The Super Bowl is arguably one of the biggest sporting events worldwide. An annual competition played by teams from the American Football Conference and The National Football Conference to determine the NFL champions, played at a neutral site in a winner-takes-all game. With the competition being a landmark in American culture, it is not shy to its massive ads, exciting half time shows and controversial moments.
Here’s our favourites!
Budweiser ‘whassup’ commercial 1999
From the title you most likely know the advert, hailed as ‘one of the greatest beer ads ever’, Budweiser’s ‘whassup’ featured at the 2000 half time show. The ad consisted of friends talking over the landline drinking Budweiser, which doesn’t seem too creative! However, as the ad went on more friends were greeted all using the same word ‘Whassup’. The slogan, which was said to each of the friends, using a scratchy like voice whilst sticking their tongue out became part of young teenagers and adult’s everyday slang and cemented itself in pop culture.
And yes, we can’t help but think it was inspired by Scary Movie!
Janet Jackson & Justin Timberlake half time show 2004
This is probably one of the most famous half time shows, but not for the best of reasons. Whilst performing his song ‘Rock your body’, Timberlake and Jackson had a planned choreography, which fitted the vibe of Timberlake’s song, however at the end of the song, the last line of the song to be exact, Timberlake grabs Jacksons outfit, a corset-top and pulls away revealing Jackson’s left breast to 100 million viewers. It was only shown for half a second before the lights cut out as planned.
Described as a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and completely ‘unintentional’, the incident received a massive wave of backlash. Nevertheless, this half time show remains as one of most memorable Super Bowl moments.
Blackout Bowl 2013
The Super Bowl 2013 saw an unusual event take place, after the second half kick-off between the 49ers and The Ravens a power outage caused over half of New Orleans super dome lights to turn off… for 34 minutes! Earning its name of ‘Blackout Bowl’. As expected, the internet had their fun with it. According to reports tweets peaked to 231,500 tweets PER MINUTE during the blackout. Companies also jumped at the opportunity to use the Blackout to their benefit, tweets/ads came from companies such as ‘Oreo’ with ‘You can still dunk in the dark’ and ‘Tide’ with ‘We can’t get your blackout, but we can get your stains out’. Well played guys, well played indeed.
Butlers Interception to Seal Patriots Super Bowl Win 2015
Let’s have a look at a stand-out moment on the pitch!
The 2015 Super Bowl had the highest recorded viewership with 114 million and rightly so! The final consisted of the Seattle Seahawks vs New England Patriots. With The Seahawks in the lead for most of the game they let their lead slip in the final quarter. The score was 28-24 to The New England Patriots and the Seahawks needed a touchdown to win the game. With 20 seconds left all the Seahawks had to do was play it off to running back Lynch to secure a touchdown, however, for some unknown reason they opted for a pass.
Malcom Butler had seen this coming and amazingly intercepted, leading the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl.
Some truly incredible moments to remember, at Nifty we love to create memorable campaigns that stand out from the crowd. Don’t hesitate to get in touch hello@niftycomms.com