It's a Tide Ad

A few advertisers tried a head fake with viewers, presenting commercials that looked like one kind of ad when they were really something else. Tide's spots with Harbour pulled this off best, starting out like a car ad or a beer ad and then revealing the Stranger Things star saying, "It's a Tide ad." Later in the game, Harbour crashed what looked like an Old Spice ad and a Mr. Clean commercial. This stuff was meta in the most wonderful way, playing with our notions of what a typical Super Bowl ad might look like while coming up with a wholly unique way to sell something as pedestrian as laundry detergent.

Alexa loses her voice

As addicting as Alexa can be, how much cooler would it be if the personal assistant's voice was replaced by Anthony Hopkins, Rebel Wilson or Cardi B? That was the scenario raised by Amazon's commercial, which features Alexa catching a cold and bowing out for a bit. Awesome as I find the thought of Hopkins delivering weather quotes while feeding peacocks, it was also cool to see one of the world's richest people, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, get a little screen time, too. A perfect way to use famous names with an attitude.

M&M Danny DeVito

Danny DeVito has always looked like a human version of those animated M&M's, so I suppose it was just a matter of time before the candy company put him in an ad. But once DeVito pops up — after the animated red M&M uses a lucky penny to wish he was human — the ad doesn't know what to do with him. There's the obvious gag where the actor asks people, "Do you want to eat me?" Then he gets hit by a passing truck. It takes the already weird notion of making characters out of pieces of candy and blows it up into a bizarre display.

Tiffany Haddish For Groupn

Tiffany Haddish landed her spokesperson gig after telling a side-splitting story on Jimmy Kimmel Live! about taking Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith on a swamp tour using Groupon. So how does the company feature her in its ad? By having her introduce a sketch where a guy gets hit in the naughty bits by a football. I'm sorry, but that's not how you feature a red-hot, up-and-coming star who called herself one of the biggest Groupon fans on the planet.

Febreze

Matt Damon's Stella Artois Chalice

Damon ends a pretty compelling ad about delivering drinking water to developing countries with an odd proposition: If 1 percent of those watching the ad buy a glass chalice with the Stella Artois label, Water.org can bring clean water to 1 million people over five years. Never mind that the math can make your head spin; the Web address to make the purchase appears so quickly you'll need to pause your DVR to read it. Once you follow the link, you'll find the chalices cost $13 each, with $3.13 going toward the water effort. It's a wonderful goal that I hope they reach, but I couldn't help wondering if there was a slightly less complicated way to drum up viewer dollars.

E-TRADE

The geriatric “DJ Nana” might be an exaggeration. But the statistic that flashed on the screen near the commercial’s end is not. About one-third of Americans really do have nothing saved for retirement, according to a 2016 survey by finance website GoBankingRates. Other studies, like this one produced by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, have produced similar results

Monster

he San Francisco electronics brand Monster Products tapped I-G-G-Y (who is rocking a sleek pink 'do) for a 30-second Super Bowl ad which managed to stuff a plethora of celebrities (and 'celebrities') into a short amount of time: Aerosmith axeman Joe Perry, Internet personality Ricegum, Big Kenny, Yo Gotti, Kim K bestie Jonathan Cheban and *NSYNC’s Joey Fatone.