Groundhog Day

Why it works

Bill Murray wakes at 6:00 a.m. to the same clock-radio song and runs into Stephen Tobolowsky’s relentless Ned Ryerson — but this time Phil Connors finds a Jeep Gladiator, steals the groundhog and turns his endless loop into a string of joyrides. Super Bowl LIV fell on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2020, only the second such overlap in the game’s history, and Jeep and Highdive answered the calendar with a sequel shot in Woodstock, Illinois, where the 1993 film was made, with original cast members back and the job turned around in under three weeks. By Murray’s own account, it was his first commercial. It is studied as nostalgia done properly: the truck is not bolted onto the film but changes its premise. It won USA Today’s Ad Meter, Jeep’s first win, took a One Show Silver Pencil and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Commercial, and Stellantis reports that in 2025 voters in Campaign US’s Campaign Cup named it the best American ad of the 21st century.