The Super Bowl is as much about commercials as it is football, with 78% of people watching the commercials during the Super Bowl and 24% watching them attentively, which gives the Super Bowl the label, “American culture’s marketing machine.”
This year, the machine sputtered. Commercials were forgettable and disappointing, filled with generative artificial intelligence and uninspired ideas that lacked creativity, feeling soulless and out of touch.
The Super Bowl had approximately 124.9 million viewers this year, meaning it's a chance for brands to show why they’re special during “the biggest event in American sports,” with a 30-second advertisement costing brands up to $10 million.
Spending millions to use AI rather than creative, original advertisements is a major letdown, and this year’s Super Bowl commercials showcased everything America hates.
The consensus among Americans is clear– we want realness. Gabe Lacques, reporter for USA Today, said it best, “Real humans. Actual intelligence … and preferably, no artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency or casinos.”
Despite 53% of people believing AI will “worsen people’s ability to think creatively” and 50% of people believing it will “worsen rather than improve people’s ability to form meaningful relationships,” 23% of Super Bowl ads this year contained AI.
One of the night’s worst ads was by AI.com, which showcased only a black screen with the brand name. It lacked creativity and offered no information on the site’s purpose or why viewers should care.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency company, had a similar negative response to their ad. The ad opened with fun, nostalgic karaoke to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by the Backstreet Boys, only to end with the word “Coinbase” plastered on the screen.
Once people realized it was a cryptocurrency ad, viewers everywhere collectively groaned.
The Alexa+ ad started out refreshing, with Chris Hemsworth arguing his Alexa was “full-on AI” while imagining goofy ways it could kill him. The ad falls flat when Alexa says it can book him a massage, and suddenly Hemsworth loves AI. The undertones were odd – AI is deadly, but we shouldn’t care.
Svedka Vodka also used AI, featuring a creepy “Fembot” robot dancing with a Svedka cocktail shaker. The choice was infuriating, given it easily could have used a real dancer.
Svedka hosted a TikTok contest where they invited users to create original choreography to “Super Freak” by Rick James for their commercial. Jessica Rizzardi, a dancer from Tennessee, won the competition, and instead of using her and other human dancers to showcase her choreography, it handed it to AI. Svedka could have changed Rizzardi’s life and catapulted her dancing career on national television, but it used AI. It was a missed opportunity perfectly capturing the night’s overreliance on AI.
Serena Williams appeared in an ad for Ro, a telehealth company that prescribes GLP-1s. Williams – a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion and one of the greatest athletes of all time – told viewers she’s lost 34 lbs and is “healthier on Ro.”
I’m all for women’s body confidence, but it’s disappointing to see a woman defined by her strength tell us thinner is better. Viewers reiterated this, calling the ad “disgusting” and “bleak,” slamming Williams for promoting GLP-1s on the biggest stage for viewership.
Mike Tyson appeared in a Make America Healthy Again commercial where he aggressively chews an apple in our faces, calls overweight Americans “fudgy,” and recounts his personal experiences with overeating and obesity in a confrontational tone. Viewers were puzzled by the ad, taking to TikTok to express their confusion and astonishment.
The intended message was “eat real food,” but eating disorder therapist Jennifer Rollin argues this “fear-mongering” of processed foods dumbed down the convoluted issue of eating disorders.
Registered dietician Marissa Karp echoed this concern.
“It implies that health or body size is solely the result of personal food choices, which reinforces stigma rather than supporting sustainable, inclusive health,“ Karp said.
The ad failed to deliver a clear message, resulting in a generalized warning with harmful implications.
Ring's security camera commercial raised red flags about technology and surveillance. The ad follows a young girl who finds her missing dog using Ring’s search party feature, where users can report a missing pet on the Ring app, which syncs with other nearby devices to help find the pet.
What was meant to be heartfelt came off as tone-deaf to many Americans, who deemed it “terrifying” and “propaganda.”
“Ring just casually outing themselves as literal spyware that can be accessed by anyone on the network,“ one X user said. "This is insane.”
The ad backfired, amplifying concerns about surveillance while marketing it as convenience.
Once an exciting cultural phenomenon to showcase humor and connection, this year’s Super Bowl commercials felt flat and soulless, devolving into a spectacle of everything America hates. Between an overreliance on AI and a lack of creativity, it’s clear many brands are losing touch with audiences.
Abby Shriver is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Abby about their column? Email/message them at as064024@ohio.edu / @abbyshriver_
