Super Bowl Food Fight: Glut of Grocery Commercials Will Push Viewers to Eat, Eat, Eat
Hope you’re hungry.
When football fans and curiosity seekers settle down to watch Super Bowl LIX on Fox this Sunday, they’d better bring an appetite. Over the course of the Big Game, they will see commercials for beers from two different brewers; yogurt, ice cream, coffee creamer and cold-brew coffee; two kinds of potato chips as well as Doritos; candy from Nerds and Reese’s; two kinds of soda; hot sauce; something from doughnut purveyor Dunkin’; a new fast-food confection from Taco Bell; Hellmann’s mayo, spread over a deli lunch; two different pizza products; and new kinds of water offerings from Liquid Death and Cirkul.
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If that’s not enough, there will also be commercials from three different food-delivery services (one, from Instacart, will feature an array of grocery-aisle mainstays like the Green Giant and Kool-Aid Man). HexClad will put a spotlight on cookware. Angel Soft toilet tissue will be around for the moment after all that food digests. And telehealth provider Hims & Hers will put a spotlight on obesity, showing what happens when someone eats too much for too long.
It’s enough to give someone indigestion. Most of the stuff offered in the ads “is not good for you,” says Ronnie Goodstein, an associate professor of marketing at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “Most of them are for junk food.”
And like chips, pretzels and pizza eaten during a late-night binge, Super Bowl viewers may forget what they consumed after the football spectacular ends. There will be so much of it, after all, and many of the ads are likely to rely on similar elements, like celebrities and humor. Much of the meal may taste the same.
The number of Super Bowl commercials devoted to so-called “human consumables” have grown exponentially over the past decade, according to Kim Whitler, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, who leads a research team that has analyzed more than 500 Super Bowl commercials from between 2015 and 2024. Food ads — the figures don’t include things made for pets — accounted for 21% of Super Bowl ads in 2015, up to 32% in 2024 – a roughly 50% increase, she notes. And that’s down from the number served up in 2023.
“If you have a number of different products competing for the same category for the same consumer, then it could potentially confuse” viewers, she says, making the process of remembering the message of each ad much more difficult.
There are reasons for the food fight. With more viewers watching programs at times of their own choosing on streaming services, there are significantly fewer properties like the Super Bowl that bring massive audiences to the screen for multiple hours. “It’s a huge audience day,” says Goodstein, and the majority of that crowd are potential buyers of food and beverages — products that are easy to buy once the commercials fade. The Super Bowl “is a good avenue for people that want to talk about a product that is accessible,” says Ryan Riess, vice president of brand strategy and creative development at The Hershey Company.
Meanwhile, some of the tried-and-true advertisers that often flock to the Super Bowl have pulled back noticeably.
The only auto advertiser disclosed in this year’s game so far is Stellantis, which will show spots for Ram and Jeep. And while viewers will still see trailers for movies and new streaming series, they aren’t likely to see as many as they have seen in past years, according to Mark Evans, executive vice president of sales at Fox Sports. Cryptocurrencies, which have buoyed the Big Game sponsor roster in recent cycles, appear to have exited, too.
In past years, Super Bowl commercial breaks were like parking lots, with General Motors, BMW and Volkswagen taking up space. In 2025, they face new uncertainty, says Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, who has studied Super Bowl commercials with his students for years. “If you were an automaker gong to the Super Bowl to advertiser, where would you focus the message right now?” he asks. “Would you talk about your electric vehicles? There are a lot of questions about EVs right now. What about traditional ones? That’s debatable as well.”
Also pulling back are a host of digital upstarts that use so-called “direct to consumer” tactics, such as QR codes and interactive ordering, to connect with their customers. In recent years, a large group of these marketers have come to the Super Bowl in a bid to increase awareness and to push viewers to visit them online. These companies usually take some of their financing and invest it in the Super Bowl, but “capital has become more expensive and harder to come by,” says Calkins. “That opens up an opportunity for classic consumer packaged goods brands to retain market share and regain some momentum.”
One factor creating the food frenzy is that most of the ads in the category will embrace similar tactics. Most of the advertisers will tap celebrities to give their messages a push. Hellmann’s has enticed Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal to offer a sequel of sorts to “When Harry Met Sally.” Bud Light will feature Post Malone, Shane Gillis and Peyton Manning. Frank’s Red Hot has enlisted Paris Hilton and Dunkin’ has convinced Ben Affleck to return for a second year.
A few consumer goods advertisers hope to come to the table with something different. To get people interested in Lay’s potato chips, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay will unspool a cinematic, minute-long spot all about the travails of potato farmers, complete with a raging thunderstorm, a young girl and an absence of dialogue.
“The stories that break through are the stories that are going to resonate,” says Chris Bellinger. chief creative officer at PepsiCo’s food operations. “There are a lot of people that make a lot of noise, and then there are the stories that actually have something to say.”
Instacart hopes to cross the attention divide by relying on a bevy of old-school supermarket sponsors. The delivery service has tapped popular advertising mascots from General Mills, PepsiCo, and Procter & Gamble in a bid to stand apart from the foodstuff frenzy. The ad is about service, not gluttony, says Laura Jones, the company’s chief marketing officer, “ this idea that we take care of the groceries.”
No matter how they slice things up, food advertisers face a big challenge. “Some of this is just a dilemma, “says Goodstein. “Do they risk canceling each other out?
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