Super Bowl ads are a show within the show, an opportunity for brands and advertising creatives to put their work in front of more than 100 million viewers. And while the occasion is most closely associated with ads for beer, cars, and soft drinks, pharma giant Pfizer dished out millions of dollars for its own message: “Here’s to science.”
The company aired a commercial in which animated portraits, illustrations, photographs, and statues of scientific luminaries including Newton, Hippocrates, Einstein, Rosalind Franklin, Marie Maynard Daly, and Katalin Karikó sang an anthem to medicine’s progress to the tune of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” The commercial also featured cameos from penicillin and a singing tardigrade, all leading up to the final celebration of a child cancer patient leaving the hospital to staff applause. The ad ends by sharing the URL of the pharma company’s new cancer initiative, LetsOutdoCancer.com, and the brand’s new tagline, Outdo Yesterday.
The commercial was made by advertising agency Publicis Conseil and Le Truc/Publicis NY. Pfizer declined to comment on how much it spent on the ad, though CBS has reported that the price tag for a 30-second Super Bowl ad was $6.5 million to $7 million — and Pfizer’s ad was 60 seconds (shortened from the original 90-second version). That’s a small sum for a roughly $156 billion company but is still a significant investment compared to Pfizer’s other cancer-related initiatives. Just days ago, Pfizer announced a $15 million donation to the American Cancer Society over three years but spent at least half that on the commercial alone.
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