The trend: At least five healthcare and pharma companies—Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Boehringer Ingelheim, Ro, and Hims & Hers—will run TV commercials during the Super Bowl on Sunday. Eli Lilly also plans to run a pre-game ad on NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo, as well as an in-game streaming spot on Peacock.

Catch up quick: Last year, Novartis, Pfizer, and Hims & Hers ran Super Bowl ads, earning largely positive reviews.

• Pfizer landed on USA Today’s top 10 best list, while Novartis landed on several lists of best spots, including Billboard, Ad Age, Ipsos, and Kantar.
• However, Hims & Hers’ controversial ad about obesity and what it called the broken healthcare system drew congressional and industry criticism, but also nabbed high impact marks from Kantar and generated a 650% spike in traffic.
• Novartis became the first corporate pharma partner of the NFL in a deal inked in March, weeks after its successful Super Bowl ad debut.

Why it matters: Pharma is a mainstay of NFL in-season advertising, but companies have struggled to fit serious health talk into the Super Bowl entertainment-first environment.

By moving away from clinical product pitches toward celebrity-backed, societal health narratives, brands are finding a way to contextualize healthcare within the Super Bowl experience.

• Celebrities help bridge the gap. Novartis is teaming up with star NFL tight ends George Kittle and Rob Gronkowski, while Novo features DJ Khaled and Kenan Thompson. Ro taps Serena Williams as its celebrity spokesperson, a natural fit for the Big Game’s star-studded stage.
• Pharma corporate brands promote health versus products. Shifting away from product-specific ads with scary laundry lists of risks toward corporate initiatives like cancer screening, prostate cancer, and kidney health awareness tends to resonate more thoughtfully with consumers.

Implications for pharma companies: Even as pharma and healthcare ad budgets continue to shift to digital channels, high-profile linear TV moments like the Super Bowl will remain important for corporate branding and mainstream legitimacy. But success in that environment requires a different creative and measurement mindset, prioritizing brand identity and cultural relevance over product promotion.

The healthcare Super Bowl narrative shift that began last year and continues this year underscores a significant evolution in the category. Success in marquee ad moments is less about direct response and more about positioning pharma brands as credible, culturally fluent players in the most-watched TV event of the year.