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Super Bowl commercials are reportedly intended to target a less traditional audience ahead of Sunday’s NFL title game.
While the league’s championship match is often associated with older men, major companies are using the game to reach both Gen Z and female viewers with their latest ads.
“[I]If we had created something that didn’t appeal to Gen Z or didn’t appeal to women, I think we would have missed the mark,” said Laura Jones, Instacart’s chief marketing officer. told Variety on Wednesday.
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Ads leading up to the Super Bowl hope to reach a broader audience. (Kirby Lee-Imagn images via Reuters/Reuters)
Super Bowl television ratings reached record levels in 2025 approximately 127.7 million people tune in to the game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
This broke the previous record set a year earlier, in 2024, at approximately 123.4 million viewers.
With more viewers expected to watch the Big Game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots than ever before, major companies are hoping to appeal to the widest possible audience, including a growing female demographic.
“We see the number of female viewers in sports continuing to rise or continue to rise,” Diane Sayler, senior director of Mars Snacking, told Variety. “And I think networks and leagues are getting better at telling the players’ story and telling more than just the on-field story. And I actually believe that’s driving women’s interest in this space.”
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The 2025 Super Bowl had record viewership, with more expected in 2026. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Companies have attempted to bridge the gap between age and gender demographics by utilizing celebrity appearances, often teaming up with various celebrities such as actor Ben Stiller and singer Benson Boone to appeal to a broader audience.
“Most marketing these days is very targeted. You have to deliver a specific message to a specific audience,” Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, told Variety. “With the Super Bowl, that’s not the case because you have a huge range of differences. And the Super Bowl is so expensive that you really don’t want to miss out on a significant portion of the audience.”
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Super Bowl LX airs on February 8 from Levi’s Stadium in California. (Kirby Lee-Imagn images via Reuters/Reuters)
“We want to be entertained, not sell some weird version of body positivity with ads that flash sweaty armpits across the screen as we reach for another nacho,” Murray said. “Those of us who grew up in the 2000s, zoomers, would like to see a return to ads that sold us things we actually like: chips and cookies – no political agenda.”
She added: “Big corporations have already learned their lesson: that appealing to the gender-bending 0.0001% of our population, with men wearing bikinis, is inclusive of almost no one. Just be funny and keep the politics out of it!”
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Super Bowl LX will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
