Liquid I.V. plans ‘bold’ PSA in first-ever Super Bowl ad

The typical Super Bowl Sunday meal plan largely revolves around beer and salty snacks. But this year, Liquid I.V. is reminding people to stay hydrated, too.

The brand’s inaugural Super Bowl campaign has been subtly rolling out for the past couple of months, with the official 30-second spot set to air during the first quarter of the game. While Liquid I.V. is a Super Bowl rookie, the company is no stranger to sports and entertainment marketing, having sponsored music festivals, F1 races, and even The Summer I Turned Pretty since the hydration brand revealed a brand refresh in 2024, so the Big Game was a natural next step.

“The Super Bowl is the next biggest stage for us to put our brand on,” CMO Stacey Andrade-Wells told Marketing Brew. “We’ve gone with a very bold public service announcement that your dehydration is trying to get your attention, and Liquid I.V. is the answer.”

A few years back, advertising a health-related product during the Super Bowl might have made a splash on its own, but this year, Liquid I.V. is joined by a roster of food and beverage advertisers emphasizing protein, fiber, and low sugar in their products, as well as pharma brands like returning advertiser Hims & Hers.

To make its campaign memorable, Andrade-Wells said her team is taking a Hollywood-style approach to production, tapping into some star power, and betting that “a slightly polarizing idea” will pay off during the broadcast.

Take a look at me now

Liquid I.V. is keeping its full ad concept under wraps until the spot airs during the game, but has so far described it as a “wake-up call for everyone, from the players and coaches on the field to the fans cheering in the stands or from the comfort of their home.”

The campaign was modeled after a “blockbuster film,” Andrade-Wells said, and is accompanied by a soundtrack recorded by KPop Demon Hunters star Ejae. One 15-second teaser features Ejae in a glamorous bathroom stepping up to a microphone while her cover of Phil Collins’s “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” plays, and another depicts a janitor mopping a public restroom.

Ejae won’t appear in the spot that airs on game day, but she’s been posting social content with Liquid I.V. in the run-up. The Liquid I.V. team chose to incorporate Ejae in its Super Bowl campaign because she already uses the product and because of the cultural impact of the Netflix movie, Andrade-Wells said.

“What she did with KPop Demon Hunters this past fall was cultural-zeitgeist central,” Andrade-Wells said. “It’s a perfect connection because we’ve always played in the space of culture and [try] to stay on top of that.”

Big-league beverage

Liquid I.V. has been pushing into the sports space for the past couple of years; 2024 marked the start of its partnership with the Miami F1 Grand Prix, where it also showed up in 2025, in addition to activating at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Liquid I.V. also inked a sponsorship deal with LAFC last year.

The brand has now recorded over $1 billion in retail sales, making this year suitable for its Super Bowl debut, Andrade-Wells said, although she added that it “still has immense growth potential.”

“There’s still so many people who haven’t even heard of us, and so the Super Bowl was a great opportunity for us to keep building on what we’ve done so far, but be able to reach an even broader audience than we’ve ever reached before,” she told us.

The campaign is designed to drive awareness, sales, and conversation, Andrade-Wells said, which she hopes to achieve in part by pushing the envelope in terms of messaging.

“We wanted to inspire dialogue,” she said. “We wanted to be memorable. We want there to be a little bit of healthy debate.”