You don’t have to be a Super Bowl fan to read the rest of this article. The 59th edition of the Super Bowl, the summit of the US National Football League that sees the top two teams in the league battle it out for a coveted trophy, wasn’t nearly as exciting as it was hyped up to be … and the annual blitz of advertisements that usually accompany the most watched television broadcast in the US every year offered a mix of fantastic commercials and ‘flopvertisements’.
Here’s a quick recap of Super Bowl LIX: for the second time in three years, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs squared off against each other at the Super Bowl. Fans of star Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, his teammate Travis Kelce, Kelce’s celebrity girlfriend Taylor Swift and a hippo named Bubbles at the Fort Worth Zoo were hoping for the stars to align so that the Chiefs would complete a never-before-accomplished ‘three-peat’ – the monumental feat of winning three consecutive Super Bowls.
An estimated 127.7 million viewers turned on the telly and tuned into Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, February 9, according to Nielsen reports, making it the largest audience for a Super Bowl and for a single-network telecast in TV history. According to Fox, peak viewership was reached in the second half of the Super Bowl game, when 137.7 million people had their eyes glued to the screen.
It’s no surprise that the average cost of an advertisement soared to a record of approximately $8 million for a 30-second spot on prime television. More than 60 commercials were aired from more than 55 advertisers.
Campaign Middle East reached out to several creative leaders in the Middle East, including Chief Creative Officers, Executive Creative Directors and Heads of Creative Departments at leading agencies in the Middle East for their take on the top 10 Super Bowl LIX advertisements. The creative leaders individually ranked their Top 10 advertisements, and shared their reactions and responses to each of them.
These rankings were then collated to reveal what the Middle East creative industry collectively concluded were their Top 10 Super Bowl LIX advertisements.
The creative leaders who participated in the Campaign Middle East survey included:
- Paul Banham, Chief Creative Officer, Mullenlowe MENA
- Ali Rez, Chief Creative Officer, Impact BBDO
- Ash Chagla, Chief Creative Officer, Science & Sunshine
- Seyoan Vela, Chief Creative Officer, Livingroom
- Frederico Roberto, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\Raad
- Firas Ghannam, Executive Creative Director, VML Riyadh
- Leonardo Borges, Executive Creative Director, Havas Middle East
- Pia Haddad, Associate Creative Director, Dentsu Creative
- Sameer Suri, Creative Director, Serviceplan Group Middle East
Ranking of the Top 10 Super Bowl LIX ads
Based on the responses received by creative leaders in the Middle East, here are the Top 10 Super Bowl advertisements, with #1 being their top choice collectively.
#10. Bud Light | Big Men on Cul-de-Sac
Coming in at #10 in the Top 10 is an advertisement by Bud Light, featuring Shane Gillis, Post Malone, and Peyton Manning, who get the party started for Super Bowl LIX.
Commenting on the advertisement, Mullenlowe MENA’s Banham said, “Typically witty, lighthearted fun from the guys at Bud light.”
“American silliness turned up to eleven. So many little funny details to find. Me likey,” Havas Middle East’s Borges added.
Unimpressed with the commercial, however, Serviceplan Group Middle East’s Suri said, “Words can’t describe how this ad makes me feel. Numbers can: 2 out of 10.”
#9. Uber Eats | We Listen and We Don’t Judge with Charli XCX and Martha Stewart
Next up at #9 on the list of the Top 10 Super Bowl LIX ads, we have one by Uber Eats featuring Martha Stewart and Charli XCX, who jump on a social media trend and promise that they’re listening, but can’t promise they’re not judging.
Reacting to the ad, Dentsu Creative’s Haddad said, “I admire how the ad leverages TikTok trends, appeals to diverse age groups and features unexpected celebrities, all built on the powerful insight that football and food naturally go together. On the other hand, I’m not very fond of the heavy reliance on celebrities and humour, which might feel predictable and clichéd.”
Livingroom’s Vela added, “At least it felt fresh by setting up a generational clash and made some genuinely funny gags.”
#8. Michelob ULTRA | The ULTRA Hustle
Starring Willem Dafoe, Catherine O’Hara, Sabrina Ionescu, Randy Moss and Ryan Crouse, the #PlayForULTRA Super Bowl LIX advertisement sees Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara hustle their way into hops, by preying on unsuspecting pickleball players. The ad received mixed reviews from Middle East creatives, although it made the cut for the Top 10.
Science & Sunshine’s Chagla said, “You know where this ad is going from the first 10 seconds, but you still want to watch it.” But she admitted, “Maybe I’m just a Willem Dafoe fan.”
Serviceplan Group’s Suri shares a completely different viewpoint, saying, “I didn’t think it was possible to not care about something Willem Dafoe was in.”
Clearly pickleball isn’t as big a fad in the Middle East as padel is.
Havas Middle East’s Borges remarked, “I want to be like these folks when I’m older!”
#7. Pringles | The Call of The Mustaches
As we move to #7 on the list, we foray into the area of the absurd and amusing. In this ad, Pringles leans into Julius Pringles, the chip’s mascot and his iconic mustache.
When actor Adam Brody finds an empty can of Pringles at a Super Bowl party, he’s called to summon mustaches around the world to deliver chips to him.
“Love this ownership of a differentiating brand asset. And getting silly with it,” said Impact BBDO’s Rez.
VML Riyadh’s Ghannam added, “On-brand and fun, but could have taken a much bigger creative leap. Wish it was more daring.”
“If there wasn’t another ad with the same execution – the eyebrows – in the mix, this would be higher. Good fun,” said TBWA\Raad’s Roberto.
Clearly, the humour in the ad resonated with some.
#6. Dove | These Legs to #KeepHerConfident
Every girl deserves to keep playing the sports they love, yet one in two girls who quit sports are criticised for their body type. Dove calls on those watching the ad to change the way we talk to our children. Together we can #KeepHerConfident, the ad states.
