As Super Bowl Sunday approaches, the battle off the field for advertisers to win over 120 million-plus viewers will be just as heated as the rivalry between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks.
Dozens of advertisers are pulling out all the stops for Super Bowl 60, airing Sunday on NBC. They’re hoping that audiences tuning in will remember their brand names as they stuff their ads with celebrities ranging from Kendall Jenner (Fanatics Sportsbook) to George Clooney (Grubhub), tried-and-true ad icons like the Budweiser Clydesdales, and nostalgia for well-known movie properties such as “Jurassic Park” (Comcast Xfinity).
Each year Super Bowl ads offer a snapshot of the American mood — as well as which industries are flush with cash that particular year: from the “Dot-Com Bowl” of 2000 to the “Crypto Bowl” of 2022.
This year’s trends include AI and tech companies showing off the new technology, health and telehealth companies advertising weight loss drugs and medical tests, and well-known brands tugging at the heartstrings.
Villanova University marketing professor Charles Taylor said because of the heavy headlines in the news lately — from the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota to conflicts abroad — he expects advertisers to stick to a light and silly tone.
“Because of the Super Bowl’s status as a pop culture event with a fun party atmosphere, the vast majority of brands will avoid any dark or divisive tone and instead allow consumers to escape from thinking about these troubled times,” he 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.
Demand is higher than ever, since live sporting events are one of the few remaining places in the fractured media landscape where advertisers can reach a large audience. NBC sold out of ad space in September.
Space sold for an average of $8 million per 30-second unit, but a handful of spots sold for $10 million-plus, a record, said Peter Lazarus, executive vice president, sports & Olympics, advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal. He said he was calling February, with the Super Bowl, Olympics and the NBA All-Star Game, “legendary February.”
Lazarus said 40% of advertisers bought across all of NBC’s major sports properties, and 70% of Super Bowl advertisers bought the Olympics as well.
‘AI Bowl’
Artificial intelligence startups and bigger companies are using advertising’s biggest night to make a name for themselves.
AI developer Anthropic is airing a pair of TV commercials, one during the game and one pre-game, that points out Claude, its chatbot, doesn’t have ads.
The in-game ad shows a man exercising asking a person representing a chatbot for help getting a six-pack, but he’s fed an ad instead. Although Anthropic doesn’t name the company, OpenAI has said it will place ads on free and cheaper versions of its chatbot ChatGPT.
In a sign that Anthropic struck a nerve, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a social media post that he laughed at the “funny” ads but blasted them as dishonest and threw shade at his competitor’s smaller customer base. OpenAI will air its own ad during the game that it is keeping under wraps.
Other AI ads include Amazon showing Chris Hemsworth humorously imagining ways the new Alexa+ chatbot can hurt him. Oakley Meta touts their AI-enabled glasses in two action-packed spots showing Spike Lee, Marshawn Lynch and others using the glasses to film video and answer questions. And Google’s Super Bowl ad shows a mother and son imagining their new house with the help of Google photos and Google AI tools.
Celebrities galore
Featuring celebrities is a tried-and-true way advertisers can get goodwill from viewers. This year, Fanatics Sportsbook enlists Kendall Jenner to talk about the “Kardashian Kurse,” in which bad things happen to basketball players she dates.
George Clooney appears in a Grubhub add to promote a deal that the delivery app offers to “Eat the Fees” on orders of $50 or more.
Sabrina Carpenter tries to build the perfect man out of Pringles, but he keeps falling apart in Pringles’ ad.
Several ads feature more than one celebrity or sports star. Michelob Ultra shows Kurt Russell training actor Lewis Pullman, as Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim and hockey player T.J. Oshie watch on a ski slope.
Xfinity reunites Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum in a tongue-in-cheek reimagining of “Jurassic Park” that shows an Xfinity tech bringing power back to the island so nothing goes awry.
And Uber Eats enlists Matthew McConaughey for the second year in a row to convince celebrities — this year it is Bradley Cooper and Parker Posey — that football is a conspiracy to make people hungry so they order food.
Health and telehealth
Health and telehealth providers are everywhere during Super Bowl 60. Two pharma companies are advertising tests: Novartis touts a blood test to screen for prostate cancer with the tagline “Relax your tight end,” featuring football tight ends relaxing. Boehringer Ingelheim’s ad stars Octavia Spencer and Sofia Vergara, who encourage people to screen for kidney disease.
Liquid I.V., which makes an electrolyte drink mix, has teased an ad about staying hydrated.
Telehealth firm Ro is using Serena Williams in their ad for GLP-1 weigh loss drugs. Novo Nordisk will run a 90-second ad with Kenan Thompson and other stars showcasing the Wegovy weight-loss pill.
Hims & Hers — another company that offers GLP-1 weight loss drugs — has an ad that says the company gives people better access to health care that usually only rich people get.
“You could call this the GLP-1 Super Bowl,” said Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University. “Often you don’t see a lot from pharmaceutical companies on the Super Bowl, but this year we’re going to see quite a few showing up.”
Pulling at the heartstrings
This year, many advertisers elected to pull at the heartstrings with ads featuring families and animals.
Budweiser’s heartwarming ad shows a Clydesdale foal growing up with a bald eagle to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” The ad celebrates Budweiser’s 150th anniversary.
Lay’s follows a father-daughter potato farming duo as the father retires and the daughter takes over, overlaid with a cover of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know.”
Amazon’s Ring ad shows off technology that can help find missing dogs. Toyota shows a grandson and grandfather buckling up in different decades in a Toyota Rav4. And Dove showcases girls celebrating body positivity.
The heartfelt ads are “a response to politically divided times and lots of negative events being top of mind in the news,” Villanova’s Taylor said. “More of this year’s ads openly focus on humanity and being humane to others than I’ve ever seen in a Super Bowl.”
He said the Ring ad was a good example.
“Rather than focusing on the camera and its features, it brings attention to app users coming together as a community to help find lost dogs,” he said.
Surprises
While the majority of Super Bowl advertisers release their ad early to try to capitalize on buzz, some hold back until game day to reveal their ad.
Pepsi-owned soft drink Poppi teased that pop star Charli XCX and actress Rachel Sennott will star in their ad.
Ben Affleck is back in an ad for Dunkin’ Donuts. A teaser spot showed him with ’90s sitcom legends Jennifer Aniston and Matt LeBlanc of “Friends” and Jason Alexander from “Seinfeld.”
And there are fewer car advertisers this year, but Cadillac is hinting that it will show off its new Formula 1 car in an ad.
