Advertising Age published the annual lengthy examination of exclusivity in Super Bowl advertising, revealing campaign creators are predominately White—a trend officially recorded since at least 2010.
For Super Bowl advertising, systemic racism continues to reign as a perennial dynasty.
Super Bowl ads retreat from diverse storytelling as brands pull back on inclusion
By Lindsay Rittenhouse
At a time when political tension around immigration in the U.S. is high, Super Bowl advertisers are missing out on efforts to truly connect with diverse audiences, industry experts said.
With some notable exceptions, Hispanic representation is largely absent in Big Game spots this year, according to diversity ad inclusion experts interviewed by Ad Age. This is particularly disappointing, they said, given that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s targeting of the community has left them already feeling isolated and vulnerable.
And the exclusion is not limited to the Latino community. These experts cite a glaring lack of diverse storytelling overall in Big Game ads, as creative featuring white male stars and casts far outpace ads that spotlight minority or multicultural groups.
For the fifth consecutive year, Ad Age is evaluating how in-game advertisers prioritize diversity and inclusion both on screen and behind the camera. But this list is not comprehensive. That’s because voluntary participation in our survey, which asks every Super Bowl advertiser how it approached diversity in casting and production, has steadily declined amid larger cutbacks to diversity initiatives in the industry. Last year’s survey yielded just 14 responses, out of the 58 brands with in-game spots.
So rather than reach out to every advertiser in the coming game, Ad Age compiled this report based on the limited information it had access to, including celebrity appearances and directors, with the goal of spotlighting strong examples of representation among this year’s Super Bowl ads.
Also new to the report this year is a ranking from Havas evaluating how some in-game ads are perceived by neurodiverse individuals.
With the cost of a 30-second national Super Bowl LX spot reaching $8 million, brands must prioritize diversity if they want to connect with younger viewers and an increasingly global audience, the experts said.
“The real risk for brands isn’t in taking a stand—it’s in ignoring the reality of the American consumer,” said Myles Worthington, CEO and founder of agency Worthi.
Of the 71 celebrities appearing in the Super Bowl confirmed as of this writing, 22 identify as women and 49 as men. Only two celebrities (Andy Cohen, appearing in Nerds’ Super Bowl ad, and Bowen Yang, in the Ritz commercial) are openly part of the LGBTQ+ community. Only 27 celebrities are aged 50 or older.
Sofía Vergara, starring in Boehringer Ingelheim’s in-game spot, is one of just five Hispanic celebrities (alongside actors such as magician David Blaine, who appears in YouTube TV’s spot, and Danny Trejo, who is in Novo Nordisk’s ad)—they underscore a big gap in Hispanic representation. Six of the celebrities, including Olympians Sunny Choi and Chloe Kim (who appear in the Michelob Ultra and Oakley and Meta ads, respectively), are Asian American and Pacific Islander, while only 12 celebrities are Black, such as Spike Lee (Oakley and Meta) and Serena Williams (Ro). DJ Khaled, who appears in Novo Nordisk’s ad, is Palestinian-American, and former ice hockey pro TJ Oshie, who appears in Michelob Ultra’s in-game spot, is of Native American descent. The majority of the celebrities—46 of 71—in spots released so far are white.
Based on those numbers, the majority of brands in the Super Bowl have “decided to limit their growth to just that segment, which is unfortunate,” said Lisette Arsuaga, the co-president and co-CEO of DMI Consulting, a strategic marketing firm specializing in diverse segments, and the co-founder of the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM).
As of this writing, Ad Age has confirmed only six of 31 directors behind this year’s Big Game spots are people of color, including Rodrigo Saavedra (Toyota’s “Superhero Belt”); Aiden Zamiri (Poppi); Taika Waititi (Pepsi Zero Sugar and Xfinity); Felipe Lima (Him & Hers); and Brandon Pierce (who directed Dunkin’s ad alongside Ben Affleck). Savannah Leaf, who directed Dove’s “The Game Is Ours,” is the only Black woman directing a spot and the only female director of a national in-game ad confirmed so far.
Marketing to a global audience
While the ads are not necessarily diverse, many experts praised the NFL for choosing Bad Bunny as the performer of the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show. The Puerto Rican reggaeton star, fresh off a big Grammys win, is also going to be a big draw for global audiences. Fans are even calling this year’s Big Game “The Benito Bowl,” a reference to the artist’s first name.
Worthington pointed out that Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed global artist of 2025. “Bad Bunny isn’t just counterculture; he is the culture,” he said.
While many people still think of the Super Bowl as a purely American event, it is not. A record 62.5 million viewers outside of the U.S. watched the 2024 Super Bowl—the final international viewership total for the 2025 game has not yet been confirmed by the NFL.
Despite this, brands largely have not yet leaned into global advertising tactics in the Super Bowl, said Kelsey Cross, president and co-founder of independent agency Tower 28, which might impact how the ad themes are perceived outside the U.S.
“Not enough brands take into account the growing global viewers tuning into the Super Bowl,” Cross said, noting that “Americana” themes such as Clydesdale horses and beer will be isolated in some markets. “It’s an interesting space to be playing in for brands, to be thinking of how [they] strike a responsible balance.”
NFL’s ‘You Are Special’ spot
The NFL is being lauded for its in-game cause spot—a 30-second version of a 60-second ad that’s been airing since December, showing NFL players including Cam Heyward and Christian McCaffrey singing Fred Rogers’ “You Are Special” with groups of children. The spot was directed by Ben Quinn of the Los Angeles production company Superprime, which is female-owned.
