Brands Talk a Big Game About Diversity. Did Super Bowl 58's Ads Follow Through?

It’s not easy to pitch a product and capture a nation’s pluralism in 30 seconds, but the e.l.f. Cosmetics ad in Super Bowl 58 was a notable effort. With the inimitable Judge Judy presiding from the bench, “In e.l.f. We Trust”—presented as a legal dispute about spending on overpriced cosmetics—was truly a big tent. Retired NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho (born to Nigerian parents) played the bailiff; Meghan Trainor served as the TV correspondent; and Suits series actors Rick Hoffman and Gina Torres appeared as the litigants. Meanwhile, the jury box brimmed with personalities including openly gay comedian Benito Skinner and Heidi N Closet, the drag queen who ruled two seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. As e.l.f. CMO Kory Marchisotto said in a statement on Sunday morning, the company was “leaning into the true diversity of the Big Game and carving a path that proves beauty not only belongs there, but everywhere.” Well, beauty may well be everywhere, but in many of last night’s Super Bowl ads, diversity wasn’t. That was the upshot of an analysis of all 72 spots conducted by Alltold, which bills itself as a “people-first responsible AI company with tools to measure inclusion in ads.” The firm applied its proprietary AI analytics to gauge representation in six fields—skin tone, gender expression, body size, age, sexual orientation and visible disabilities. So, how’d the ads do? Let’s hit the encouraging news first. The 13 Best Super Bowl Ads of 2024 Women on the rise The portrayal of people with feminine gender expression, as the report put it, in Super Bowl 58 ads continued on its slow but still steady climb. From a single-digit low in 1984, the prevalence of ads portraying the female gender hit 40% this year. (That’s below the 50.4% of the overall population that’s female, per U.S. Census data, but it’s still higher than it’s historically been.) “We’ve seen slow progress over 50 years,” Alltold CEO and cofounder Morgan Gregory told ADWEEK, “but it’s very much a two steps forward, one step back type of pattern.” Last night’s advertisers were moderately generous with the time they allotted to characters that the AI system read as female: 43 ads gave them 40% or less of screen time; only 10 ads gave them more than 80%. Some standouts included Doritos’ “Dina & Mita” spot and Booking.com’s “Book Who You Want to Be,” both of which had female leads. Shades of difference Alltold charted a roughly analogous trend when it came to representations of people of color. Those with dark complexions were essentially absent in 1969’s Super Bowl ads, for example, but have steadily worked their way into visibility. The inclusion rate for people with darker skin tones stood at just shy of 32% this year, up from just below 27% in 2023. Even so, this year’s figure still represents a decline from the 35% rate seen in 2021. “After 2020 there's definitely an increased focus on racial equity and social justice initiatives following the murder of George Floyd,” Gregory said. A few spots that gave over half of their pricey seconds to people of color included Frito-Lay’s “Victory” and the irrepressible E*Trade babies, one of whom was Black. For her part, Amy Chen, director of experience for brand agency Siegel+Gale, was encouraged by the prevalence of people of color in last night’s ads. “Doritos’ ad with Jenna Ortega and her abuelas is not only fun and colorful but also manages to break down some significant barriers to representation,” she said. “An all-Latino cast of characters features abuelas who are together a force to be reckoned with despite their golden years.” Missing faces Speaking of golden years, now it’s time for the not-so-good news. When it comes to other historically underrepresented groups—larger Americans, people with disabilities and the LGBTQIA+ community—the spotlight appeared to be elsewhere. Onscreen inclusion of older people has never been great and, according to Alltold’s long-term data crunch, seniors weren’t much more evident in 2024’s spots than they were in 1969’s. After the AI tool finished reading last night’s ads, it found that 44 spots afforded older people less than 20% of screen time. (A notable exception: BMW’s “Talkin’ Like Walken”: The actor is now 80, and he carried the whole ad.) People with larger body sizes got even less time on advertising’s big stage, with 60 ads giving them 20% screen time or less. Only two ads afforded this group between 41% and 60% of screen time. Those with disabilities that are physical and observable—which is necessary for AI to detect them—fared even worse: Only six ads featured them. That said, 2024 was better than other years, though that may not be saying much. Since 2000, there were 10 years in which only one person with a disability appeared and five where there were none at all. Of course, statistics can sometimes belie the outsized impact of a single ad. Google themed its entire minute-long spot around the experiences of Javier Kussrow, a visually impaired actor. Shot deliberately out of focus by blind filmmaker Adam Morse, the spot showcases the Google Pixel phone's Guided Frame technology, which uses AI and voiced directions to help visually impaired people take photos. The spot just placed first in the annual Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review for “connecting with viewers in an unexpected, emotional way.” Finally, there’s the LGBTQIA+ representation—or, rather, the prevailing absence of it. Of the 39 people in last night’s ads for whom Alltold’s AI could detect a visible sexual orientation, there were two lesbians. The other 37 people were heterosexual. The limits of AI Why were so many marginalized groups poorly represented last night? In fairness, some of the statistical picture comes from the limitations of AI, at least as it stands now. Powerful as the tool is, it’s confined to observable traits and can therefore miss subtle but important cues and nuances. In the realm of larger-size Americans, for example, while there were none in Dove’s “Hard Knocks,” the spot nonetheless sent a galvanizing message about the importance of body positivity. The Ogilvy-produced ad featured a screen card explaining that 45% of girls quit sports by the age of 14 because of low body confidence. It’s a similar story with the e.l.f. spot, where two gay men sat in the front row of the jury box. (Drag queen Heidi N Closet is played by Trevien Anthonie Cheek, who is, like Benito Skinner, openly gay.) Sexual orientation, Gregory said, is “one of the tricky ones. When we make a sexual orientation annotation, we need to see somebody in the context of a partner or intimate or romantic interaction. In ads, we don't see a lot of that because it's short form content.” A Definitive List of Super Bowl 58’s Top-Performing Ads Blame central casting Fair enough. But what about those other groups—older people, larger people, people with disabilities—who didn’t get much love from the cameras? “This year’s Super Bowl had a stronger representation of diversity than in years past, but with all the celebrity razzle dazzle, it was easy to miss,” suggested Kumi Croom, managing director of ad shop Duncan Channon. Another reason we didn’t see more diverse characters is simply because the brands didn’t cast them—or at least, the more marginalized of the marginalized. “There have been so many movements around gender equity, gender equality, now racial justice—so companies focus on that type of equality and inclusion—that’s when we start to see more screen time, more people being cast in those roles,” Gregory said. “We don't have a similar movement for inclusion for older adults or people who have larger body sizes.” And why not? “The importance/impact of diversity and inclusion is a two-part issue in the creative world,” ventured Jea Hyun Reece, design director for Moving Brands. “There is a need for diversity and inclusion in the concepting/ideating room, and then there is a need for diversity and inclusion representation within the consumer-facing communications. If you have diversity in the hidden portion, then you will assuredly get diversity in the public portion.” But while diversity in hiring on the brand and agency side might still be lagging, Hyun Reece feels optimistic about the odds for more inclusive ads in future Super Bowls. “The majority of Super Bowl ads are moving in a more positive direction when it comes to representation, even if that movement seems incremental,” she said. “With the rise in millennials and Gen Z making up more of the workforce, and in particular us woke millennials becoming managers, directors and decision-makers ourselves, it's no surprise things are shifting, albeit slowly and imperfectly.”