Hims and Hers Super Bowl ad highlights ‘uncomfortable truth’ about elite healthcare for the rich and ‘broken’ system for the rest

The New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks may not be facing off at the Super Bowl until next weekend, but the ads that many tune in for have started rolling out. 

Telehealth startup Hims and Hers premiered a provocative commercial called “Rich people live longer,” narrated by the rapper Common, on Thursday.

The ad begins with a family posing for photos while a fast-moving piano riff plays, reminiscent of the title sequence of the hit HBO show Succession, which follows a Murdoch-inspired, ultrawealthy family that owns a media conglomerate.  

In the ad, the headline “Spends Millions Cheats Death” flashes across the screen before a Jeff Bezos-like figure—a man wearing a blue spacesuit taking off a cowboy hat in front of a rocket ship—appears on a television, a call-back to his first Blue Origin space flight in 2021. A man and a woman watching look at each other exasperated. 

Bezos is an investor in biotech startups Alto Labs and Unity Biotechnology, which research cell rejuvenation and removal of senescent cells, older cells that have stopped dividing but don’t die and appear to be a cause of age-associated diseases. 

Then, a lookalike of millionaire and longevity obsessive Bryan Johnson lies under a red light in a dark room for a cosmetic treatment called red-light therapy, which he is known to use to make him look younger.

“They are generous to feature me in their Super Bowl commercial. My mom said she’s proud,” Johnson told Fortune, adding that his Don’t Die movement now is “mainstream.”

Bezos did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. 

Luxury healthcare can range from the expensive to the eccentric, but Hims and Hers wants to challenge the idea you need to be wealthy to get good healthcare. 

“The campaign centers on the uncomfortable truth that America’s healthcare is a tale of two systems: one elite, proactive tier for the wealthy, and a broken, reactive one for everyone else,” the company said in a statement. 

Two out of three Americans are worried about paying for health care, more than other necessities like groceries and housing, according to a recent survey from KFF.

Healthcare premiums rose for about 22 million people following the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies at the end of 2025. There is little hope that the Senate will vote on the ACA subsidy extension bill that the House passed on Jan. 8.

“For too long, the ‘gold standard’ of healthcare has been a well-kept secret for the wealthy,” said Hims and Hers co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum in the statement. “It’s time to start democratizing access to the kind of proactive, personalized care that all people deserve.”

Hims and Hers offers diagnostic testing, hormonal treatments, and cancer detecting blood tests. 

The company saw a 650% traffic surge on their website after the ad came out, according to Hims & Hers data that the company shared with Fierce Healthcare.

The ad is a splashy follow-up to last year’s one-minute spot “Sick of the System,” which accused the pharmaceutical industry of price-gouging weight-loss drugs and fueling the obesity crisis. Hims and Hers advertised its compounded GLP-1s but drew criticism because the drugs aren’t FDA-approved/ The regulator called them “risky for patients” and told the company to stop “false and misleading” advertising. 

Super Bowl commercials cost as much as $10 million for a 30-second ad, and viewers should expect ads from tech, pharmaceuticals and wellness companies this year, Mark Marshall, NBC’s head of global advertising told Bloomberg. 

“There’s nothing that builds awareness like the Super Bowl and so I think that’s why you continue to see brands lean into it,” he said. Last year, 128 million people tuned into the Super Bowl.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com