Super Bowl Ads 2024: Brands Tackle Tough Times with Health, Compassion, and Humor

During challenging times for the nation, Super Bowl advertisers are encouraging viewers to prioritize self-care and kindness, while also offering a touch of humor.

In one ad, Ring showcases how neighbors can utilize doorbell cameras to reunite with lost pets. Another spot features a Budweiser Clydesdale shielding a bald eagle chick from rain. Meanwhile, Novartis highlights a blood test designed to detect prostate cancer, and Toyota issues a reminder about the importance of wearing seatbelts.

The comforting presence of Mister Rogers is felt in two commercials: Lady Gaga delivers an emotional rendition of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” for Rocket Companies, while the National Football League incorporates “You Are Special” to highlight its initiatives with youth sports programs.

The nation is experiencing a sense of unease. U.S. consumer confidence reached its lowest point since 2014 in January. The killing of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month has sparked widespread outrage, and harsh winter conditions are affecting large parts of the country.

“We are all going through a collective trauma. Everyone is stressed, regardless of who they are, and it’s affecting everyone,” expressed Vann Graves, 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,” he said.

Playing for laughs

There is plenty of silliness in this year’s commercials. Sabrina Carpenter tries to build the perfect man out of Pringles. Benson Boone and Ben Stiller play a disco duo doing flips over Instacart. Andy Samberg, playing “Meal Diamond,” squirts Hellmann’s mayonnaise on the sandwiches of Elle Fanning and other deli customers.

Polar bears — Coca-Cola’s traditional mascots — share a Pepsi in an ad that spoofs last year’s viral kiss cam. Adrien Brody can’t stop overacting in a commercial for TurboTax.

Delivery services try to outdo each other. George Clooney appears in a Grubhub ad to promote free delivery on orders of $50 or more. Uber Eats enlists Matthew McConaughey to convince Bradley Cooper and Parker Posey that football is a conspiracy to make people hungry. And Rapper 50 Cent trolls Sean “Diddy” Combs in an ad for DoorDash.

AI Bowl

Artificial intelligence is all over the Super Bowl airwaves.

Oakley Meta touts 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 debuts 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 features its robot mascot FemBot dancing alongside her male counterpart, BroBot.

Like AI itself, AI ads aren’t without controversy. AI developer Anthropic is airing 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 strikes 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 celebrate snacks. Bowen Yang, Scarlett Johansson and Jon Hamm team up to pitch Ritz crackers. A retiring potato farmer passes the farm along to his daughter in a heartfelt ad for Lay’s.

But there’s also a focus on health. Octavia Spencer and Sofia Vergara urge people to test for kidney disease in an ad for Boehringer Ingelheim.

Mike Tyson talks 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 are also crashing the party. Novo Nordisk trumpets 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 pitches its GLP-1s in an ad starring Serena Williams.

Hims & Hers, which recently introduced its own GLP-1 pill, says it gives everyone access to better health care, not just the wealthy.

Nostalgia

One way to get Americans feeling better? Evoke warm memories of the past.

T-Mobile features the Backstreet Boys singing a version of their 1999 hit “I Want It That Way.” Volkswagen goes all the way back to 1992 with a commercial set to House of Pain’s “Jump Around.”

And Xfinity reunites 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.

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.”