CPG ads are taking over the Super Bowl this year

On Sunday, you can find us tackling a table full of snacks as we watch Sunday’s main event: the commercials.

“Buy now” categories, particularly CPG, have taken over Super Bowl advertising in recent years, per TV ad measurement company iSpot, with food and beverage accounting for 36% of ad time last year, its highest level since 2013. And CPG companies, including a number of beauty and personal care brands, aren’t fumbling the marketing opportunity this year either.

Here are the CPG ads to watch:

Food & Bev

• PepsiCo said this week it’ll cut prices by up to ~15% across Super Bowl staple snacks like Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, and Tostitos, and will highlight Lay’s with not one, but two ads during the Big Game. One will focus on its farmer partnerships and the other a product giveaway to fans. It’s also airing an ad for Pepsi Zero Sugar starring a polar bear, and a Poppi spot featuring Charli XCX.
• Svedka’s Super Bowl debut will be the game’s first-ever vodka ad, and, even more notably, the first that’s largely AI-generated, starring a Fembot character last featured in its ads 12 years ago.
• Liquid I.V.’s Big Game debut, which it’s been teasing on social media, features a “bold public service announcement,” CMO Stacey Andrade-Wells told Marketing Brew.
• In its first Super Bowl ad under Mars’s ownership, Pringles’s spot depicts Sabrina Carpenter building her soulmate out of the salty snack. Mars-owned Skittles will also do a live commercial starring Elijah Wood in partnership with Gopuff.
• Kinder Bueno tapped Armageddon actor William Fichtner and Summer House star Paige DeSorbo for its inaugural Super Bowl ad, supporting its new “Yes Bueno” campaign.
• Mayonnaise maker Hellmann’s ad centers on Andy Samberg as “Meal Diamond,” singing a condiment-themed song to the tune of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”
• Answering the question of why William Shatner has been recently snapped by paparazzi carrying a box of Raisin Bran, the Star Trek star is headlining the cereal’s Big Game ad.
• Anheuser Busch is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Budweiser with an ad featuring—you guessed it—Clydesdales, alongside a bald eagle.
• Ritz, Oikos, Frank’s RedHot, and Liquid Death will also air ads.

Beauty and Personal Care

• Melissa McCarthy stars in E.l.f. Cosmetics’s telenovela-themed ad, highlighting its Glow Reviver Lip Oil.
• EOS is following up last year’s Super Bowl debut with a spot that’s a play on the baking competition show Is It Cake? featuring host Mikey Day, to promote its entry into the booming fragrance category.
• Dove’s “The Game is Ours” commercial promotes body confidence among young girls in sports.
• Men’s grooming brand Manscaped is marking its first Super Bowl entry with an ad showing forlorn shaved-off hair singing a sad ballad.
• Body scrub brand Tree Hut will also make its debut with its influencer-led “Uncontain Yourself” spot.