“This is Dove doing what Dove does so well. A quiet, yet powerful, message amongst all the flashy, formulaic big game commercials,” Science & Sunshine’s Chagla said.
Dentsu Creative’s Haddad, however, was not impressed. She said, “I find these types of ads tiring. Rather than resolving the issue, they seem to amplify it. I never considered my legs before, but now I do.”
Take a look at the ad below to figure out which of these two opinions you lean towards.
#5. Coors Light | Slow Monday
Breaking into the Top 5 is Coors Light, but this ad needs a bit of context.
In January 2025, a Coors Light outdoor advertisement was splashed across New York’s Times Square with a rather obvious typo. It took only a few hours for content creators across the globe to jump on the hype cycle of a ‘chilling mistake’, branded the ‘most glaring typo of 2025’.
While some said that the typo was too obvious to be a mistake, and was done on purpose to garner attention, which it clearly did – around the globe – Molson Coors Beverage Company spun this to their advantage, calling out the misspelling as a “case of the Mondays”.
Building on this error, the company launched a series of ads, including its latest one for the Super Bowl LIX called Slow Mondays. “We all get a Case of the Mondays sometimes and the Monday after the Big Game is possibly the worst,” the company explains in the ad, alluding to mistakes that happen on Mondays, especially for those nursing a hangover (in line with their product) after Super Bowl Sunday.
The beverage ad humorously portrays sloths at an office to get the point of Slow Mondays across.
Commenting on the ad, Livingroom’s Vela said, “For me, Super Bowl commercials have become much of a muchness. They’ve become a lame celebration of celebrity where they were once defined by ‘I wish I’d done that’. I chose this because it has a big idea of owning the day after Super Bowl.”
“I also really like sloths after Zootopia,” Vela admitted.
TBWA\Raad’s Roberto added, “There’s something about sloths that just makes them so relatable. They’ve taken the online world for the past 10 years or so, and they aren’t going anywhere.”
#4. Hellmann’s | When Sally Met Hellmann’s
Taking the fourth spot in the Top 10 is Hellmann’s latest spot called When Sally Met Hellmann’s. Playing on nostalgia and an obvious throwback to the 1989 movie When Harry Met Sally, the spot shows that Meg Ryan’s Sally and Billy Crystal’s Harry are still very much together after all these years, while paying homage to the classic sandwich moment from the movie.
Mullenlowe MENA’s Banham said, “This was a fun throwback idea that surprisingly all the younger people in the room loved.”
VML Riyadh’s Ghannam added, “It’s uncomfortably funny and bold — pushes awkwardness to the edge, and that’s exactly the point.”
#3. Stella Artois | David & Dave: The Other David
Breaking into the Top 3 is a crowd favourite – and by that we mean the ad as well as the celebrity in it, David Beckham, whose parents unveil a secret about his twin brother, the ‘Other David’.
Turns out the ‘Other David’ (Matt Damon) is called Dave Beckham, can kick an American football with power, and shares a taste for a certain beverage with the one and only David Beckham.
Science & Sunshine’s Chagla said, “This is a fantastic example of leveraging celebrity power well. This ad is entertaining, funny, and effortlessly acted, with plenty of lovely details — such as the nod to Ben Affleck, who also directed it.”
Echoing these thoughts in an independent review, TBWA\Raad’s Roberto said, “Call it star power, call the familiar jokes between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but I’ll remember this one.”
The ad has already garnered 3.6 million views on YouTube alone within the past two weeks.
#2. Nike | So. Win
Building on the immortalised Nike manifesto the latest ad stated: “There’s one guarantee in sport. You’ll be told you can’t do it. So do it anyway.”
Impact BBDO’s Rez explained, “Nike wasn’t supposed to do a spot the glorious way it used to. So it did. Welcome back to the glory days.”
Havas Middle East’s Borges said, “Proper Nike ad. Lots of attitude. Nice shots. Love the human Nike logo at the end. But it feels a lot like other Nike stuff we’ve seen before.”
Dentsu Creative’s Haddad added, “I appreciate the simplicity and impact of the script; the sign-off makes winning feel entirely attainable. However, I find that Nike is beginning to feel repetitive. Their strength has always been in creating instantly recognizable ads, but now it’s bordering on overuse.”
#1. Google Pixel | Dream Job
… And taking the #1 spot in the Top 10 Super Bowl advertisements as ranked by creative leaders in the Middle East is Google Pixel’s Super Bowl ad. The heartwarming ad showcases the benefits of Google’s Gemini Live, a new AI feature on its Pixel 9 smartphone.
Amidst the cultural context of tech layoffs and people searching for their ‘dream jobs’, the ad highlights how Gemini Live helps a father prepare for a job interview, helping him articulate his story, structure his thoughts, refine his responses and highlight his experience (of working as a stay-at-home dad and raising his daughter).
Receiving an overwhelming majority of top votes, this ad towered above the rest as the Middle East creatives’ hot favourite.
“Emotional and insightful. Relevant for the brand and present times,” VML Riyadh’s Ghannam said.
Livingroom’s Vela summed it up saying, “Easily the best Super Bowl commercial this year. Genuinely moving; a whole story arc within a 2-minute ad that finally makes AI seem warm and human.”
In a span of 11 days, the advertisement garnered 44 million views on YouTube. In the comments @sheila71 said “I could watch this a thousand times” and @itsjustin6328 added “Never have I searched for a commercial on YouTube before, just to give it a like”.
Enough said.
Stay tuned for more top coverage from Campaign Middle East in the days to come. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube to stay updated on the latest opinion, trends and challenges facing the Middle East brand, marketing, media, digital and creative industries.
