Super Bowl ads try to overcome tough times with health, caring and the
usual laughs
[February 09, 2026] By
DEE-ANN DURBIN, MAE ANDERSON and WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
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.
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This photo provided by Ro shows Serena Williams in Ro 2026 Super
Bowl NFL football spot. ( Ro via AP)
 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.”
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