle on Warm Springs Ranch in Boonville, Missouri. The ranch is home to roughly 70 and 80 Clydesdales at any given time.

Dot-com companies paid $44M for Super Bowl ads in 2000

During the 2000 Super Bowl game, 17 dot-com companies paid $44M total for ads. Just the next year, only three dot-com companies ran ads in the game. The significant drop reflects just how hard the crash hit dot-com companies and how unsustainable the businesses were.

The 1960s through 1980s are generally considered the ‘Golden Age of Advertising’

This time period spawned some of history’s most well-known ad campaigns, from "I Heart NY" to Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. In this video from the 4As (the American Association of Advertising Agencies), advertising executive Jerry Della Femina reflects on the most creative ads of the era.

The 1960s through 1980s is generally considered the ‘Golden Age of Advertising’

This time period spawned some of history’s most well-known ad campaigns, from "I Heart NY" to Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. In this video from the 4As (the American Association of Advertising Agencies), advertising executive Jerry Della Femina reflects on the most creative ads of the era.

The best Cannes Lions winners of all time

Cannes Lions has been highlighting the best campaigns for over 70 years. This list brings together nine of the best from the festival’s history, with standouts from Mastercard, Adidas, and Burger King.

The most expensive Super Bowl ad cost $26M

Amazon’s 2022 “Mind Reader” ad with Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost is the most expensive Super Bowl ad to date. The ad is a minute and a half long, which drastically drove up the price of the commercial.

Hear how the Super Bowl went from a risky experiment to America's unofficial holiday

In this podcast episode, former Emmy award-winning ESPN producer Dennis Deninger traces the Super Bowl's unlikely rise from the AFL-NFL merger era to a national spectacle, explaining how it reshaped advertising, gambling, television, and American culture.

See a ranking of every Super Bowl halftime show since 1993

This resource includes photos and videos from each performance and has a top five, including Prince (2007), Madonna (2012), Beyoncé (2013), Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg (2022), and the 2001 ensemble led by Aerosmith with NSYNC, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige, and Nelly. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Watch the Super Bowl commercial that launched Discover

A Sears subsidiary, the financial services company Dean Witter, launched Discover Card through a Super Bowl commercial during Super Bowl XX.

In 1984, Apple ran an award-winning Super Bowl commercial

Directed by Ridley Scott and a winner at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the clip features a heroine flinging a sledgehammer at a Big Brother-style figure delivering a speech. As the screen shatters, a voiceover proclaims that Apple's release of the Macintosh will ensure, "1984 won't be like '1984.'"

Scroll through a 75-year timeline of Ogilvy’s iconic ads

From the brilliant Rolls-Royce slogan that David Ogilvy wrote himself (“at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”) to Dove’s early 2000s campaign for Real Beauty, these 75 ads are among the best in advertising agency Ogilvy’s history.

Temu aired its first Super Bowl ads in 2023

The “Shop Like a Billionaire” ad ran twice during the game. Temu saw a roughly 45% surge in downloads and a 20% increase in daily active users the day it aired.

Temu ran the same Super Bowl ad five times in 2024

During 2024’s campaign, Temu spent millions of dollars on its five identical “Shop Like a Billionaire” Super Bowl spots that showed animated characters feeling extremely joyful upon receiving cheap products.

Hear the story behind 11 iconic Super Bowl photos, told by the photographer who shot them

Sports Illustrated legend Walter Iooss Jr. revisits 11 unforgettable Super Bowl images—including Namath, Montana, and Taylor—explaining how light, access, and timing captured moments that defined the game’s visual history.

The greatest games in NFL history

Do you remember “The Catch”? What about the “Immaculate Reception”? Did you watch when Elway finally got his ring? Take a trip down memory lane with this Bleacher Report list of the 50 greatest games in NFL history. Explore classic NFL moments dating back to the NFL’s early days in the 1930s and '40s to the present day.

US consumers spent $670M on snack food during Super Bowl week in 2024

According to Circana and NielsenIQ, Super Bowl week drove $670M in snack spending and 107 million pounds of food, with most fans watching at home, spending about $44 on food and drinks each.

A children's toy inspired the name ‘Super Bowl’

The name “Super Bowl” was coined by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, who casually suggested it in 1966—riffing on his child’s Super Ball toy—after alternatives such as “The Big One” and “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” proved clunky and forgettable. The name was officially adopted for the third championship.

The Chicago Bears are the only professional sports team to score a Billboard Hot 100 hit

The 1985 track "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was recorded for charity, but the song (with its rudimentary raps and goofy taunts) became an unexpected hit, reaching No. 41 on the Hot 100 chart. This podcast digs into the history of the song and how it became an unexpected pop culture phenomenon.

The 100 most significant sports moments between 2000 and 2025

This list ranks the 100 most significant sports moments of the first 25 years of the 21st century. The editors compiled the collection based on a list of factors, including the "collective joy" factor, whether it made you curse in disbelief, and how much it transcended the sport and entered the broader culture. The top moment: The improbable "helmet catch" during the Super Bowl in 2008.

Michael Jackson's halftime show created the modern Super Bowl spectacle

In 1993, Michael Jackson's Super Bowl halftime performance prompted the NFL to extend the break and reimagine it as a must-watch event. It is widely regarded as the first modern halftime show built around a global superstar.

100 years of NFL history in under four minutes

Founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio, professional football has grown into the premiere sport in the US. Generating more than $20B annually, the NFL gained significant popularity after merging with the American Football League in 1970, a move which among other things established the Super Bowl.

Among most mainstream sports broadcasts, sports betting ads appear most often in women's basketball and hockey

A random selection of 50 different sports broadcasts tracked one sports betting reference every four minutes. In one of the randomly selected hockey games, the longest stretch of no gambling reference lasted about five minutes towards the end of the game.

The Madison Avenue Walk of Fame

In Hollywood, the most prominent celebrities get “stars” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now, industry events producer Advertising Week has created a virtual walk of fame for the biggest stars of the ad world, from the Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Bear to the Energizer Bunny.

Every NFL team's top 10 plays of all time

In more than a century of football, there have been a tremendous number of awe-inspiring, defy-the-odds, and borderline miracle plays. This 90-minute compilation from the NFL pulls together the top 10 plays for each time from their franchise history.

Super Bowl LIX in 2025 made TV history with over 127 million viewers

Nielsen reported Super Bowl LIX drew an estimated 127.7 million viewers, the largest audience in Super Bowl history, with peak viewership near 138 million. This resource also includes viewership figures for every Super Bowl dating back to Super Bowl I.

Listen to the history of the Super Bowl halftime show

This two-part podcast traces the halftime show's evolution from early marching band performances to star-driven productions, beginning with Michael Jackson's 1993 performance, and explains how it became one of the most influential music stages of the year.

The Super Bowl is the National Football League’s championship game

Played annually in early February between the league’s two conference champions, the game was created as part of the 1966 merger between the American Football League and the National Football League. It has become the most-watched sporting event in the US each year.