Keller: Super Bowl advertisers have their eye on the big prize - women
The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global.
BOSTON - If you haven't already checked out the pre-game teaser videos on the Internet, you'll see it during Super Bowl LIX - an ad featuring scantily-clad cheerleaders with glamorous actress Hailee Steinfeld posing in a low-cut gown.
Super Bowl ads targeting women?
Yet another dose of titillating Super Bowl fluff served up for the male audience? Not quite. "Let's give breasts the attention they deserve most," says Steinfeld to the camera, as a link to a website promoting breast cancer screening flashes on-screen.
It's one of an unprecedented number of high-priced Super Bowl ads featuring and catering to women.
Actress Issa Rae leads a parade of beleaguered citizens in an ad for a tax preparation company. "It's 2025," she says in frustration over the piles of paperwork. "This is taxes?"
In a spot for Ray-Ban Meta A-I glasses, hunky but not-so-bright houseguests Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt frantically try to cover up their destruction of an expensive piece of art, only to run afoul of homeowner Kris Jenner, who knows how to deal with well-dressed idiots.
"Hey Meta, call my lawyer," she says to her Ray-Bans.
And an ad from the makers of Dove Soap, featuring a little girl with adorably chubby legs happily running down the sidewalk, calls for a change to a culture that body shames budding young female athletes to the point where half of girls who quit sports do so because of that shaming.
What's going on here?
Women are a growing part of sports audience
No question, Taylor Swift's presence at boyfriend Travis Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs games has expanded the female audience for the NFL, and the Caitlin Clark phenomenon helped put women's college and pro sports center stage for both female and male consumers.
Women are a fast-growing part of the sports-betting universe, and you hear more and more of them on sports radio talking about the over/under.
And for sheer demographic reach, you can't beat the Super Bowl ad re-upping the famous "deli orgasm" scene from the movie "When Harry Met Sally" showing what mayo added to her sandwich does to 63-year-old Meg Ryan, and the ripple effect it has on 27-year-old Sydney Sweeney, who inherits the famous line: "I'll have what she's having."
The bottom line is that advertisers spending millions of dollars on Super Bowl airtime recognize that if they want to break through the clutter and reach the consumers who make the spending decisions, that means women just as much—or even more than men.
Right-wingers watching the big game might be annoyed by this display of diversity, equity and inclusion.
But they should know the core principle of capitalism - money talks and everything else walks.
