Celebrities once again ran up the score for Super Bowl advertisers.
The most-watched Super Bowl LVII ad on YouTube on Sunday was Melissa McCarthy’s Booking.com spot, in which the actor and comedian is whisked away on a whirlwind musical tour of gorgeous vacation getaways. John Travolta’s T-Mobile ad, crooning a riff on “Summer Nights” (alongside Zach Braff and Donald Faison), was No. 2.
Other celebrity-driven ads in YouTube’s Top 10 came from Skechers (Snoop Dogg), Pepsi (Steve Martin), Paramount+ (Sylvester Stallone), Rakuten (with Alicia Silverstone reprising Cher from “Clueless”), Google Pixel (Amy Schumer, NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo and Doja Cat) and Avocados From Mexico (featuring a naked Anna Faris as Eve in a reimagined Garden of Eden).
Indeed, the only Top 10 spot on YouTube’s Super Bowl 2023 gameday views chart that did not feature a celebrity was Kia America’s “Binky Dad,” chronicling the title hero’s all-terrain journey to retrieve his infant’s forgotten pacifier.
While many Super Bowl advertisers release their big-game spots days or even weeks ahead of the event itself, YouTube’s analysis of SB ads is designed to measure buzz on gameday. As such, its ranking is based on global views on Feb. 12, 2023, from 12:01 a.m. ET until the end of the game.
Meanwhile, Google also released search trends for the game — revealing that “is Rihanna pregnant” was the top Google search in the U.S. during the halftime show. (She is, her rep confirmed.) The most-searched celebrity overall during the Super Bowl was rapper A$AP Rocky, Rihanna’s partner, according to Google.
The No. 2 most-searched Google term in the U.S. during the Super Bowl was, “Who owns Blue Moon beer?” That was prompted by a sleight-of-hand spot from Molson Coors that ran in the second quarter, which appeared to be a face-off between its two flagship brands, Coors Light and Miller Lite, before concluding with an end card that said, “It’s a Blue Moon commercial.”