From Meg Ryan to David Beckham: this year’s best Super Bowl ads are already here
Cookware brand Hexclad have called on the services of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and comedian Pete Davidson, while web-hosting company Squarespace’s ad features actor Barry Keoghan in a recreation of the film The Banshees of Inisherin.
One already stands out from the pack: the ad for Hellmann’s mayonnaise, which has recreated the iconic scene from When Harry Met Sally when actress Meg Ryan has an ecstatic response to the sandwich she is eating. It also features Ryan’s original co-star Billy Crystal and actress Sydney Sweeney repeating the classic line “I’ll have what she’s having”.
There is an industry-wide trend towards longer – and more expensive – slots because those slots allow a brand to build a piece of creative content with potentially more impact.
The price tag for showing up depends on whether a brand has booked a 15-second, 30-second or 60-second slot, though many of the major brands opt for 60, hoping to turn their ad into a viral video. For the same reason, many of the ads are released a week early to generate buzz, rather than older custom of keeping them under wraps until game day.
In 2025, the price tag for a 30-second slot is about US$8 million – in the ballpark of $A13 million. It’s a hefty cost, but one mitigated by the anticipated exposure to the more than 120 million people who are expected to tune into the US telecast on Fox.
This year, too, the Fox-owned free (and ad-supported) streaming site Tubi is carrying a live stream of the Super Bowl in the US, a move which opens up the audience to anyone in America with an internet connection, and will certainly pump up the total audience numbers, particularly with younger, cable-cutting viewers.
The stratospheric numbers of the Super Bowl ad market also points to a shift in the television landscape, which has amplified the value of live broadcasts. Even across the wider program schedule of a linear channel, comedy and drama, which are available on a raft of new platforms, do not perform as well as the live broadcast of either exclusive reality series or sports broadcast.
