Best Ads of the Week: Key Findings
Welcome to Best Ads of the Week, where we highlight campaigns that grabbed our attention through sharp creative execution.
This week's standout ads balanced spectacle with substance, using humor to address real concerns and celebrity casting to build product credibility.
What connects these campaigns is how they used the Super Bowl's gigantic audience to deliver messaging that we think will keep working after the game ends.
1. Amazon Alexa+ x Chris Hemsworth & Elsa Pataky
Amazon's 60-second spot shows Hemsworth imagining catastrophic scenarios as his wife, Pataky, casually uses Alexa+.
Directed by Wayne McClammy of hungryman, the ad uses Final Destination-like scenarios to highlight the "Thor" actor's AI paranoia.
The humor lands because Hemsworth's action-hero persona unravels over routine domestic technology, letting viewers laugh at AI anxiety without taking it seriously.
2. Ring: 'Be A Hero In Your Neighborhood'
Ring's Super Bowl debut features founder Jamie Siminoff explaining how Search Party for Dogs uses AI to identify lost pets and alert neighbors through outdoor cameras.
The spot avoids celebrity casting and instead addresses the widespread problem that roughly 10 million dogs go missing annually in the U.S.
With 68 million dog owners in 2025, the feature targets a market of real scale while building brand identity as a system that works for community good.
3. Grubhub x George Clooney
Grubhub made its Super Bowl debut with Clooney's first Big Game appearance, directed by Oscar-nominated Yorgos Lanthimos.
The arthouse-style spot shows patrician-class characters at a dining table, arguing about who will "eat the fees" before Clooney appears as the voice of reason.
Created by creative agency Anomaly, the campaign announces Grubhub's watch-party offer that removes delivery and service fees on orders over $50.
4. Anthropic: 'Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.'
Anthropic launched four Super Bowl spots mocking intrusive advertising in AI conversations, challenging OpenAI's decision to bring ads to ChatGPT.
Developed with Mother and directed by Jeff Low, the ads show AI chatbots disguised as therapists and personal trainers who pivot mid-conversation into sponsored pitches.
The spots commit Anthropic to keeping Claude ad-free while using OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's "last resort" contradiction as creative material.
5. Kinder Bueno x Paige DeSorbo & William Fichtner
Kinder Bueno made its U.S. Super Bowl debut with a 30-second spot featuring DeSorbo and Fichtner in a space mission scenario.
The campaign introduces the chocolate wafer bar to American audiences as Ferrero pushes its market expansion, framing it as a premium chocolate experience.
Ferrero aims to raise brand awareness, following a pattern where international brands choose Super Bowl advertising to penetrate the U.S. market.
This week's Super Bowl campaigns offer lessons for brands planning tentpole moments:
- Address anxiety through exaggeration: Pushing fears to absurd extremes helps audiences laugh at tech discomfort.
- Back emotional appeals with functional value: Purpose-driven campaigns give brand storytelling commercial substance.
- Use competitive positioning when contradictions surface. Reversed promises become effective ad material when they're easy to explain.
Brands that tie Super Bowl spots to lasting value propositions can turn a single 30-second placement into a campaign that drives behavior for months.
Our Pick: Amazon Alexa+ and Ring
We chose these two campaigns because they approached Super Bowl scale from different angles and executed both with clarity.
Amazon’s Alexa+ spot uses exaggerated paranoia to make AI anxiety approachable, pairing cinematic production with a familiar domestic setting.
Meanwhile, Ring’s debut stands out for grounding its message in a real problem.
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Losing a dog creates instant urgency, and the campaign connects this to a feature designed to help, reinforced by a $1 million shelter donation.
Each takes a different route, one leaning into fantasy and the other into purpose, but both stay clear about what they want viewers to understand about their products.
Don't miss last week's roundup featuring Pepsi's competitive jab at Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper's viral TikTok jingle, and Absolut's spicy vodka collab with Tabasco.
Brands building Super Bowl campaigns need partners who understand how to balance entertainment with strategic messaging.
Explore top creative agencies that help brands turn Big Game moments into lasting impact.
