At this year’s Super Bowl, advertisers seem keen to ask audiences to hold their beer—and maybe pick up a water instead.

The 2026 Super Bowl is set to be filled with health-centric messages from brands of all sorts. Liquid I.V. and Liquid Death are promoting hydration and “better for you” energy drinks. Oikos is betting on America’s current obsession with protein. Poppi and Raisin Bran are reminding people to consider their gut health. Meanwhile, healthcare and pharma brands like Ro, Lilly, and Hims & Hers will be running ads about GLP-1s, weight loss, and longevity. Some people have gone so far as to call this year the “Wellness Bowl,” which could reflect a larger cultural shift at a time when people are increasingly focused on health optimization.

“The Super Bowl is the biggest cultural stage in the country. It’s where culture is created. It’s where culture is reflected,” Deb Freeman, head of strategy at creative agency Gut New York, told us. “Nutrition has become a national obsession.”

Marketers behind some of these health-focused campaigns told us they’re confident in their ability to cut through with their messaging, even on a day made for chips, dips, and wings.

Continue reading here.—KH

The typical Super Bowl Sunday meal plan largely revolves around beer and salty snacks. But this year, Liquid I.V. is reminding people to stay hydrated, too.

The brand’s inaugural Super Bowl campaign has been subtly rolling out for the past couple of months, with the official 30-second spot set to air during the first quarter of the game. While Liquid I.V. is a Super Bowl rookie, the company is no stranger to sports and entertainment marketing, having sponsored music festivals, F1 races, and even The Summer I Turned Pretty since the hydration brand revealed a brand refresh in 2024, so the Big Game was a natural next step.

“The Super Bowl is the next biggest stage for us to put our brand on,” CMO Stacey Andrade-Wells told Marketing Brew. “We’ve gone with a very bold public service announcement that your dehydration is trying to get your attention, and Liquid I.V. is the answer.”

A few years back, advertising a health-related product during the Super Bowl might have made a splash on its own, but this year, Liquid I.V. is joined by a roster of food and beverage advertisers emphasizing protein, fiber, and low sugar in their products, as well as pharma brands like returning advertiser Hims & Hers.

To make its campaign memorable, Andrade-Wells said her team is taking a Hollywood-style approach to production, tapping into some star power, and betting that “a slightly polarizing idea” will pay off during the broadcast.

Read more here.—AM

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Jim Freeze is the chief marketing officer of Anaplan, a scenario planning and analysis software platform. Prior to joining Anaplan, he was the chief commercial officer of Vetro FiberMap, and he’s also been CMO of companies including Interactions LLC, Aspect Software, and Crossbeam Systems.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: I actually started my career as a programmer, right after getting an undergrad and graduate degree in math. My shift into marketing was a total accident—I was fresh out of college and got tapped to handle a room of investment bankers who had millions of product questions for a developer. Apparently, I handled the hot seat well enough that our VP of sales told my boss I was wasting my time in development and needed to be moved to marketing immediately. The other curveball is that I’m also a lawyer. I went to law school because I wanted to differentiate myself. Even though a professor told me my math brain would make law school a struggle, it was actually my secret weapon. Thinking logically is the core of being a great lawyer, and it’s the same logic I use today to understand complex products and build better stories.

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AI can generate ideas. It can’t tell you which ones are good. Telly Wong, chief creative + innovation officer at IW Group, works where creativity, culture, and emerging tech collide. In his session, he’ll talk about how brands can use AI as a creative accelerant (not a crutch) and what still requires a human brain, taste, and judgment.

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