This Year's Super Bowl Ads Were An Emotional Rollercoaster

The Super Bowl is known for having the most surreal and infamous commercials of any American televised event, as companies look to make a lasting impression at the most-watched broadcast of the year. After a year as miserable and surreal as 2020, it seems ad agencies had two paths to choose from at this year's Super Bowl LV: either whip up a humorous ad to distract viewers from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic or deeply lean into it and create the ultimate "In These Trying Times…" coronavirus commercial.

The result was wild emotional whiplash, as one moment, viewers were served a cringeworthy parody of Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" starring Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher in service of Cheetos, and the next, viewers were shown Bruce Springsteen monologuing very seriously about Americans coming together in service of Jeep.

While it was a very bizarre night in advertising, many of the ads from last night's game clearly resonated with viewers online, as arguably the second-most talked-about aspect surrounding the game (apart from The Weeknd's Halftime Show) was the numerous surreal, awful, and over-the-top sincere commercials that gave viewers headaches. Here are some of the most notable.

Oatly

The undoubted front-runner for the most bewildering Super Bowl ad this year comes from Oatly, an oat milk brand who spent its 30 seconds of airtime showing CEO Toni Petersson singing in a field about how his company's product isn't dairy. It's deeply weird and stark compared to some of the other over-the-top ads, but that's what ended up making it memorable, for better or worse.

Viewers were clearly split on what to make of Oatly's ad. While everyone agreed it was weird, what they thought of that weirdness varied wildly. Some absolutely hated it:

Others thought it was actually genius:

Oatly clearly knew what they were doing in making such a divisive commercial, and already had t-shirts ready to double down on their weird ad.

Regardless of what you thought of the ad, it was certainly a gutsy troll.

Fiverr At Four Seasons Total Landscaping

On the more well-liked end of the spectrum, Fiverr put out an ad recalling last November's epic Four Seasons Total Landscaping Press Conference, where it appeared to the world that Rudy Giuliani had attempted to book the Four Seasons hotel for a bombshell press conference about the election but instead booked a landscaping company of the same name in Philadelphia that was positioned between a crematorium and a sex shop.

The commercial riffs on making the most out of an opportunity, as the small landscaping company had to do when it became the center of a nationally-enjoyed gaffe. Social media was definitely more enthused about the ad than they were towards others of the night, as users gave Fiverr props for a well-played callback.

Jeep Tries To Get America To Meet In The Middle

Were there an award for Most Off-target Serious Ad of the night, that would certainly go to Jeep, who attempted to heal America's divide by getting Bruce Springsteen to monologue about "meeting in the middle."

With tensions still running high in America after the January 6th Capitol Riot (not to mention myriad other issues), Jeep's kumbaya attempt didn't land as well as they'd hoped, as both sides of America's political spectrum didn't feel there was any middle to meet at.

Others felt Jeep's ad wasn't as pro-unity as it appeared; rather, it was very much aimed at middle-American Republicans.

Overall, the Jeep ad was widely considered a failure by viewers, stoking division even further and underscoring the surreality of watching a Super Bowl in the middle of a global pandemic.