Last year marked the first time in Pfizer’s 175-year history that the drugmaker shelled out the requisite millions for a corporate spot during the Super Bowl broadcast. Now, it seems to be becoming something of an annual tradition.
Pfizer will once again debut a new promo during Sunday’s big game. Like last year’s commercial, the 2025 ad highlights the company’s overarching work in drug development rather than pushing any specific products. And, while the 2024 spot largely celebrated Pfizer’s history of advancing science before ending with a nod to “the next fight” against cancer, this year’s is focused squarely on that fight, centering around the on-screen message: “Hey cancer, we’re gonna knock you out.”
Dubbed “Knock Out,” the 60-second ad is set to air during the first quarter of the Sunday face-off between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
The commercial opens with a young cancer patient laying in a hospital bed and watching a boxing match. Hearing ring announcer Michael Buffer’s classic catchphrase “let’s get ready to rumble” seems to ignite the boy’s own fighting spirit: Suddenly clad in boxing gear of his own, he climbs out of bed, rings a bell to celebrate the end of his treatment and begins a triumphant victory lap that takes him through cheering crowds in the hospital and across town.
Throughout it all, LL Cool J’s 1990 hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” plays in the background. Though the rapper doesn’t appear in the commercial, a Pfizer spokesperson told Fierce Pharma Marketing that he and his wife Simone Smith, a cancer survivor, have teamed up with the company to share their personal cancer journey and raise awareness about the importance of early detection.
The ad ends with the boy returning to his parents at home. As the family embraces, text on-screen shares Pfizer’s oft-repeated mission of “fighting for 8 cancer breakthroughs by 2030.” The final frame features the company logo, its “Outdo Yesterday” slogan and the web URL for its PfizerForAll direct-to-consumer platform.
Pfizer’s 2024 Super Bowl spot reportedly beat out fellow pharma advertiser Astellas’ Veozah ad in terms of their respective engagement boosts following last year’s big game. This time around, Pfizer will go up against another Big Pharma heavyweight, Novartis, which has produced a star-studded commercial promoting regular breast cancer screening.
Similar to Novartis’ goal of inspiring cancer-preventing action with its prime-time promo, Pfizer's new ad is aimed not only at raising awareness but also at encouraging viewers to take charge of their health and learn about their own cancer risk, the company's spokesperson said.
That’s where the PfizerForAll mention comes in: The platform, which launched last summer to help patients make doctor appointments, find vaccines and order needed tests and treatments, now includes a link to the American Cancer Society’s CancerRisk360 assessment, which identifies visitors’ cancer risk levels and lists actions they can take to reduce their risk.
PfizerForAll initially focused on connecting patients with care for common conditions like migraine, COVID-19, flu, respiratory syncytial virus and pneumococcal pneumonia. Since then, in addition to the cancer risk questionnaire, the company has added resources around atrial fibrillation as well as a “Health Answers by Pfizer” chatbot that uses generative artificial intelligence to answer health and wellness questions. After launching in August, per the company, PfizerForAll racked up nearly 10 million page views in 2024.
As for the commercial’s pledge to deliver an octet of “cancer breakthroughs” by the end of the decade, Pfizer laid out that plan as part of its revamped oncology strategy in early 2024. As the company's spokesperson noted to Fierce Pharma Marketing this week, Pfizer is expecting a trio of regulatory decisions in prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma this year.