<\/p>\n
The crack and fizz of a freshly opened bottle of Mountain Dew. Matthew McConaughey wielding a fried chicken wing like a baton. Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups, so decadent and oozing with chocolate that they\u2019re driving people to risk self-immolation at the foot of a volcano.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Super Bowl Sunday was a typical junk-food bacchanal. That is, until one ad may have cast that second helping of buffalo dip in a different light.<\/p>\n
In the third quarter of the game, the DTC telehealth company Hims & Hers ran a PSA-style ad highlighting America\u2019s obesity epidemic, complete with shots of jiggling bellies, spinning scales, eerie medical scans, and a message that \u201cobesity leads to half a million deaths each year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething\u2019s broken, and it\u2019s not our bodies,\u201d the ad warns viewers, before offering a solution: weight-loss drugs, like semaglutide, which Hims & Hers sells in a compounded form.<\/p>\n
The commercial, set to Childish Gambino\u2019s \u201cThis is America,\u201d was the only national broadcast mention of semaglutide, the main ingredient in some so-called miracle weight-loss drugs that have exploded in popularity in recent years, but its presence in the game represented a stark reminder of the still-to-be-seen effects on the segment of the food and beverage industry that could simply be categorized as junk food. According to a KFF survey taken last year, 1 in 8 adults have used GLP-1 drugs, and by 2033, the market is expected to balloon to $150 billion, according to an estimate from BMO Capital Markets. Executives at companies like Walmart have acknowledged the business impacts as consumers using the drugs buy and eat less food.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat spot, I think, in many respects, represents a real warning shot to the legacy traditional food and beverage industry that is spending\u2026millions upon millions of dollars at the Super Bowl,\u201d said Sam Hornsby, the founder and CEO of Triptk and an executive team member of Havas\u2019s GLP-1 consultancy.<\/p>\n
Establishing a juxtaposition against the indulgences of Super Bowl Sunday, a day where some 12.5 million pizzas are ordered, was very much intentional for an appearance that could be audiences\u2019 introduction to the brand, Dan Kenger, chief design officer at Hims & Hers, told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n
The brand leaned on archival footage and a documentary-style aesthetic to stand out among what Kenger described as the \u201cmonster productions\u201d of other advertisers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t compete with Doritos; I can\u2019t compete with Geico,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to fight our own fight, and we felt like we could do that by taking this type of approach to stand out.\u201d<\/p>\n