Hims & Hers is returning to the Super Bowl — one year after its debut spot kicked up a storm of controversy.
The telehealth company announced Thursday that it will be returning to the Big Game with a minute-long ad titled “Rich People Live Longer,” narrated by Grammy Award-winning rapper and Academy Award-winning actor Common.
Echoing the confrontational tone from last year’s commercial, the voiceover and visual elements of Hims & Hers’ ad takes the entirety of the American healthcare system to task for inequities in terms of access and quality of care.
“The wealth gap is a health gap,” Common says. “The rich have healthcare that comes to them. Custom-formulated peptides, specialists on call and preventative care before they need it — they get the best.”
The ad then turns to ask the viewer why they don’t also share the level of care before presenting Hims & Hers’ offerings as an equaliser of sorts.
The latter half of the ad highlights the company’s range of services, including diagnostic testing, weight loss treatments that can be “microdosed,” menopause and testosterone hormone medications as well as “early cancer detection through a simple blood test.”
Common underscores the advantages offered to everyday people with the tagline: “The same science, the same access, no connections required. Now that’s rich.”
The spot was ideated and made in-house with the help of Hims & Hers’ production partner Ways & Means.
Dan Kenger, chief design officer of Hims & Hers, said in a statement that the ad was created to feel as “disruptive” as the company’s business model.
“When you’re challenging a system that has been broken for generations, the design has to feel like a catalyst for change,” he stated. “We’re not showing off products; we’re helping people visualise a future where premium care is accessible for every single person on the planet.”
Hims & Hers is now the latest health brand to advertise during the big game, joining the likes of Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Boehringer Ingelheim and telehealth rival Ro.
While the decision to air a Super Bowl ad is in line with the broader embrace of live sports broadcasts by health brands, it also marks a defiant return following last year’s controversy.
“Sick of the System,” the ad Hims & Hers ran during Super Bowl LIX, drew the ire of numerous stakeholders across the industry after its release, especially Novo.
The 60-second spot promoted the company’s compounded GLP-1 offerings to the tune of Childish Gambino’s “This is America” and a voiceover bluntly critiquing the pharma industry and societal views on obesity.
Days before kickoff, two senators asked the Food and Drug Administration to review the ad, saying it ran the risk
of “misleading patients by omitting safety or side effect information.”
Ultimately, the ad generated a polarising response from viewers, according to several measurement firms.
Though EDO said Hims & Hers’ spot was the fifth highest-performing ad overall, delivering 7.7x as much engagement as the median ad, the broader response was mixed.
U.K.-based firm DAIVID said the commercial was “the most pushy” ad, while overindexing on intense negative emotions of “shame,” “fear” and “guilt.”
The USA Today Ad Meter ranked the spot 49th overall, Kantar ranked it in the 77th percentile for impact, the 88th percentile for power and the 86th percentile for enjoyment, while iSpot.tv said the message of the ad was the single best thing about it.
The subsequent fallout from the ad was largely centred on the company’s relationship with Novo.
Shortly after the game, the Danish pharma giant released a print ad in The New York Times featuring text that reads, “Check before you inject.”
Novo pointedly criticised Hims & Hers for not highlighting the safety and efficacy concerns of compounded GLP-1s in its ad.
There was a period of detente in the spring of 2025 when the FDA declared the shortage of GLP-1 drugs over, which meant that telehealth companies needed to pivot their business model away from solely offering compounded versions of the weight loss drugs.
In April, Novo announced it would offer its obesity drug Wegovy through a number of telehealth companies, including Hims & Hers.
However, Novo abruptly decided to terminate its partnership with Hims & Hers in June, sparking another public war of words between the companies.
Now, just as the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots are set to battle on the gridiron on February 8, so will Novo and Hims & Hers in the commercial airwaves.
Source: MM+M.
