No one questions how lucrative the Super Bowl is for advertisers. It’s the year’s biggest televised event, and brands pay premium dollars to get their names front and center. Plus these brands get their creative juices flowing. That goes the same for the agricultural and food industries. Folks with a stake in agriculture — whether trying to sell something related to farming and rural life or trying to advocate for something important to farmers, the Super Bowl gets commercials that speak directly to us.
Ironically, for all the money that companies spend for 30 seconds at the Super Bowl, many of the best ads are teased ahead of time on YouTube. It seems YouTube is a place these ads can live forever, but sadly, seeing the ad in the week leading up to the Super Bowl takes some of the freshness out of the spot. Still, we’re glad that YouTube is a home to these commercials, so that they live on year after year after year. Who knows how many great agriculture-related Super Bowl commercials we’ve lost over the years before YouTube was invented.
The ones from the past 10 years or so are preserved on the platform, which means we can go back time and time again to see our favorites. And, by golly, are there some real gems there. We’ve found a handful of our favorites from recent years and brought them all together here. Scroll through this list to see which agriculture-related Super Bowl ads stand the test of time.
The best modern farming and ranching Super Bowl commercials
2014: Chevrolet
This minute-long commercial had us all laughing as it talked about a man, his truck, and “a very eligible bachelor” — namely, that Hereford bull being hauled in his stock trailer. Towed by a Silverado Heavy Duty to a pasture of lovely ladies, it doesn’t take long before some light-hearted music kicks in and we’re left smiling about this fella’s happy new life.
2013: Ram Trucks
No list of farming commericals would be complete without this one, which taps into Paul Harvey’s iconic “God Made a Farmer” speech. The commerical, while taking some flak for not being diverse enough in terms of gender and ethnicicy of American farmers, still connected with the passion that the U.S. farming industry feels and left many of us teary-eyed. It was emotional, poignant, and stellar. As a bonus, Dodge (partnering with the FFA) planned to donate $100,000 for every 1 million views that the YouTube video of the ad received, up to a total of $1 million. This goal was reached in less than five days. Though the original video posted by Ram Trucks has been taken down, we last saw it sitting at nearly 21 million views. (Embedded above you can see the extended version of the ad, which continues to live online.)
2017: HumaneWatch
When you get to poke fun at a group as anti-agriculture as the Humane Society of the U.S., you’re sure that farmers and ranchers are going to love it. This commercial aired in the Washington, D.C., viewing area during the 2017 Super Bowl, and its way of parodying those caged-animal HSUS ads was marketing gold. Pro tip: Only a sliver of money donated to HSUS goes to help shelter animals — most of it is used on slander campaigns.
2023: Illinois Farm Families
The commercial titled, The Corporation, was produced by Illinois Farm Families marked the launch of the coalition’s “We are the 96 percent” campaign. The campaign set out to feature more than 25 farm families across the state with the goal to make Illinoisans aware that 96 percent of farms in the state are operated by families. This ad spot, which aired during the first half of the 2023 Super Bowl, centered on the Bell family from Mercer County, Illinois. “There’s a big misconception in agriculture that the family farm is gone and everything now is corporate farming and things aren’t the way it used to be,” said Chad Bell. “Yes, farming has changed. Farms have gotten larger and there are fewer farmers, but in the end, the vast majority of farms are still made up of families, even if they look a little different today.”
2014: Budweiser
The beer company and its famous Clydesdale horses crushes it year after year in the Super Bowl ad space. They’re proud, they’re sad, they’re funny, and they tug at you like few commercials do during the other 364 days of the year. In 2014, Budweiser knocked it out of the park with its puppy-adoption spot, which highlighted a clear connection between farm animals. We’ve seen it before on our own farms, and it moved us deeply. (Apologies that playbacks of this video don’t have sound available for posting outside of YouTube directly.)
2014: Monsanto
This commercial aired during the Super Bowl in about 20 major cities, so not everyone got a chance to see it. The spot focuses on Kansas cattlewoman Debbie Lyong-Blythe and her dual role as farmer and mother. It sent viewers to americafarmers.com and spoke highly about how integral farmers are to everyone’s daily lives.
2009: EDS
Majestically riding horses across the prairie, the iconic image of the herders is unmistakable. And then we see the cats. “Herding cats … don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy,” the first rancher says. There’s nothing serious about this commercial, but the absurdity is part of what makes it so memorable. It’s not until the very end that we see that it’s an ad for a company called EDS, which is a manager of digital services.
2020: Doritos
It wasn’t long ago that the hip-hop/country blended “Old Town Road” was everywhere in pop culture, and for the 2020 Super Bowl, Doritos was certain to capitalize on it. But what made this ad spot epic wasn’t musician Lil Nas X — it was the appearance of iconic cowboy and actor Sam Elliott, dancing mustache and all (yeah, you read that right). In a faceoff between the two at the Cool Ranch, Lil Nas X and Elliott show off their best moves, and left the audience with giant smiles on our faces.
Were there any amazing farming or ranching Super Bowl commercials that we left off? If so, we’d love to hear which ones! With so many years of Super Bowls and so many creative people in our industry, there are bound to be more great ones to share with our agricultural and food service communities.
Of course, too, not all ads are winners, and we’ve also got a list of some that rubbed the farming industry the wrong way.
