While Kanye West’s bizarre Super Bowl ad is still in the headlines and amidst the Yeezy chaos, another company is sparking huge controversy for its Super Bowl ad. Unlike West’s iPhone-shot commercial, this advertisement was flagged to be removed before it even aired. So how did it still manage to make it to airwaves during the most-watched Super Bowl in history. The ad was for the company Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, and had all the markers of any basic attention-grabby commercial: fast, dynamic cuts of words in press clippings and a barrage of random stock visuals, overlaid with the song, This is America by Childish Gambino.
The ad calls out obesity as “America’s deadliest epidemic” with stark figures about obesity and the money-driven weight-loss industry in America, a system built to keep us “sick and stuck.”. For the first half of the 60-second video, it isn’t exactly clear what is being sold or who is selling it, until the latter half of the video when the tone changes to introduce the company’s “life-changing” weight-loss medications that are “affordable and doctor-trusted.”.
The clip, entitled 'Sick of the System' ends with a call to join the “fight for a healthier America,” reminiscent of the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement. Fox aired the advertisement on Sunday, during the third quarter of the game, without any adjustments. The Super Bowl ad marked a big debut for the telehealth company, Hims & Hers. The San Francisco-headquartered group already advertises for sexual health and acne medications, but the Super Bowl spot spotlighted the company’s entry into the realm of injectable weight-loss drugs.
Like other telehealth platforms, the company is taking advantage of a stipulation that allows compounding pharmacies to dispense their own version of name-brand drugs that are in short supply. The Sick of the System ad is framed as giving widespread access to powerful, typically high-priced weight-loss medications. Both a public health group and two U.S. senators raised concerns about the ad. Concerns were raised to both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Fox.
Leading up to the Big Game, two U.S. Senators sent a letter to the head of the FDA asking for the ad to be blocked because it “risks misleading patients.” The Senators called out the advertisement for not disclosing any risk, side-effect or safety information that is required of pharmaceutical advertisements in America. The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) also shed light on the same lack of transparency in their own letter to the FDA, stating: “as a knockoff copy of a prescription drug, the commercial for this product should comply with FDA prescription drug ad rules.”.
The PSM also wrote a letter to Fox, imploring them not to run the “deeply troubling” commercial. Despite the concerns of health and government officials, the ad aired but did draw significant ire from the public. Americans called out the spot for being "hypocritical" and "predatory". One X user wrote: “The most anti-America Super Bowl ad? Easily the Hims & Hers spot — pretending to critique the broken food system while pushing sketchy, unapproved Ozempic knockoffs.” Another user described the ad as “the most insane bait-and-switch I’ve ever witnessed on TV.".
