Well, the Big Game is now his­to­ry and it appears that some of the best Super Bowl ads of 2015 have put some new plays in the adver­tis­er play­book. Let’s see what we can learn about how to be vis­i­ble and per­sua­sive in the moments that real­ly mat­ter.

Think with Google recent­ly pub­lished a fea­ture enti­tled, “A Marketer’s Play­book for Win­ning the Big Game.” Unruly recent­ly pub­lished a white paper enti­tled, “5 Plays Every Mar­keter Needs to Be A Super Bowl MVP.” And even Harley Moren­stein of EpicMeal­Time, who was one of the hosts of the YouTube Half­time Show that was live-streamed on the AdBlitz 2015 Chan­nel, cre­at­ed Harley’s Play­book – 21 rules that senior mar­keters need to know to cre­ate a suc­cess­ful Big Game ad.

For exam­ple, Harley’s Rule #17 is: Babies Are Adorable Sell­ing Machines.

And Harley’s Rule #20 is: Old Folks Doing Young Stuff Will Make You Pee Your Pants.

What can we  learn from this year’s best Super Bowl com­mer­cials?

The Kick Return

This is one of the most basic plays in the play­book, but it’s sur­pris­ing that trick plays often get more atten­tion. And senior mar­keters should study Budweiser’s kick return, because it gen­er­ates results again and again.

By most mea­sures, “2015 BUDWEISER SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL “LOST DOG” | BUDWEISER #BESTBUDS” ran off with the hon­ors for “Top Dog” this year. Accord­ing to the YouTube Trends Dash­board, “Lost Dog” was one of the most viewed videos in the last 24 hours that was uploaded in the last 28 days. It has 20,776,677 views on YouTube.

The ver­sion uploaded direct­ly to Face­book has 27,972,083 views. Accord­ing to the Super Bowl 2015 chart pow­ered by Unruly, “Lost Dog” ranked #1 with 1,907,288 shares on Face­book, Twit­ter, and blog in the last 30 days. Accord­ing to USA Today, “Lost dog finds way to top of Super Bowl Ad Meter.” And the Super Bowl ad demon­strates Harley’s Rule, “You can melt con­sumers’ hearts with cute ani­mals.”

Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” is the first back-to-back Super Bowl ad win­ner. Last year, “Bud­weis­er Super Bowl XLVIII Com­mer­cial – ‘Pup­py Love’” estab­lished the spe­cial friend­ship between the Clydes­dales and a pup­py. This year’s Super Bowl ad con­tin­ued the sto­ry – this time accom­pa­nied by “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” per­formed by Sleep­ing At Last.

What les­son can we learn from the kick return? Pack an emo­tion­al punch.

There are many psy­cho­log­i­cal respons­es that dri­ve video shar­ing. “Pup­py Love,” which was the most shared Big Game ad last year, used hap­pi­ness, warmth, and sad­ness to con­nect with view­ers. Whichev­er emo­tion­al trig­gers you pick, hit ‘em hard! The more intense the view­er response, the more like­ly you are to earn a share.

The Reverse

This is one of the run­ning plays that Snick­ers has been using for years. It takes a lit­tle time to set up, but it often works.

By sev­er­al mea­sures, “SNICKERS — “The Brady Bunch” was sec­ond banana in this year’s field of con­tenders. Accord­ing to the YouTube Trends Dash­board, “The Brady Bunch” was one of the most shared videos on Face­book and Twit­ter in the last 24 hours. It has 7,822,143 views on YouTube.

Accord­ing to the Super Bowl 2015 chart pow­ered by Unruly, “The Brady Bunch” ranked #2 with 123,117 shares in the last 30 days. How­ev­er, it ranked #12 in USA Today’s Super Bowl XLIX Ad Meter results.

What les­son can we learn from the reverse? Launch your ad before the big game.

Last year, 60 per­cent of the most shared Big Game ads were launched before the Sun­day broad­cast, build­ing dig­i­tal buzz ahead of Super Bowl Sun­day. “The Brady Bunch” was pub­lished on Thurs­day, Jan. 29, 2015.

Don’t wait to “sur­prise” view­ers on game day. If Snick­ers hadn’t pre-released “The Brady Bunch” three days ear­ly, it might have end­ed up rank­ing #12 across the board.

After the top two Super Bowl ads, you get dif­fer­ent “win­ners” using dif­fer­ent met­rics. So, let’s look at three more Big Game com­mer­cials that you might want to your marketer’s play­book for next year.

The Screen Pass

“Always #LikeA­Girl — Super Bowl XLIX” isn’t new, but even the short­er ver­sion con­tin­ued to pro­duce results.

The orig­i­nal “Always #LikeA­Girl” was pub­lished on June 26, 2014. It is 3 min­utes and 18 sec­ond long. And it has 54,486,224 views on YouTube and 1,547,675 shares, accord­ing to Unruly. The 1‑minute ver­sion was pub­lished on Jan. 29, 2015. It has 867,783 views on YouTube and 5,873 shares, accord­ing to Unruly. But it ranked #2 in USA Today’s Super Bowl XLIX Ad Meter results.

What les­son can we learn from the screen pass? Lay­er on the social moti­va­tions.

View­ers share videos for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons rang­ing from shar­ing a pas­sion, demon­strat­ing knowl­edge, or cham­pi­oning a good cause. Most Super Bowl ads under­per­formed in 2014 because ads brought out only 1–2 of these social moti­va­tions.

#LikeA­Girl, which start­ed last year’s notice­able shift in the way brands mar­ket to women, demon­strat­ed that the Super Bowl audi­ence is no longer lim­it­ed to men. The fact that women con­trol two-thirds of fam­i­ly pur­chas­ing deci­sions, accord­ing to Nielsen, is why this play is worth adding to the marketer’s play­book.

Half-Back Pass

This trick play has high risks, but high rewards. And “Aubrey Plaza Pre­pares Amer­i­ca for Newcastle’s Band of Brands Ad” demon­strates that you don’t need to be an offi­cial Super Bowl adver­tis­er to steal the show.

This ad has 2,208,232 views on YouTube and 3,320 shares. And did I men­tion that New­cas­tle Brown Ale didn’t pay NBC $4.5 mil­lion to air a 30-sec­ond spot dur­ing the Super Bowl?

What les­son can we learn from the half-back pass? Watch out for sur­prise plays.

The pre­vi­ous two Super Bowls had dealt view­ers – and adver­tis­ers – a sur­prise in the form of a black­out or a blowout of a game. How­ev­er, this year’s game held view­ers’ atten­tion right up to the end when Mal­colm But­ler of the Patri­ots inter­cept­ed a pass intend­ed for Ricar­do Lock­ette of the Sea­hawks in the wan­ing sec­onds of the fourth quar­ter.

So, the New Eng­land Patri­ots 28–24 win over the Seat­tle Sea­hawks deliv­ered big time for Super Bowl view­ers and adver­tis­ers. But, that’s no guar­an­tee that a non-adver­tis­er might be able to steal next year’s Super Bowl.

Tackle Eligible

This inno­v­a­tive play may get added to every marketer’s play­book next year. It’s worth not­ing that “Ted 2 — Offi­cial Trail­er” was uploaded direct­ly to Face­book. And accord­ing to Face­book, it has 38,956,365 “views.” Now, it’s unclear whether these “views” are the equiv­a­lent of YouTube views, but Unruly reports that this Face­book video has 1,478,616 shares.

So, what les­son can we learn from the tack­le eli­gi­ble for­ma­tion? Face­book is rewrit­ing the marketer’s play­book. YouTube may still be the cen­ter of the video play­ing field, but it is no longer the bound­ary.

What did you learn from the top Super Bowl ads this year?