The Super Bowl Plays That Seafood Missed (Again)
As our Co-Founder Emily De Sousa said, it may have been the Super Bowl no one wanted (the Bills were robbed), but this weekend scored as an opportunity to observe some positive shifts that have been brewing for years in sports culture and advertising.
Two standout trends have been rising across the greater marketing landscape and they showed up to dominate the night: the unstoppable rise of women in sports and the reign of deeply unserious advertising.
With 113 million viewers tuned in live for Super Bowl LIX this weekend, the marketing squad showed up with some hot new plays.
And guess who fumbled the ball? Yep, seafood. Again.
The Women are Here to Play
It's no surprise that women have vocally joined the game, but let's talk stats, because we love a stat:
58.8 million women tuned in for Super Bowl 58 last year—nearly half the total viewership.
50% of NFL social media growth comes from female followers.
47.1% of NFL fans are now women.
35% of fantasy football participants are women.
Female-led sports podcasts are up 300%
Sports have always been creatively unique, with the audience presenting as much a part of the spectacle as the players themselves. With women entrenched in the game, they are both watching sports and shaping sports. They’re influencing the conversation, driving merchandise sales, leaning into fantasy leagues, and making decisions about what snacks hit the table.
And yet, no seafood ads.
Meanwhile, the girlies are hungry. Emily De Sousa's Seasidelines series on her Instagram and TikTok channels is scoring big with seafood snacks for game day. Women are leading the charge in health-conscious eating, sustainability, and culinary exploration - all things seafood can claim. So why aren’t we seeing lobster sliders, crab nachos, or prawn tacos in Super Bowl ads? It has us gawking at our screens wondering how seafood could have missed such a perfectly lined up play.
Deeply Unserious, Seriously Effective
While women are redefining the fan experience, brands are listening not only to this rising audience base (who, PS, are also the primary driver of food purchasing in North America) but attending to Gen Z sensibilities as well. We use the word sensibilities very tongue-in-cheek because this year’s commercial MVPs awards go to ads that were deeply unserious, weirdly clever, and are redefining what it looks like to advertise at the Super Bowl.
Coors Light spun a strategic marketing mishap into a full product campaign with "Case of the Mondays." UberEats went delightfully weird with Matthew McConaughey and Martha Stewart. Liquid Death embraced the chaos and bold humor they are known for with peak black metal energy. And MountainDew dropped an ad so bizarre it now has all the elder millennials thinking about ‘Doing the Dew’ for the first time since mid-90s middle school.
Here’s the bit that, unfortunately, seafood seems to miss in its approach to marketing - the success of these ads goes beyond selling products. They’re about building and reinforcing brands. They sparked conversations and began appearing in highly shareable memes within moments of airing.
Whether or not Mountain Dew’s sales will skyrocket following their spot, we’re all thinking about it because it was weird and nostalgic and funny. And while these ads were absolutely targeted, nuanced, and the final product of a ton of creative work behind the scenes, they nailed some really basic human truths.
People love to have fun. They love to laugh. They love to be entertained.
So why is seafood still sitting on the sidelines, acting like it’s too serious to join the party? Seafood has a habit of putting on a suit and tie when it should be showing up in a jersey, ready to have a good time. The industry is overly wrapped up in being "premium" and "sustainable" (which, yes, important), but guess what? So is Liquid Death. Sustainability is one of their key pillars, and they’re out here making jokes about drinking on the job.
Sports are fun. Food is fun. Seafood should be fun, too.
Here’s another piece of the (ever increasingly layered) marketing puzzle. Regardless of who watched the game in real time, everyone knows about it. The ads, the memes, and the commentary are all over social media, influencing even those who couldn’t care less about football. That’s the power of entertainment: it transcends the event itself.
So women and weird humor - two massive openings, two big misses. On this field, here’s the play that seafood needs to make:
Tune into women of all interests and identities - we’re rising in many arenas beyond sports
Loosen up the red tape and give your marketing team some room for creative agility (or slide into our DMs, we’ll take care of it for you)
Get into spaces where people are already having fun.
Give the people what they want: entertainment.
We’re not saying blow your annual marketing budget on one 8M$ spot, but these are the kinds of trends seafood brands can position themselves to participate in and build strategic campaigns in plenty of arenas aside from the Super Bowl. Our category is a power food for athletes and fans alike. It deserves marketing that makes people laugh, crave, remember, and share.
We’re diving deeper into this on our next sea-tea serving episode of this Friday, where we’ll spill how the seafood industry can loosen the top button and get a little… unserious.
Ready to join the party?
