Super Bowl ads try to overcome tough times with health, caring and the usual laughs

At a difficult time for America, Super Bowl advertisers asked viewers to take care of themselves and others — and maybe even crack a smile. Ring showed how neighbors can use their doorbell cameras to find lost pets. A Budweiser Clydesdale protected a bald eagle chick from the rain. Novartis touted a blood test that can detect prostate cancer. Toyota reminded viewers to wear their seatbelts. Mister Rogers was invoked twice: Lady Gaga sang his classic "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" in a tearjerker for Rocket Companies while the National Football League used "You Are Special" to promote its work with youth sports organizations. "A key thread running through this year's Super Bowl ads was a desire for peace, harmony, community, and neighborliness," said Kimberly Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. "There is a general theme centered on people coming together to support one another." America is uneasy. U.S. consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since 2014 in January. The killings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month led to widespread outrage. And winter weather has been brutal across much of the country. "There is a collective trauma. Everybody is stressed out. It doesn't matter who you are, it's something that's impacting everyone," said Vann Graves, the executive director of the Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University. Super Bowl ads, he said, give people a much-needed respite and a rare shared moment. "It's been a bit of time that we can just be human and be silly and enjoy ourselves," Graves said. Playing for laughs There is plenty of silliness in this year's commercials. Sabrina Carpenter tried to build the perfect man out of Pringles. Benson Boone and Ben Stiller played a disco duo doing flips over Instacart. Andy Samberg, as "Meal Diamond," squirted Hellmann's mayonnaise on the sandwiches of Elle Fanning and other deli customers. And Liquid I.V., with a chorus of singing toilets, told viewers to "take a look at your pee" to check for dehydration. Polar bears — Coca-Cola's traditional mascots — shared a Pepsi in an ad that spoofs last year's viral kiss cam. Adrien Brody couldn't stop overacting in a commercial for TurboTax. Delivery services tried to outdo each other. George Clooney appeared in a Grubhub ad to promote free delivery on orders of $50 or more. Uber Eats enlisted Matthew McConaughey to convince Bradley Cooper and Parker Posey that football is a conspiracy to make people hungry. And Rapper 50 Cent trolled Sean "Diddy" Combs in an ad for DoorDash. AI Bowl Artificial intelligence was all over the Super Bowl airwaves. Oakley Meta touted its AI-enabled glasses in two action-packed spots showing Spike Lee, Marshawn Lynch and others using the glasses to film video and answer questions. Wix debuted an ad for Wix Harmony, which uses AI tools for website design. Svedka Vodka enlisted Silverside AI, an AI studio, to help create its ad, which featured its robot mascot FemBot dancing alongside her male counterpart, BroBot. Like AI itself, AI ads aren't without controversy. AI developer Anthropic aired a pair of commercials pointing out that Claude, its chatbot, doesn't have ads. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took issue with that in a recent social media post; OpenAI said last month it will start testing ads as a way to keep ChatGPT free. Amazon also struck a nerve with an ad starring Chris Hemsworth that pokes fun of people's fears of AI. The ad is running just days after Amazon laid off 16,000 corporate workers, some of whom may be replaced with AI. "I suspect this is meant to be funny, but it might reinforce some people's very real concerns about AI," said Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University. Health Frenzy Super Bowl ads still celebrated snacks. Bowen Yang, Scarlett Johansson and Jon Hamm teamed up to pitch Ritz crackers. A retiring potato farmer passed the farm along to his daughter in a heartfelt ad for Lay's. But there was also a focus on health. Octavia Spencer and Sofia Vergara urged people to test for kidney disease in an ad for Boehringer Ingelheim. Mike Tyson talked about his sister's death from obesity in an ad urging people to eat real, unprocessed food. The ad was paid for by MAHA Center Inc., a nonprofit led by Tony Lyons, a publisher and key ally of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. GLP-1 weight loss drugs also crashed the party. Novo Nordisk trumpeted its new Wegovy pills in an ad featuring Kenan Thompson, DJ Khaled, Danielle Brooks, Ana Gasteyer, John C. Reilly and Danny Trejo. Telehealth firm Ro pitched its GLP-1s in an ad starring Serena Williams. Hims & Hers, which recently scrapped plans to offer its own GLP-1 pill, said it gives everyone access to the kind of personalized health care that the wealthy enjoy. "There was a remarkable number of health ads on the Super Bowl this year," Calkins said. Novartis's ad about prostate cancer and Ro's ad with Serena Williams were particularly effective, he said. "Wegovy's spot promoting its new pill form was clear, but the long list of side-effects limited its impact," Calkins said. Nostalgia One way to get Americans feeling better? Evoke warm memories of the past. State Farm kicked off the game with an ad featuring the 1986 Bon Jovi hit "Livin' on a Prayer." At the end of the ad, Jon Bon Jovi pulled up in a red convertible to offer actress Hailee Steinfeld a ride. But mostly, the night belonged to the 1990s. Dunkin' ran an ad spoofing 1997's "Good Will Hunting" featuring Ben Affleck, Tom Brady and a host of '90s sitcom stars, including Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Jason Alexander and Alfonso Ribeiro. Pokemon, which debuted in 1996, ran an ad celebrating its 30th anniversary. T-Mobile featured the Backstreet Boys singing a version of their 1999 hit "I Want It That Way." The Backstreet Boys returned in a karaoke-style commercial for Coinbase, which encouraged viewers to sing along to the 1997 hit "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)." Volkswagen went all the way back to 1992 with a commercial set to House of Pain's "Jump Around." And Xfinity reunited Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum in a tongue-in-cheek reimagining of 1993's "Jurassic Park" that shows Xfinity restoring power to the island so nothing goes awry. Whitler said nostalgia — in the form of older celebrities, music, or imagery — like a black-and-white Squarespace ad starring Emma Stone — has been getting more common in Super Bowl ads. Her research has shown that 28% of the ads in 2015 had an element of nostalgia; that increased to 54% in 2025, she said. Record-breaking prices Advertisers flock to the Super Bowl each year because so many people watch the big game. In 2025, a record 127.7 million U.S. viewers watched the game across television and streaming platforms. Jura Liaukonyte, a professor of marketing in Cornell University's SC Johnson College of Business, said companies that normally have to parse out ad dollars across broadcast and streaming platforms pay a premium for Super Bowl spots to reach a unified audience. This year's Super Bowl ads cost an average of $8 million per 30-second unit, but a handful of spots sold for $10 million-plus, a record, said Peter Lazarus, who leads advertising and partnerships for NBC Sports. He said he was calling February, with the Super Bowl, Olympics and the NBA All-Star Game, "legendary February."