Homecoming for Health at the Super Bowl

Wellness isn't a category anymore, it's culture

The Super Bowl has always been more than football. It’s America’s cultural scoreboard—where advertising, celebrity, culture, sports, community and creativity collide in front of the largest audience of the year.

For years, health brands showed up cautiously—careful language, serious tone, awareness-first messaging designed to inform, not entertain. The Super Bowl was something they watched, not something they joined.

That has changed. Health—pharma included—is no longer operating at the margins of culture. It’s stepping confidently into the center of it.

And not quietly.

What we’re seeing isn’t just more health brands advertising during the Big Game. It’s a broader shift in how these brands understand their role, their audience and their responsibility.

PATIENTS ARE CONSUMERS, AND TRUST IS THE CURRENCY

For decades, healthcare operated invisibly at cultural moments rather than within them. Clinical conversations happened in exam rooms; cultural conversations happened everywhere else. That divide is collapsing.

Today’s health audience doesn’t separate their identities neatly. Patients are consumers, and consumers are culture participants. Health brands are no longer content to speak only in clinical terms or in narrowly targeted channels. They want conversation, relevance and resonance. Trust—which we know is earned emotionally as much as rationally—is everything.

In a world where institutions are questioned and attention is fractured, health brands can no longer rely solely on authority. They must show humanity. Empathy. Humor. Relevance. And increasingly, they must meet people where shared experiences still exist. Which is why the Super Bowl matters.

If there is a universal language left in a divisive world, sports may be it. And this game is one of the few times where tens of millions of people—across politics, generations, and beliefs—are watching the same thing, at the same time, together. For health brands focused on trust, normalization and behavior change, that’s not just scale. That’s a huge opportunity.

FROM CLINICAL TOOL TO CULTURAL CONVERSATION

GLP-1 medications, once treatments primarily associated with diabetes care, have crossed into mainstream culture.

In just two years, GLP-1 therapies have become one of the fastest-growing categories in modern medicine, with analysts projecting a market that could surpass $100 billion annually within the decade. But the real shift isn’t just commercial, it’s cultural. As research expands to show impact across cardiovascular health, diabetes, sleep apnea, liver disease and even emerging areas like brain health, the conversation has moved from treating isolated conditions to addressing metabolic health more holistically.

More than prescriptions, these therapies have sparked debate around stigma, access, equity and what it means to redefine health in public. These conversations are no longer niche. They’re the narrative.

When globally recognized athletes speak about longevity, strength and performance in this context, the framing shifts away from quick fixes and toward holistic wellbeing. That reframing matters. Health brands aren’t just marketing therapies. They are reshaping language, values and expectations around care—and doing so at cultural scale.

PHARMA PRACTICING CREATIVE AUTHENTICITY

For healthcare marketers, showing up–and winning—at the Super Bowl requires something different: creative courage. Pharma is now suiting up with the most revered consumer brands in the world.

In recent years, we’ve seen pharma lean into humor and cultural fluency to spark serious health conversation—from attention-grabbing pushes around breast cancer screening to sports-tied, pun-forward campaigns encouraging colon cancer screening among men, a group notoriously resistant to preventive care. These aren’t one-off awareness plays. They’re brand-building moves.

Pharma and health brands stepping into this space are taking a meaningful step—choosing to meet audiences where culture lives rather than where stigma hides. That decision reflects a broader evolution: recognizing that innovation isn’t only scientific—it’s narrative.

When health brands choose creativity at this scale, they do more than advertise. They normalize.

HEALTH ON THE GOAL LINE

For too long, conversations about weight, metabolic health, cancer screenings, and chronic disease have been shaped by silence or shame. Preventive care was avoided. Screenings were delayed. Diagnosis felt isolating. Even discussions around access and equity lived in policy circles rather than public ones.

Bringing these discussions into mainstream cultural moments—especially something as widely viewed as the Super Bowl—reframes the conversation.

It signals that seeking screening is responsible, not reactive. That treatment is not a failure. That prevention is strength. That health is something to be talked about openly, collectively and without judgment.

When health shows up confidently at cultural scale, it becomes a catalyst.

THE NEXT FRONTIER

As more brands recognize the rewards of being out front, we all benefit. Finally, we’re having conversations we’ve avoided for too long. Conversations about prevention. About access. About long-term wellbeing. About how innovation reaches real people.

A world with less stigma is a world where more people seek care earlier, receive diagnoses sooner and pursue treatments without hesitation.

If we continue on this path, we could look back by 2030 and see this moment as an inflection point—when health stopped being whispered about and started being embraced openly.

The Super Bowl has always served as a barometer for the culture, a time to reflect on how we’re feeling now and where we want this moment to take us. This year, health didn’t just show up—it claimed its place on the field. The opportunity now is to keep the momentum going, to move beyond moments and to ensure that creativity continues to break down barriers that science alone cannot.

The future is clear for marketing communications willing to meet the moment. As we look ahead to 2030, and a new way of delivering health outcomes, let this moment be the beginning