At a for America, Super Bowl advertisers asked viewers to take care of themselves and others 鈥� and maybe even crack a smile.
showed how neighbors can use their doorbell cameras to find lost pets. A Clydesdale protected a bald eagle chick from the rain. touted a blood test that can detect prostate cancer. reminded viewers to wear their seatbelts.
Mister Rogers was invoked twice: Lady Gaga sang his classic 鈥淲on’t You Be My Neighbor?鈥� in a tearjerker for while the used 鈥淵ou Are Special鈥� to promote its work with youth sports organizations.
鈥淎 key thread running through this year鈥檚 Super Bowl ads was a desire for peace, harmony, community, and neighborliness,鈥� said Kimberly Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia鈥檚 Darden School of Business. 鈥淭here is a general theme centered on people coming together to support one another.鈥�
America is uneasy. U.S. fell to its lowest level since 2014 in January. The killings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month led to . And has been brutal across much of the country.
鈥淭here is a collective trauma. Everybody is stressed out. It doesn鈥檛 matter who you are, it鈥檚 something that鈥檚 impacting everyone,鈥� 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.
鈥淚t’s been a bit of time that we can just be human and be silly and enjoy ourselves,鈥� 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 . Benson Boone and Ben Stiller played a disco duo doing flips over . Andy Samberg, as 鈥淢eal Diamond,鈥� squirted mayonnaise on the sandwiches of Elle Fanning and other deli customers. And , with a chorus of singing toilets, told viewers to 鈥渢ake a look at your pee鈥� to check for dehydration.
Polar bears 鈥� Coca-Cola’s traditional mascots 鈥� shared a in an ad that spoofs last year’s . Adrien Brody couldn’t stop overacting in a commercial for .
Delivery services tried to outdo each other. George Clooney appeared in a ad to promote free delivery on orders of $50 or more. enlisted Matthew McConaughey to convince Bradley Cooper and Parker Posey that football is a conspiracy to make people hungry. And Rapper 50 Cent trolled in an ad for .
AI Bowl
Artificial intelligence was all over the Super Bowl airwaves.
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. debuted an ad for Wix Harmony, which uses AI tools for website design.
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 . AI developer 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 ; OpenAI said last month it will start testing ads as a way to keep ChatGPT free.
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 , some of whom with AI.
鈥淚 suspect this is meant to be funny, but it might reinforce some people鈥檚 very real concerns about AI,鈥� 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 crackers. A retiring potato farmer passed the farm along to his daughter in a heartfelt ad for .
But there was also a focus on health. Octavia Spencer and Sofia Vergara urged people to test for kidney disease in an ad for .
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 ., a nonprofit led by Tony Lyons, a publisher and key ally of U.S. Health Secretary
also crashed the party. 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 pitched its GLP-1s in an ad starring Serena Williams.
, which recently to offer its own GLP-1 pill, said it gives everyone access to the kind of personalized health care that the wealthy enjoy.
鈥淭here was a remarkable number of health ads on the Super Bowl this year,鈥� Calkins said. Novartis’s ad about prostate cancer and Ro’s ad with Serena Williams were particularly effective, he said.
鈥淲egovy鈥檚 spot promoting its new pill form was clear, but the long list of side-effects limited its impact,鈥� Calkins said.
Nostalgia
One way to get Americans feeling better? Evoke warm memories of the past.
kicked off the game with an ad featuring the 1986 Bon Jovi hit 鈥淟ivin’ on a Prayer.鈥� 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.
ran an ad spoofing 1997’s 鈥淕ood Will Hunting鈥� featuring Ben Affleck, Tom Brady and a host of ’90s sitcom stars, including Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Jason Alexander and Alfonso Ribeiro. , which debuted in 1996, ran an ad celebrating its 30th anniversary.
featured the Backstreet Boys singing a version of their 1999 hit 鈥淚 Want It That Way.鈥� The Backstreet Boys returned in a karaoke-style commercial for , which encouraged viewers to sing along to the 1997 hit 鈥淓verybody (Backstreet’s Back).鈥�
went all the way back to 1992 with a commercial set to House of Pain’s 鈥淛ump Around.鈥� And reunited Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum in a tongue-in-cheek reimagining of 1993’s 鈥淛urassic Park鈥� that shows Xfinity restoring power to the island so nothing goes awry.
Whitler said nostalgia 鈥� in the form of older celebrities, music, or imagery 鈥� like a black-and-white ad starring Emma Stone 鈥� 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. across television and streaming platforms.
Jura Liaukonyte, a professor of marketing in Cornell University鈥檚 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, and the , 鈥渓egendary February.鈥�
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