For the second consecutive year, Dove is showing up at the Super Bowl in support of its Body Confident Sport campaign. The over-50-year-old brand will air a 30-second spot titled “These Legs” on Sunday night during the game’s 4th quarter. The ad was designed to address the fact that almost half of girls drop out of sports before they reach age 14, as a result of low body confidence.
In the spot, a toddler-aged girl is pictured running down a street. “At 3, these legs are unstoppable,” a text overlay reads, followed by, “At 14, she’ll think they’re unbearable. … 1 in 2 girls who quit sports are criticized for their body type. … Let’s change the way we talk to our girls.” The corresponding hashtag is #KeepHerConfident. The ad features a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” The brand tapped Grammy- and Oscar-award-winning artist H.E.R. to create an instrumental re-recording of the 50-year-old track.
A Super Bowl spot costs around $7 million dollars, sometimes even more. But according to Kathryn Fernandez, Dove’s head of purpose and engagement in North America, the opportunity makes the investment worthwhile.
“The Super Bowl is a cultural moment, where everybody’s tuning in — not only just to watch sports, but to watch the ads,” she said. “That includes a highly captivated audience of parents who have young kids who play sports. What we found last year was that this message really resonates with girl dads.”
The spot itself is just one part of a multi-faceted Dove campaign taking place over the next week, though the brand initially introduced its Body Confident Sport program in partnership with Nike in the fall of 2023.
Members of the brand’s Body Confident Collective will also be involved. The collective is a mentorship program featuring iconic women in sports, including tennis legend Billie Jean King, New York Liberty point guard Sabrina Ionescu, and gold medal track and field runner Tara Davis-Woodhall.
“I was bullied in school [for] having too big muscles. I was bullied for being the shortest athlete. Dove’s messaging [around] keeping girls in sports and keeping them in the game is something I can connect with,” Davis-Woodhall said, noting that she wished she’d had access to similar marketing when she was a budding athlete. Davis-Woodhall, who is 25, took home the gold medal in the women’s long jump at the 2024 Summer Olympics. “Half the time, coaches are men,” she said, adding that she hopes the materials Dove is creating help them become better coaches to young women.
Some of the athletes from the collective will be on site with the brand in New Orleans for Super Bowl weekend. And on February 6, they will attend a private pep rally for young athletes and their coaches where they’ll receive training on staying confident as they grow up.
“These are female athletes who all have personal, authentic stories that are deeply rooted in those statistics [about girls leaving sports at a young age],” said Fernandez. “They were told, ‘You’re too muscular,’ ‘You’re not tall enough,’ ‘You’re too skinny,’ ‘You’re too thin,’ ‘You’re too fat,’ all these things. And these women are absolutely iconic, incredible gold medalists and three-time grand slam champions.”
All members of the Body Confident Collective, regardless of whether they’re on the ground with the brand during the Super Bowl, will be sharing the campaign on their social media platforms. Body Confident Collective member Kylie Kelce, field hockey player, coach and wife of retired NFL player Jason Kelce, shared the spot with her 2.4 million Instagram followers on Monday.
Dove has also tapped influencers to post about the campaign.
“There’s a lot of surround sound, in terms of making sure that [education about] these issues gets in the hands of parents, mentors, teachers and people who have young people in their lives,” Fernandez said.
Finally, the brand partnered with Sports Illustrated on a special issue dubbed “Sports Re-Illustrated,” which will feature a promotional cover starring 10-year-old wrestler Honor Smoke, now the youngest-ever athlete to appear on one of the magazine’s promotional covers. The special issue will be distributed in New Orleans ahead of the game and will also run as a special section in the magazine’s March issue.
“What Dove has done historically in our advertising is make sure all women feel seen,” Fernandez said. “Yes, this is [a problem] that young people face, but with our support; with support from parents, coaches and mentors; and with programs like the Body Confidence Sport program, we can keep young people [in sports]. [It is our hope that], when society starts to put pressures on them, they can move through that because they’ll have the confidence to stay in the game.”
