I introduced the Creepy Awards (a companion piece to our annual Weepy Awards) in 2023 as a celebration of the weird-ass stuff many ad agencies crank out every year for the big stage of the Big Game. Because advertisers love going creepy for the Super Bowl, and why not? You want to stand out, and Puppy Monkey Baby got the job done in spades.
But the creepiness this year just feels… different. It’s not disturbing-monkey-baby-hybrid different, it’s… dark. It’s off. This is the first year I’ve felt a Creepy Award winner might need a trigger warning. It’s not a banner year for creepy ads, is my point, and I apologize for that.
Getting into it. I am actually going to bring us in to the awards with some touching ads, in preparation for what’s to come — the single piece of white bread before you leave for a night out in a feeble attempt to head off the inevitable hangover: kid giving a pep talk to his team of toys, the kind of neighborhood Ring would just love to surveil, and girls celebrating body confidence in sports.
… And we were going to have to get to the Creepy stuff eventually, so no more stalling.
Honorable Mentions
Levi’s, “Backstory” (TBWA\Chiat\Day LA). Not honestly all that creepy, but I do say this as an avowed butt woman: That’s just a lot of butts.
Hellmann’s, “Sweet Sandwich Time” (VML US). Bologna with a face, plus, stay away from my sandwich.
Anthropic, “Can I get a six pack quickly?” and “How can I communicate better with my mom?” (Mother). Legit, for-real creepy, but intentionally so, and we have a policy of scoring down ads that pander to the judges.
Bronze: Xfinity, “Jurassic Park… Works” (Goodby Silverstein & Partners)
Right out of the gate: Screw you, GS&P, for bringing your creepy AI de-aging to my Jurassic Park theme and assorted assets. You don’t deserve alluringly lounging Jeff Goldblum.
Silver: Ring, “Be A Hero In Your Neighborhood” (Amazon/Ring)
Now we move to a dystopian kind of creepy that makes you long for the uncanny valley. It’s a sweet, geriatric yellow lab! Everyone wants to rescue sweet Milo and the little girl who’s despondent at his loss. Now imagine instead of an adorable puppy, it’s the L&D nurse with three kids who lives two houses down and overstayed her student visa in 1998. Which comes into the picture when Ring (at the time of the ad) was partnered with a company that shares data with law enforcement agencies.
Just in the five days since the Big Game, though, there has been a development: Amid overwhelmingly negative response from, like, everyone in every industry, Ring has canceled its partnership with Flock. Because the integration “would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” of course, and not because the entire world is horrified by Ring’s Adorable Puppy Surveillance Network.
Gold: MAHA Center Inc., “Processed Food Kills, Eat Real Food”
Here’s the ad that, and I’m not actually kidding, needs a trigger warning for eating disorders, body image issues, and self-harm — take care of your emotional health and skip down to the palate cleansers if you need to.
This Brett Ratner-directed (of course) ad features a dimly lit Mike Tyson, shot in ominous black and white and backed by ominous music, talking about how he used to be so “fat and nasty” he wanted to kill himself. Then we get shots of him eating produce with near-sexual relish as he bemoans America’s epidemic of “obese, fudgy people” and warns us about the danger of processed food, with an onscreen warning that Processed Food Kills and a URL directing us to a government website to learn more, and…
I’m actually going to say it sounds more like internalized fat shaming that might have killed Mike Tyson, but ymmv.
The ad was funded, shockingly, by MAHA Center Inc., and where are the Chick-fil-A cows when you need them?
A palate cleanser
Because this year’s Creepy winners were actually more creepy than is generally considered fun, here’s an ad (courtesy of BBDO New York, and we thank you) that was actually really moving and beautiful and, incidentally, shot entirely with practical effects, so screw your AI slop, EAGLE.
Baby draft horses, man. Take a regular-horse foal that hasn’t entirely sorted out its legs yet, and then give it EVEN MORE LEG.
Also, Pepsi’s ad with the (implied) Coca-Cola polar bear in therapy, Pringle’s Pringle-man ad that might should have been a Creepy contender but Sabrina Carpenter is just so damn endearing, and Bad Bunny’s entire halftime show.
Anyway, that’s it for the 2026 Creepies, and I’m sorry they were more weird-creepy than fun-creepy. Keep re-watching that Budweiser ad as many times as you need to get back to a healthier emotional place, and let’s all look forward to a better kind of Creepy for Super Bowl LXI.