Arsuaga said the spot continues the NFL’s mission of inclusion and promoting mentorship of young kids, and showcases a diverse cast of children, highlighting their value and importance.
She added that it feels authentic because the NFL has carried out this mission on and off screen, as its foundation supports various youth education, mentorship and community programs.
Ensuring your brand is taking actions off-screen that mirror your brand messaging is critical at a time when consumers are much more aware of these efforts, and will call marketers out for paying lip service.
“If your body of work outside of the Super Bowl behaves in a certain way and you do something completely different, people recognize that, and not necessarily in a good way,” said Christine Guilfoyle, an executive VP at the Association of National Advertisers and president of its SeeHer global initiative, dedicated to championing the positive representation of women.
An NFL spokesperson said the cast for the spot “consisted of 78 total talent, including a diverse range of ethnicities, including Asian, Black, Latino and white talent.” The kids are also actual members of the organizations highlighted in the spot, including Harlem Children’s Zone, Boys and Girls Club and Smash, according to the spokesperson.
“We were mindful to ensure diversity across gender, race and those with disabilities, featuring a young girl with Down Syndrome,” a spokesman said in a statement.
Dove’s ‘The Game is Ours’
Arsuaga also praised Dove’s “The Game Is Ours” ad, which continues to champion its mission of keeping girls in sports.
Arsuaga said it was particularly refreshing to see girls of all different sizes and shapes to promote body positivity. She said Dove is “breaking the mold and the stereotype” of a typical thin athlete.
A Dove spokesperson said the brand not only worked with Leaf—the only confirmed Black female director behind a Big Game ad this year—but also with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and choreographer JaQuel Knight to shape the creative vision. Its agency partner is WPP’s Ogilvy.
Toyota’s ‘Superhero Belt’
Although there was not a big showing of AAPI representation in this year’s Super Bowl advertising, an ad from Toyota stood out as an authentic tale that well captured cultural nuances, several people interviewed said.
“Superhero Belt,” one of two of the automaker’s in-game spots from Publicis agency Saatchi & Saatchi, was directed by Rodrigo Saavedra, one of the few directors of color behind Big Game spots this year.
The 30-second spot flashes back to a grandfather as he convinces his grandson to put on his seatbelt by referring to it as a “superhero belt.” The grandson mimics him 30 years later as an adult, telling his now elderly grandfather to buckle his “superhero belt” in his 2026 RAV4.
The ad “did a really good job” promoting Asian-American family values, in which the younger character shows respect to his grandfather, Arsuaga said.
Guilfoyle also praised the effort. “Automotive often is aspirational, and this just felt gritty and real and everyday American,” she said. “And I loved that.”
Come Near’s ‘Is There More to Life than More?’
Come Near has been one of the few Big Game advertisers that has consistently shared diversity data across its casting and production teams over the past few years.
This year’s in-game spot—“Is There More to Life Than More?”—takes aim at modern life’s constant need to have “more” things. It shows a rapid-fire montage to visualize mass consumerism and tech obsession, and then suggests Jesus can help people find the true meaning of life.
It was created by Hispanic-owned independent agency Lerma/ and directed by Salomon Ligthelm. The production shop behind the effort was Prettybird, which was co-founded by Kerstin Emhoff and Paul Hunter, who is a director of color, according to Come Near.
Its cast in the spot was 53% female and 46% male; 24% of actors were of multiple races; 21% of actors were Black; 9% were Hispanic; 9% were Asian; and 3% were Middle Eastern, Come Near reported.
The organization noted that, true to the mission of the message, it did not use AI in the making of the spot.
“Working on He Gets Us felt deeply personal,” Ligthelm said in a statement. “It gave me space to wrestle honestly with faith, doubt and the pressure of being human, and to tell authentic stories that don’t preach or prescribe but invite all people to feel seen and understood.”
Uber Eats ad outperforms with neurodiverse viewers
For the first time this year, Havas tapped into Neuroverse, its consultancy dedicated to embedding neurodivergent talent into its creative process, in partnership with AI company Vurvey Labs, to analyze a select group of Super Bowl ads. It evaluated how accessible those ads actually are across different neurodivergent identities, including autism, dyslexia and ADHD.
With nearly 50% of Gen Z identifying as neurodivergent, according to Neuroverse, which represents more than 1.7 billion consumers “who interpret content differently,” the agency asked: “Is your creative connecting with them, overlooking them or overwhelming them?”
The most accessible ad, Neuroverse uncovered, was Uber Eats’ “Hungry For the Truth,” its 60-second spot in which Matthew McConaughey continues his conspiracy campaign to convince Bradley Cooper that football was created to sell food. The ad scored a 7.2 out of 10 for appealing to neurodivergent viewers, based on the ranking.
“The narrative was immediately clear and unfolded without abstraction,” the report stated. “Familiar characters, a simple premise and visual and verbal cues reduced cognitive load and reinforced comprehension rather than fragmenting attention. This allowed viewers to focus on a single primary signal at a time, making the experience comfortable to follow from start to finish.”
In contrast, Instacart’s in-game spot with Ben Stiller and Benson Boone scored the lowest with a 3.2 rating due to “rapid cuts, overlapping audio, flashing visuals and constant motion, [which] made it difficult to establish a focal point, reducing viewers’ ability to extract the brand message,” per the report shared with Ad Age.
The takeaway for brands: “Humor scales best when it’s anchored in simplicity. Clear premises, controlled pacing and repetition can reduce cognitive load, making comedy more accessible to a broader audience without dulling its impact,” according to Neuroverse.
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