Serena Williams Super Bowl Commercial Pitches GLP-1 From Ro

Serena Williams has appeared in several Super Bowl commercials, but never one quite like this.

In a new spot from telehealth-provider Ro, the tennis great gives viewers granular detail about the effects of GLP-1 on her weight, joint stress, blood sugar and even cholesterol “I’m moving better on Ro,” she tells viewers. “I’m feeling better on Ro.”

In past years, Williams has helped Anheuser-Busch’s Michelob Ultra and Remy Martin make their marketing points. This time, an advertiser has focused more on her athleticism and less on her celebrity in a bid to make health-conscious Americans think more about whether they want to get on the wellness wagon.

“When an elite athlete likes Serena Williams is having the same weight loss struggles as millions of other patients, then that is clear proof that weight loss was never about willpower,” says Saman Rahmanian, Ro’s co-founder and chief product officer, during a recent interview. ‘So we decided to take that story a narrative and tell it during the Super Bowl.”

He declined to specify when the commercial might run during NBC’s February 8 telecast of Super Bowl LX, but agreed the cost was not small. NBC has been seeking between $7 million and $10 million for 30 seconds of ad time during the Big Game, according to people familiar with recent negotiations.

Consumers have been inundated in recent years with commercials spurring them to try weight-loss drugs ranging from Ozempic to Wegovy. In last year’s Super Bowl, telehealth provider Hims & Hers made a bid to put consumers in charge of gaining access to such medications, rather than being dependent on pharma giants such as Novo Nordisk.

Nabbing Williams for the effort may not have been as difficult as it seems. She is married to Alexis Ohanian, who is a member of Ro’s board of directors and an investor in the enterprise.

But she will certainly give the company an edge. “There’s really no one as disciplined as her, and her talking about weight loss meds just resonates differently,” says Rahmanian.

The Super Bowl ad is meant to launch a larger campaign demonstrating that people can be “healthier on Ro.” In addition to Williams, basketball great Charles Barkley, who lost 45 pounds and reduced knee stress, will appear. And so will lesser-known participants such as Hannah Nylander-Asplin, a Minneapolis-based runner who lost 75 pounds and was able to complete a marathon, or Deanna and Mitchell Taylor, Atlanta-based husband and wife who together lost 79 pounds.

The ad may cost a lot, but Ro executives are working to “make sure that its value is realized over time,” says Rahmanian and viewing the Super Bowl as a “catalyst.”