A Sneak Peek at the 2013 Lineup of Super Bowl Ads

Here, in alphabetical order, are more than 90 percent of the players:

AB InBev, parent company of Budweiser, a perennial Super Bowl advertiser, will be back. In the past, they’ve been among the funniest and most memorable brands in the broadcast, but with this year’s marketing strategy combining hip-hop music and introduction of a new pseudo-craft beer, Black Crown, don’t count on history repeating itself. Not only will hip-hopper Jay-Z be on camera, but he’ll also have a hand in the creartive as well. They’ve also done multi-year deals for the air time, so they won’t be paying the full $3.7 million freight.

Audi of America will run one 60-second spot, their sixth Super Bowl appearance in as many years. Agency Venables, Bell and Partners is still working on the creative and production.

AXE will run one 30-second spot, entitled “Lifeguard,” that includes a “twist” at the end that “aligns with a creative campaign” that will kick off in the new year. The ads will be created by BBH London.

Best Buy hired a new agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, to do the television and related social marketing.

Cars.com will return with a :30. “There is no better platform,” marketing vp Linda Bartman told USA Today. That’s good, because at $3.7 million plus production costs, there’s no more expensive one. They, too, have a new agency, having replaced DDB with McGarryBowen in May. Their :30 will probably show how shopping on their website makes car buying a better experience. (Hey, anything that avoids showrooms and car salesmen is an improvement.)

Century 21 will run one :30 in the third quarter. Phildelphia agency Red Tettemer and Partners is still working on it.

Coke – After years of advertising with computer-generated polar bears in Super Bowl spots and after having printed them on all their soda cans, Coca-Cola has killed off the bears from their three new 30-second commercials. Nobody tell the global warmists.

Doritos for the seventh consecutive year, will once again be taking the cheap, easy way out, running the best amateur-produced commercial, as determined by USA Today’s Ad Meter consumer poll.

Fiat The re-invading Italian brand made a surprise splash in this year’s Super Bowl with its “Seduction” spot, previously seen in Italy, starring supermodel Catrinel Menghia. She returns in one of a handful of new Fiat commercials that CMO Olivier Francois showed at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week as potential spots that the brand will show during its Super Bowl commitment. The new seductive spot starring Menghia is on behalf of a new convertible Fiat 500 Abarth Cabrio. It depicts a scorpion making its way up the back of the bikini-clad model and then using its pincers to make a strategic snip. “Small, wicked … and now topless,” the ad says.

Ford whose sales of the Lincoln nameplate have been in a death spiral (down 63%) since 1990, will run a 60-second spot (almost $8 million worth of air time) to revive the brand by showing dead people. In the belief that history sells cars, the spot will feature an Abraham Lincoln lookalike stepping out of the mist, vintage Lincolns, and deceased Lincoln owners Clark Gable and Dean Martin leaning against front fender of the new MKZ through the magic of computer imagery. This is supposed to be an attempt to reach out to younger drivers, who probably never saw either Gable or Martin in their lifetimes.

GoDaddy is showing signs of growing up. For the first time ever, their advertising’s being done by a professional agency – Deutsch New York – and will graduate from prepubescent male fantasies of mostly undressed women to (gasp!) content and product. Indy car driver Danica Patrick, who’s been missing from their rebranding campaign, may or may not return. “We are working on the fourth quarter work now,” Val DiFebo, Deutsch New York’s CEO, told Business Insider, “and exploring that option, if there’s a way to do that.”

Hyundai has their internal agency, Inocean, is working on the advertising. The car manufacturer aired two :30s this year.

Kia will be back for the fourth year in a row. “The game has proven to be a powerful tool in our efforts to raise awareness and perception for the Kia brand,” according to marketing evp Michael Sprague.

Mercedes-Benz which advertised in 2011 but skipped this year, will be back with a fourth-quarter commercial of as yet unannounced length. Hey, when your name’s on the stadium, you kinda have to. Or, as spokeswoman Donna Boland put it more nicely, “It’s a big product year for us next year and the game will be played in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, so all the planets are in alignment.” Rapper Usher is expected to be on-camera talent.

Pepsi is sponsoring the half-time show.

Samsung commercial will be created and produced by agency 72andSunny, where the longtime Apple creative director bolted after the disastrous “Genius” campaign.

Skechers will be running, but nobody knows what length, which quarter or what message yet.

SodaStream scheduled to air it’s ad during the fourth quarter of the game when people are most likely to notice the growing piles of bottles and cans strewn about the room and filling up their trash.

Volkswagen It must be a bad year for animals. Coke’s killed the polar bears, and VW’s abandoning the dog.