Super Bowl Commercials 2015: Latest Ad Leaks, Reaction and Future Expectations

Ah, the Super Bowl, when two football teams compete for the NFL's greatest prize while the rest of the country celebrates capitalism's birthday. It's a spectacle unlike just about any other, when folks watching suddenly turn into commercial junkies.

But in recent years, the trend has become for companies to release their Super Bowl commercials before the game's actual broadcast. Kids these days and their YouTube, amirite? So, below, I'll pass along many of the commercials that have already been released, my own thoughts on the ads and a few predictions for what else we might see during the broadcast.

To the capitalism!

Friskies

Well, this commercial—in conjunction with BuzzFeed and inspired by the "Dear Kitten" series—is pretty amazing. Leave it to a cat to find everything about a Super Bowl party that is weird and looks pretty strange to an outsider. Silly cats. Silly, wonderful cats.

So yeah, it's pretty great, even if I want it to be even more like Sad Cat Diary. What's that? You aren't familiar with Sad Cat Diary? 

Then go watch that video immediately!

OK, OK, I'll be honest—my "critique" of this commercial was just a thinly veiled excuse to talk about the Sad Cat Diary video. Having watched it, can you blame me for wanting to spread it to the world?

No, of course you can't. Silly cats.

Bud Light

Bud Light is continuing its "Up For Whatever" campaign with a life-sized game of Pac-Man that, admittedly, looks really fun. If I could order a nice craft beer and play this game, I'd be all for it.

Victoria's Secret

So a bunch of Victoria's Secret models were advertising for a lingerie company in full football uniforms, which is kinda like advertising a car by showing somebody's driveway and garage. Just saying.

I guess Victoria's Secret is going family friendly this year. I was really hoping to see Gisele on the sideline, though, preparing the footballs for the quarterback.

C'mon, you knew that joke was coming.

Nationwide Insurance

No, Mindy wasn't invisible.

You see, her Nationwide Insurance agent could see her. He could see all of her dollars and cents too, every last dime she owned. He could see the opportunity to turn her dollars and cents into his dollars and cents. He made her feel important, feel visible to the outside world again, but mostly, he just desperately craved her money, even though, let's be honest, Mindy was always going to give more in this relationship than she got back.

And poor Mindy was never the wiser.

Budweiser

At this year's Super Bowl, Budweiser has decided to really, really bum out anybody who ever lost a dog. Man, I hope they find that puppy. I mean, we all loved this commercial from last year, right?

Of course we did.

Snickers

We all know the premise of Snickers commercials by this point is, "Hey there, friend, you better have a Snickers. When you get hungry you act like something that you're not," or whatever. And yet, I'm intrigued by this teaser.  

I think I'm just hoping that at some point Marsha gets hit in the face with a football and her nose is all broken and stuff and then she eats a Snickers and her nose is magically healed.

Eat a Snickers, Marsha—when you're hungry, your nose totally stays broken.

Newcastle

Aubrey Plaza is the best. The end.

Toyota

I will say nothing snarky about this commercial, because Amy Purdy is an inspiration and Muhammad Ali is, well, Muhammad freaking Ali. I really don't know how the commercial really ties into cars at all beyond the fact that Toyota ends it with "The Bold New Camry," but it's not like we watch commercials to actually learn about the products, right?

Crap, I said something snarky. I was so close, and then I just kept on typing. To make it up to you, here's Purdy talking about her excitement of shooting the ad, via Gabriel Beltrone of Adweek:

"

To say I'm honored to be in this spot airing during the game would be an understatement. All my life I've been faced with choices, and I've been determined to be bold through every one of them. I have a great relationship with Toyota, and to be in an ad that encourages others to persevere and be bold in their own lives is something that is hard to accurately put into words.

"

And for reals, go learn more about Purdy. She's awesome.

BMW

This is clever. And actually tells us about the product, which, as you may have guessed before, I consider an integral part of an advertisement. So yeah, this is a solid commercial.

Dove

Feels. All the feels.

Carl's Jr. 

This is actually a perfect commercial. You think it's going to be another sexy woman eating a burger for the sake of having a sexy woman do something on television, so you're sort of groaning along with the premise, but then they actually tie the whole "I think she's naked, OMG this is so racy I guess" aspect of the commercial into the actual product.

Which just so happens to be a burger with "grass-fed, free-range beef that has no added hormones, steroids or antibiotics." Or, as I like to call it, "non-mutated meat."

Au naturel to all natural. See, if they didn't have that clever little tie-in, this would be purely another commercial that objectifies women (and some folks, perhaps accurately, will argue this commercial does that anyway). And yes, it would be way funnier if it were an out-of-shape dude walking around all "naked," because nobody wants to see that. But at least Carl's Jr. managed to make this a clever ad.

Future Expectations

OK, you guys, instead of just making predictions about what you might see, let's make a drinking game out of it! Don't be shy, we all know most people go to Super Bowl parties for the party, not for the game.

So, during your Super Bowl party, you drink when:

• A celebrity appears in an advertisement.
• An ad is a spoof of another famous Super Bowl ad.
• Somebody at the party says after a commercial, "Wow, that was a waste of millions of dollars."
• Somebody at the party answers them by saying, "$4.5 million for 30 seconds, to be precise!"
• Somebody at the party says after a commercial, "I still have no idea what that product is."
• A commercial tells you to go to the company's website to see the end of the commercial.
• Somebody at the party actually goes to the website to see the end of the commercial.
• A commercial directly references the "big game."
• The Clydesdale horses appear.
• Current or former athletes appear in a commercial.
• There's a super weird Doritos commercial.
• People at the party start arguing about Deflategate.
• People at the party start arguing about the Carl's Jr. ad.
• People at the party complain about how lame the halftime show is.
• Clint Eastwood starts rambling about patriotism or something during a commercial.
• Somebody says, "I'm only watching for the commercials."
• We get another Star Wars trailer and brains everywhere melt in sheer joy.

And there you have it, folks, my general expectations for the commercials and your Super Bowl party. If you have more trends and cliches to add to the drinking game, share them in the comments.

And, as always, have fun!