If you were watching Super Bowl LIX in 2025, you probably remember that moment where the room went a little quiet. Or maybe it got loud, depending on who you were sitting with. A commercial started playing, and for a solid forty-five seconds, it was just... breasts. Bouncing breasts, subway-ad breasts, coffee-shop-staring breasts.
People were confused. Was this a return to the "GoDaddy" era of the early 2000s? Was it a beer ad trying a "vintage" objectification strategy?
Then Wanda Sykes and Hailee Steinfeld appeared.
The super bowl breast commercial, titled "Your Attention Please," was actually a massive, big-budget swing by the pharmaceutical giant Novartis. It wasn't trying to sell you a burger or a browser. It was trying to talk about breast cancer. But the way they did it sparked a firestorm that’s still being debated in marketing circles today.
The Ad That Broke the Internet (Again)
Let’s be real: the Super Bowl has a long, messy history with the female body. You’ve got the 2004 Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" that literally birthed the term and changed FCC regulations forever. You’ve got years of PETA ads being banned for being "too hot" because they featured women rubbing vegetables on themselves in ways that made NBC executives sweat.
But the Novartis 2025 spot was different because it was intentional.
The premise was simple, if provocative. The ad argued that society gives plenty of "the wrong kind of attention" to breasts—sexualized, objectifying attention—while ignoring the "right kind of attention": medical screenings. Basically, if you’re going to look, look for a lump.
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Why the Backlash Was So Intense
Honestly, the "Your Attention Please" spot is a masterclass in how "awareness" can go sideways. On one hand, you had supporters like Sally Wolf, a CEO and cancer advocate, who praised it for "twisting decades of objectifying spots" to actually spark action. It wasn't "pinkwashing." It wasn't selling a specific drug.
But then you have the other side. And that side was pissed.
If you head over to any breast cancer survivor forum, the vibe is very different. Many patients felt the ad hyper-sexualized a disease that is, in reality, painful, clinical, and often involves losing the very body parts being "jiggled" on screen for the Super Bowl audience.
The "Young Boob" Problem
One of the biggest gripes? The demographics. The commercial featured mostly young women with, as one Reddit user put it, "firm, bouncing boobs."
Here’s the rub:
- Most of the women shown were likely too young to even qualify for the annual mammograms the ad was pushing.
- It ignored the 1% of breast cancer cases that occur in men.
- It leaned into the "Save the Tatas" energy that many survivors find demeaning.
They felt like the ad was for the "male gaze" to get men to tell their wives to get checked, rather than talking to the women themselves. It felt like a corporate PR move by a company that, ironically, had just tightened its patient assistance programs, making it harder for some people to actually afford their cancer meds.
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A History of "Breast" Controversies
This wasn't the first time the Big Game had a "breast" problem. We can't talk about the super bowl breast commercial without looking at the ghosts of Super Bowls past.
1. The 2004 Wardrobe Malfunction: This is the North Star of Super Bowl controversies. When Justin Timberlake pulled a piece of Janet Jackson’s costume, exposing her nipple for 9/16ths of a second, the world lost its mind. It led to a $550,000 FCC fine and a permanent five-second delay on "live" broadcasts.
2. The E-Trade "Milkaholic" Baby (2010): This one is weird. The ad featured a talking baby accusing another baby of being a "milk-a-holic." A woman named Lindsay Lohan actually sued E-Trade for $100 million, claiming the "Lindsay" baby was a jab at her. It wasn't about "breasts" in a sexual way, but the "milk" connotations stayed in the cultural zeitgeist for years.
3. PETA’s "Veggie Love": PETA is the king of getting banned. Their 2009 ad featured women in lingerie "getting intimate" with broccoli and pumpkins. NBC killed it. PETA, of course, loved the ban because a "banned Super Bowl ad" gets more clicks than a paid one.
The Dove Counter-Moment
Interestingly, the 2025 Super Bowl also saw Dove return with their "Body Confident Sport" campaign.
While Novartis was showing "perfect" breasts to talk about cancer, Dove was showing a three-year-old girl running. The voiceover, set to an H.E.R. cover of "Born to Run," noted that while she feels unstoppable now, by age 14, she’ll likely think her legs are "unbearable" because of societal pressure.
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It was the polar opposite of the Novartis approach. One used the body as a shock-value magnet; the other used it as a vessel for a story about self-esteem.
What We Learned
Marketing experts are still dissecting the Novartis data. Did it work? Well, millions of people visited the website. Awareness did go up. But the cost was a significant amount of "brand cringe" among the very people the company is supposed to serve: cancer patients.
The takeaway for any brand thinking about a "body-centric" Super Bowl ad is pretty clear. You can't just use the body as a billboard and expect everyone to be cool with it, even if you’re doing it for a "good cause."
Context matters. The audience matters.
And if you’re going to spend $7 million for thirty seconds of airtime, you might want to make sure the people you’re "helping" don't feel like the punchline—or the eye candy.
Actionable Next Steps for Staying Informed
If you’re interested in the intersection of health advocacy and big-budget advertising, here is how you can actually make a difference or stay educated beyond the 30-second clips:
- Check the Source: Before praising a "health awareness" ad, look at the company’s actual policies. Use sites like OpenSecrets or ProPublica to see how much they invest in patient access vs. Super Bowl airtime.
- Support Direct Advocacy: If the sexualization of health issues bothers you, look into organizations like Breast Cancer Action, which focuses on "Think Before You Pink" campaigns to stop the commercialization of the disease.
- Review Screening Guidelines: Don't rely on a commercial for medical advice. The American Cancer Society and USPSTF have specific age and risk-based guidelines for mammograms that are more nuanced than a TV spot can explain.
- Media Literacy: Next time you see a "controversial" ad, ask: Who is the intended audience? Is it the person with the health risk, or is it someone else watching them?
The conversation around the super bowl breast commercial isn't really about the ad itself—it's about who gets to define the female body on the world's biggest stage.