McCann New York’s “Bad Romance” for National Geographic, was chosen as the winner of the “Super Clio”, an initiative from the Clio Awards that determines the Big Game’s top spot as chosen by a panel of creative leaders.

Airing post-halftime on Sunday night, the spot teases Nat Geo’s upcoming scripted series “Genius” and feature Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein.

“This spot was an incredible opportunity for us to reach the largest TV audience of the year and also a way to reintroduce our brand philosophy to push boundaries, go further and be pioneering in everything we do,” said Jill Cress, CMO, National Geographic Partners.

“It allowed us to show a broader audience that we can take a topic like Albert Einstein and make it relevant, timely and create a global conversation around our series ‘Genius’, and the National Geographic brand in general. We are incredibly grateful to our partners at McCann and honored to be recognized with such a prestigious acknowledgement of our efforts.”

Finalists of the third-annual competition also included RPA Los Angeles’ “Yearbooks” for Honda; Anomaly New York’s “Born the Hard Way” for Budweiser; and TBWA New York’s “#WeAccept” for Airbnb.

The Clio Awards, the esteemed international advertising, design and communications competition, selects a panel of industry experts to rank Big Game ads based on strength of creative alone. Panelists included: Per Pedersen, chairman of Global Creative Council, Grey; Chris Beresford-Hill, executive creative director and EVP, BBDO; Jimmy Smith, chairman, CEO/CCO, Amusement Park Universe; Ari Weiss, CCO, DDB; Dan Kelleher, CCO, Deutsch New York; Leslie Sims, CCO, Y&R New York; Susan Hoffman, global executive creative director, Wieden + Kennedy; Judy John, CEO, Canada & CCO, North America, Leo Burnett; Sean Reynolds, co-founder & global creative director, iris Worldwide; and Lee Clow, global director, Media Arts TBWA Worldwide.

Clio President Nicole Purcell and Rob Reilly, global creative chairman, McCann Worldgroup, first launched the competition to bring creatives into the fold, and gather the opinion of those developing the spots each year.