A Rochester-area advertising agency says there were a few winners when it comes to the 2021 Super Bowl ads, including a new company, which he believes made a good first impression. 

"The commercials, I actually thought they did alright," said Mike McGinnis, a content creator at advertising agency Dixon Schwabl.

He adds that companies paid $5.5 million to air a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl this year.

A heavy price tag, but one many companies are willing to pay for one simple reason.

"You are looking at nearly a hundred million people that are watching this thing so the amount of time you get a hundred million people to have their eyeballs on your product is so rare and infrequent. You have to jump on it and make the most of it when you can," said McGinnis.

In McGinnis's view, Tide, Jeep and State Farm came out as winners with their Super Bowl ads.

He also thinks Oatly, an oat milk company airing their first ad during the big game, did really well for themselves.

"With their CEO singing for 30 seconds, not a great singer, but he is better singer than Ashton Kutcher who sang in a Cheetos commercial with Shaggy and both of those commercials harken back to oatly and their CEO singing the song, bringing a lot of brand awareness for a company a lot of people may have not known before," said McGinnis.

But for some, like Edward Witaszek of Rochester, none of the ads struck a chord.

"Buffalo wasn't there, so I was really sad the whole game and I didn't have my heart in it, after the first quarter, I found it a slow game. I thought the ads I could talk to people about it. I'm not big on it, but in watching it, I thought it was very flat and they were trying to push glitz that wasn't there," said Witaszek.

McGinnis believes while having a memorable Super Bowl ad is never a bad thing, it's even more important to expand one's reach to as many platforms as possible nowadays.

"It's good to be seen once. It's great to be seen a ton so you will see the best marketers and the best brands. They have presence, not only in the Super Bowl ad, but also everything else that you are touching whether it's building, or its commercials after the Super Bowl or the phone in your hand that you have at the moment," said McGinnis.