Super Bowl ads trade in the odd, outlandish, and, occasionally, bizarre in pursuit of memorability. In the weeks leading up to the February 2 game, advertisers have been putting out teasers spots to gin up interest in the ads they’ve paid an average of $4 million per 30 seconds of air time for. So far, they seem to be sticking to that playbook. Here’s a look at five of the weirdest:
1. A super-jacked Danica Patrick.
Web domain registrar GoDaddy made its name with hyper-sexualized Super Bowl spots. This year, the company is taking a different tact, after complaints from female business owners. In the teaser for the firm’s new spot, race car driver Danica Patrick dons a muscle suit and runs with other jacked body-builders to a tanning salon that has advertised itself with GoDaddy. Watch the GoDaddy teaser here.
2. Twerking M&Ms.
Goofy, dancing M&M’s are nothing new. In this teaser, an animated yellow peanut straps on ’80s-esque sweat bands and gets loose to LL Cool J’s Diggy Down. Shortly after the candy dandy pulls a Miley Cyrus-like maneuver, he’s shot with a tranquilizer dart and dragged off-screen. What happens next will be revealed during the game. Watch the M&M’s teaser here.
3. Meet the “Doberhuahua.”
Singer Sarah McLachlan plays off her sentimental spots on behalf of the ASPCA in an ad for Audi. In it she pleads the case of a “misunderstood” crossbreed of a Doberman and a Chihuahua, dubbed the “Doberhuahua.” Watch the Audi teaser here.
4. Schwarzenegger Surprise.
Anheuser-Busch InBev is follow the Stanley Kubrick rubric in its teaser, which is simultaneously deliberately opaque and vaguely unsettling. Ex-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger slowly zips up his jacket and says in his trademark Bavarian baritone, “Surprise!” That’s it. Watch the Bud Light teaser here.
5. Evil Sir Ben Kingsley. (Same as regular Sir Ben Kingsley?)
British automaker Jaguar is buying its first-ever Super Bowl commercial this year. The spot is intended to launch Jaguar’s new “British Villains” campaign, which aims to “capture the new spirit of the entire brand.” In one of the teasers, actor Sir Ben Kingsley muses about the pleasures of being evil. Watch the Jaguar teaser here.