The best 90 second Super Bowl commercial never ran in the 2026 Super Bowl. Wisely. It ran, and could still be running, if this Canada/USA curling event goes into overtime, during the Milan Olympics.
Perhaps you've seen it. I dare say, if you had seen it you'd remember it.
It's for Lilly and you can view the spot right here. It's worth watching again.
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/gOop/eli-lilly-2026-winter-olympics-never-over
I'm going to go out on a limb -- but I'm going to do it carefully -- that this commercial "harkens back" to the advertising salad days of the 80's and 90's. My industry colleague and one of my copywriting heroes, Ernie Schenck, took time to write about this gem recently so I'll try not to step on his toes.
Ms. Muse, an expert in advertising in her own right, and I talked about the spot on one of our many recent bike rides along the CV link. We noted the clear similarities to classic Nike spots. Not surprisingly, the execution and production value and minimalist approach stem from the same agency, Wieden Kennedy.
"And do you remember the company the spot was advertising?"
Indeed I did. Which is odd because I barely remember any of the spots that ran during the Super Bowl. Oh the humanity!
The Lilly opus ran contrary to all the "best practices" and "brand optimization techniques" that now rue the day.
There was no "bing bong" brand pneumonic in the first 3 seconds. You know, because as I've actually heard clients say, "What if somebody gets up after 5 seconds of our multimillion dollar spot to go take a piss, how will they know it was our spot?"
Yes professor, how will they know?
There were no bite and smile shots of people swallowing Lilly made pills or subjecting themselves to Lilly injections.
Or shots of the new centrifugal blood spinning machines separating platelets or mitochondria in clearly branded test tubes bearing the professionally lit Lilly name.
And for a company that's clearly on the cutting edge of technology and medical advancement, the spot was markedly luddite in nature. There was ample use of black and white stock footage. And the voiceover was delivered in a staccato professorial manner that cut through the clutter like a freshly unsheathed virgin scalpel.
In short, the spot did what all great Super Bowl spots used to do. It grabs you by the collar, takes you on a journey, builds to a riveting crescendo, and then confidently delivers the money shot.
Ironically, our industry, well, it's yours now as I am so thankfully done with the mishigas and idiocy...
"Can we get Ben Affleck to do the voiceover?"
"NO!"
...would do well to return to the directives that have served Lilly so well:
O B S E R V E
Q U E S T I O N
E X P E R I M E N T
T E S T
(OK, maybe not so much testing)
S T A R T O V E R
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