Celebrity Diversity Dominates 2024 Super Bowl Ad Lineup

By Javier San Miguel, Group Creative Director, Sensis

While you could count the number of explicitly multicultural spots with one hand (Doritos Dinamita, Jesus gets Us, Google’s Guided Frame, NFL Programs, Microsoft Copilot—did I miss anything?), the most diverse element of this year’s ads is the countless number of self-deprecating celebrity cameos on display. Seriously, the only thing outnumbering the star-driven spots was the number of celebs crammed within them—sometimes to the point of confusion. While most of the starry gags were fun, I struggle to recall the brands associated with them. (Quick, can you name the one where Jennifer Aniston doesn’t recognize David Schwimmer? Or Glenn Close dresses like Tina Fey? Or LL Cool J drives a train? Or Pete Davison breaks up with a cat? Or the guy with the glasses from Schitt’s Creek wears a letterman jacket in the boardroom? You get my point.) It begs the question if 2024 will mark the year when celebrity cameos jump the shark in terms of Super Bowl ad investment ROI. If I wasn’t overwhelmed by all the pop culture references, I was otherwise confused by their brand associations. (Case in point: CeraVe. It’s a good product, and Michael Cera was funny in Superbad and Arrested Development, but if I’m unfamiliar with either the brand or actor—or both—I’m unlikely to respond to an ad that plays like an SNL spoof of a skin cream ad. Will it drive new customer sales? Perhaps. But I’m not holding my breath.)

The only promo standing above the noisy fray (while cleverly leveraging it) was doordash-all-the-ads.com—a celebration of overindulgence which is as true to the DoorDash brand as it is to the Super Bowl itself—that drives you to their website for a chance to win big. Simple. Creative. Memorable. And, most importantly, it sells.

By Javier San Miguel, Group Creative Director, Sensis, js********@se**********.com