Super Bowl Ads Fumble Again:

Ignoring Women Cost Brands ROI For the 12th Year

Super Bowl Ads Underperform Regular Brand Ads for 12th Year
Ads that Resonated with Women would have Improved ROI

ABX Advertising Benchmark Index™ and ANA SeeHer™, partners and co-developers of GEM®, (the Gender Equality Measure), teamed up to analyze the true advertising effectiveness of Super Bowl 2025 ads – way beyond “Likeability.” In addition, the study ascertained how women were portrayed within each ad, accounting for gender bias. The results were disappointing.

Once again, Super Bowl ads were less effective than regular brand ads airing in the prior 12-month period, a trend that has held true for 12 years (except for 2020 during Covid). Moreover, the ads under-represented women and featured them in roles that did not resonate.

Insights from the study include:

• Only 11% of Super Bowl 2025 ads were above the ABX Index™ TV norm of 108.5, 37% were at norm, and 52% were below norm. Why are so many Super Bowl ads, at $8 million a pop, missing the mark?
• Super Bowl ads are more Likeable and Re-watchable than regular brand ads, but they fall short in Brand Reputation, Purchase Intent, and other Calls-to-Action.
• The Gender Equality Measure (GEM®) for female characters in this year’s ads was rated lower by female respondents than by male respondents.
• Not targeting female fans correlates with weaker purchase intent among women. For Super Bowl ads, the ABX Purchase Intent Index was only 87 for women compared to 124 for men.

We hope this downloadable report is helpful to you.