Last year, Novartis debuted its first-ever Super Bowl ad with an aim of starting “a movement” around early breast cancer detection, as Victor Bulto, president of Novartis U.S., told Fierce Pharma Marketing at the time.
A year later, the Swiss pharma is returning to advertising’s biggest stage on another awareness-raising mission, this time focusing on boosting prostate cancer screening.
A minute-long commercial slated for its broadcast debut during Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 brings together a handful of familiar faces from the NFL to promote prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests for prostate cancer detection.
As with last year’s Super Bowl spot, the new ad is aiming to create a movement that moves the needle on early cancer screening: “We want to see how many men can we help—how can we demystify, remove anxiety about the test and have them get a PSA test the next time they go to the doctor,” Bulto said in a new interview with Fierce.
The “Relax, It’s a Blood Test” campaign will do that not only via the Super Bowl ad, but also through “a whole ecosystem” Novartis is building around the initiative, Bulto said. That includes a dedicated website filled with resources on prostate cancer and PSA testing, team-ups with several patient advocacy organizations and the company’s partnerships with several NFL teams and the league itself to further “amplify this [message] deep into the communities,” he explained.
In the commercial, Enya’s classic song “Only Time” plays over a montage of current and former professional football players—all tight ends, and all in full uniform—chilling out in various ways: floating in a pool, practicing yoga, having their hair brushed and painting a portrait of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians, to name but a few.
“Have you ever in your life seen tight ends this relaxed?” Arians asks. “You know what these tight ends are so relaxed about? Prostate cancer screenings. They’ve learned there’s a simple, finger-free blood test.”
Arians, a prostate cancer survivor himself, goes on to note that about 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetimes—a statistic represented in the eight men featured in the ad, as Bulto pointed out, and further reinforced by the serendipitous fact that many tight ends' jersey numbers begin with eight.
From there, Arians asks one of his former players, Rob Gronkowski, to pause his own soothing activity of brushing a horse to share an all-important lesson: “Relax your tight end.”
A series of close-ups show the other type of tight end unclenching as the voiceover reiterates that “prostate cancer screening starts with a simple blood test,” while former Atlanta Falcons player Tony Gonzalez takes a break from bird-watching to show off a red bandage on his arm.
The commercial ends with Arians and Gronk riding horses off into the sunset, under on-screen text directing viewers to the “Relax, It’s a Blood Test” campaign website for more information.
Novartis chose to take a more lighthearted approach to the ad as part of its goal of tackling the anxiety, discomfort and stigma many men associate with prostate cancer screening due to a mistaken belief that it requires a digital rectal exam.
“It’s not humor for the sake of humor, but rather, we always ask ourselves, what is the deep behavioral unlock that we can serve?” the executive said, noting that research shows humor works well to reduce anxiety in the target population of men aged 40 and up, as long as it’s done respectfully and by people they trust and admire.
Plus, he added, “We want to make sure it’s memorable—that they’re going to go and do something with it after they see it.”
That was certainly the case with Novartis’ 2025 Super Bowl ad, which was similarly attention-grabbing in the way it played on the focus often given to women’s breasts in society to emphasize instead the importance of prioritizing breast health.
According to Bulto, that campaign resulted in an 8% boost to mammograms in women under 40 and a 10% increase in sonograms, plus about a 70% bump in traffic to the Susan G. Komen organization’s website about breast cancer screening and diagnosis.
“One thing we learned that we’re now applying this year is that trust is really built when the health guidance taps into our shared humanity and is delivered through voices, through channels, through communities and cultural moments that people already believe in, like the Super Bowl,” he said.
As for Novartis’ renewed commitment to using the massive stage of the NFL championship game to spread awareness and encourage regular health screening—rather than advertising a specific product or even the company itself more explicitly—Bulto suggested that it ties into the pharma’s duty as a leader in developing cancer treatments.
“What we’ve learned through all these years is that beyond being a leader from a scientific perspective, we have a responsibility to go upstream and really ask ourselves, how can we help? What is our responsibility well beyond our medicines?” he said, adding, “There’s nothing more effective than catching this disease early, and as such, we would rather patients have to do that than rely on one of our treatments.”
In addition to prioritizing patient health, that approach also reflects the company’s responsibility toward healthcare providers and the broader healthcare system, he said, “because there’s nothing more cost-effective than an early diagnosis.”
“We believe that’s a wonderful way of serving our community and, of course, building trust in our brand as well,” he continued. “We want people to know that we care deeply about their health and that we will be there only after they need us. That’s very, very important for us.”