This Sunday, February 1st, Super Bowl XLIX kicks off at the University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona, to decide whether the New England Patriots or the Seattle Seahawks will be crowned NFL champions.

Last year’s big game attracted a record-breaking 111.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched live television event in US history. As you can imagine, with such a massive audience, the competition for advertising space is fierce and the rates are sky high - broadcaster NBC is seeking a massive $4.5 million per 30 seconds of advertising!

When you’re paying $9 million for a minute on the screen, it stands to reason that you’d put a fair bit of effort into the advert, which means that such is the level of production and high-profile celebrity inclusion in these ads, often the commercials are almost as hotly anticipated as the game.

Previously we’ve had to wait until the day of the big game to see the adverts, but this year many of the companies involved have premiered their masterpieces early. Here’s our pick of the best:

T-Mobile
In their 2014 Super Bowl ad, which featured only text, T-Mobile said “Maybe next year we’ll do an ad with overpaid movie stars”. And sure enough, this year’s advert stars none other than Kim Kardashian… Well, at least they got the overpaid bit right. Thankfully, Kardashian takes a rather self-reverential tone throughout the commercial, which at least makes the no-doubt vast sum of money she’s being paid to star in it slightly more palatable.

Victoria’s Secret
There was some speculation that Victoria’s Secret would go with a slightly different advert to their usual style for this year’s Super Bowl, featuring the fully kitted-up Angels playing American football (we don’t imagine this will be of much interest, but here it is just in case you’re desperate to see it…). However, thankfully, this proved to be just a promo, and the real advert is much more the kind of thing you’d expect from the lingerie brand we all know and love.

Mercedez-Benz
No expense has been spared in the making of this advert for Mercedes-Benz. In a modern retelling of Aesop’s classic The Tortoise and the Hare, Maleficent director Robert Stromberg, who also worked as an art director on Alice in Wonderland and Avatar has created an ad that more than lives up to its highly prized fourth-quarter spot.

Pretty impressive for a minute-long ad for a car, don’t you agree? Here’s a behind-the-scenes video showing how they did it:

Dove Men+Care
The three ads featured up to now have been funny, sexy and cool (in that order, unless you’re into CGI tortoises driving Mercs?), but this next one from Dove Men+Care is something completely different again. Pulling on the heartstrings, it highlights all the stages of being a father and what it means to be a good dad. Nice.

Snickers
Not all adverts have to have anything at all to do with the product they’re selling, and this one from snickers certainly falls into that category. It stars Danny Trejo of Machete fame, playing a member of The Brady Bunch. Priceless.

Doritos
Doritos has taken a different approach to advertising from the usual, launching a competition that allows anyone to submit their best effort for an ad, with the winner getting that prized prime-time slot at the Super Bowl, and a tidy $1 million cash prize to boot. The winner hasn’t been announced yet, but of the 10 finalists, these were our two favourites: