Hims & Hers Hopes Super Bowl Commercial About Obesity Stands Apart From Pack of Snacks

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Most Super Bowl commercials aim to entertain. A minute-long Big Game ad from telehealth company Hims & Hers Health might do something very different.

The spot, slated to air during the third quarter of Fox’s February 9 telecast of Super Bowl LIX, uses a collage of video footage to tell viewers that obesity has become a nationwide epidemic, and that drugs used to fight it are far too costly for the average American.

The Super Bowl audience will see a lightning-fast array of statistics, scales, measuring tapes and people whose weight is over the norm for healthy living. “Welcome to weight loss in America — a $160 billion industry that feeds on our failure,” says the narrator of the commercial. “There are medications that work — but they are priced for profits, not patients.” Hims & Hers has already launched an effort to sell weight-loss medications directly to consumers, and its spot is no doubt intended to help it stand out to a viewership that has already been inundated with dozens of commercials from Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy, two weight-loss drugs that have a significant presence in ad breaks.

Still, there’s risk in speaking to consumers so bluntly during the Super Bowl, typically the biggest media event of the year in the U.S.