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The Super Bowl is a mega sporting event, with a big impact on advertising. Furthermore, its influence and attention have increased, if only because of the recent fight between Trump and Taylor. A record 115 million people watched in the US this year. It is also an interesting phenomenon in terms of diversity.

Because the viewing figures are so enormous, advertising costs are correspondingly high. In the 1960s you still paid $37,500 for a 30-second spot, in 1995 the 1 million mark was exceeded (1.15), in ’19 it was already 4.5 million, in 2022 it took the biggest leap from 5.5 to 6.5 million and this year those 30 seconds sold for no less than 7 million dollars – well, through the screen. And of course CBS sold all the slots.

Vague jokes

But it is also an interesting phenomenon in the field of (rainbow) diversity. Before the turning point year of 2015 (the SCOTUS decision to allow “gay marriage”*), there were some jokes made, mostly by Doritos. They had an annual Crash The Superbowl competition to come up with the best commercial. And sometimes the ‘losers’ also went viral.

There was What’s Your Flavor in 2009 (hey, Centraal Beheer!), Sauna, The Best Part and Told You So in 2011. None of these were broadcast, at least not during the competition. There was Noodling in 2013 that didn’t win, but Fashionista Daddy did, and we also saw the Finger Cleaner in 2014. All gay vague or gay tease, often stereotypical and bordering on offensive.

Turning point

This changed in 2015. The world had gone WOKE (also read Get woke, go broke), so commercials in general became a bit more politically correct – unless they wanted to go viral for the wrong reasons (like Snickers in Spain). But that Supreme Court ruling meant that LGBT people were suddenly seen as people who you could find among your neighbors, friends, family, and colleagues.

And they became full-fledged consumers, so the whole world focused on the theme. It was either used through target group marketing, or it ‘simply’ appeared in advertising to show how tolerant and diverse the brand was. The latter scores bonus points with me, as long as it isn’t pinkwashing.

Doritos presented Lil Nas in The Cool Ranch in 2020 and Elton John in Jack’s New Angle in the 2023 Super Bowl.

No more lame jokes, but using gay icons as your spokespersons.

Rainbows

So it really started in 2015: Marketing the Rainbow during the Super Bowl. And it grew steadily: in 2020 there were no fewer than nine commercials with LGBT characters or themes.

I appreciate that CBS News linked to my YouTube archive for the 2020 Amazon commercial with Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia in their article about this earlier this month, How much do Super Bowl commercials cost for the 2024 broadcast. A little more traffic is nice, but this clip was already in the top 10 of most viewed videos on my channel, with more than 150,000 views.

You also had a whole series of relevant commercials in 2020: Pepsico’s Sabra Hummus featured drag queens, Budweiser featured the American women’s soccer team, which became world champions, and featured married couple Ali Krieger & Ashlyn Harris in the teaser, Olay made space for women with Busy Philipps and the bisexual Lilly Singh, but did so rather clumsily, P&G’s detergent Tide hired the pansexual Emily Hampshire (Dan Levy’s co-star in Schitt’s Creek – see below), and Pop Tarts went uber-gay with Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness.

Then there was Under Armour, which stripped Kelley O’Hara to her underwear. She is a member of the US women’s national soccer team, and became famous for kissing her girlfriend on TV after winning the World Cup. And finally, Microsoft told the powerful story of openly gay 49ers coach Katie Sowers, the first woman ever to coach a team in the Super Bowl.

A lot happened in 2020!

But then 2024

This year we felt the after-effect of the Bud Light trans affair (Bud Light and the 4 bln woman), the messy situation surrounding Target and the feud between Disney and Florida (Disney v DeSantis: how a corporate behemoth turned beacon of diversity). These brands all wanted to do their best to achieve diversity, but it got them into trouble. All this mainly because of the growing transphobia, polarization and the more or less organized resistance to ‘woke’ companies in the US, led by the Foxes of this world.

So the rainbow wash was thin at the February 11 Super Bowl. We first saw Volkswagen, celebrating 75 years of the Beetle in the US. For some reason, two ladies are also getting married there. Matter-of-factly, bonus points.

A longer, storytelling version was also released and shown on other channels.

Then there were no fewer than two commercials from “We’ve done your homework” Homes.com. Gay icon Dan Levy plays a leading role in this, even overshadowing Jeff Goldblum and rapper Lil Wayne. SNL’s Heidi Gardner is Dan’s sidekick, to stick to American terms.

This is Goldmine, for 30 seconds:

The other commercial is called Worth Celebrating and it even runs for a whole minute. Ka-ching.

What Would Jesus Do?

Finally, a remarkable participant, who does not actually advertise, but does have an important message. It concerns He Gets Us, a religious organization that preaches love and tolerance. This is in contrast to the hatred coming from many other ugly corners of the US. Last year they ran a 90-second ad to reintroduce Jesus in a different context. The ad finished at a respectable number eight in the USA Today Ad Meter rankings.

This year we see a very stylish ‘slide show’ by photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten. In the minute-long clip “Foot Washing” (see also main image) they show that Jesus used the symbolic washing of feet as a sign of forgiveness and love. There are many types, including at least 1 queer person. And that for about 13 million dollars.

So the video is very clearly WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?).

Conclusion

Diversity in advertising is more important than ever. We always think that we have reached our goal in the Journey from Representation to Respect, that everything is now arranged, and that we embrace diversity, flaunt it and are universally accepted. And it turns out again and again that this is not the case. The decline in the number of rainbow advertisements from 9 in 2020 to 2(½) this year also clearly demonstrates this. It is accompanied by increasing intolerance and even violence. Diversity in advertising is therefore more important than ever. Wash those feet!

* I always put this in quotes because it is identical to a heterosexual marriage, but when introduced in the Netherlands in 2001 it was officially called ‘opening up civil marriage to couples of the same sex’ and that doesn’t get across so easily. To indicate that it concerns such couples who get married, I use ‘gay marriage’.

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow.
He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about Zalando’s journey from activism to size-inclusive shoes, Zalando goes from controversies to hidden stories, Get woke, go broke, Spain has 6.8 billion reasons to love rainbow tourists, How Spain markets itself as rainbow destination, Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam, I Amsterdam, Gay Capital, The Ideal Traveler, Diversity & Language, Playing with Pronouns, Abercrombie & Fitch : The Rise & The Fall, Play the gayme: about SIMS and Candy Crush, Diversity in Toys, LEGO does the rainbow, Barbiemania, Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Dutch retailer HEMA loves everybody, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, Magnum and the lesbian wedding, Marketing the Rainbow: the process and all that came before it, Sport and (un)sportmanship,  Why you need a supplier diversity program, BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC), From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C), The Men from Atlantis, The other kind of cruising, Booking.com, Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.