Viewers want a more inclusive, less divisive Super Bowl

Every year when the Super Bowl draws closer, we talk about how brands are making small strides in an effort to showcase women in a more positive, powerful light. Here we are again this year, and although Super Bowl LIV is going to have one major milestone—with the first female and openly gay NFL coach, Katie Sowers, taking to the field with the San Francisco 49ers—there are still big strides to be made for the Super Bowl’s advertising to be more inclusive and less gendered. Microsoft is even using its 60-second spot this year to tell her story.

The NFL hired its first female Chief Marketing Officer, Dawn Hudson, in 2017, although she’s since stepped down. But in any case, since her appointment—coupled with the impact of the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements—we’ve seen brands step back from the traditional, stereotypical gendered advertising that used to plague the industry’s biggest day of the year.

We wanted to see how viewers really feel about how they’re being marketed to during the Super Bowl, so Berlin Cameron and Perksy partnered on a 1,000 person gen-pop study on Super Bowl sentiment. Here’s what we found: