Hey kid, catch!

Whassup!?!

1984

And anything with Clydesdales. 

This Sunday, 130 million of us will sit down to watch one of our nation’s iconic annual cultural events. 

We gather to watch 60 glimpses into the current American zeitgeist. That is, 60 commercials representing the height of US advertising insight and prowess. In between these $8 million spots will be a football game called the Super Bowl.  

In our ever more fragmented landscape, this four-hour, more-than-a-sporting-event spectacle is one of our last remaining moments of cultural unification. 

From coast-to-coast, millions of us will be laughing, groaning, texting, posting, and arguing in real time about the exact same ads. While the sports newsfeeds will autopsy the big game, your lifestyle and business threads will rank and review the commercials. The ads will have more Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube internet views than any game highlights. 

There’s a win here for us, too, as healthcare leaders. It’s seeing those 60 commercials as the collective culmination of the largest focus group ever conducted.  

Leaders know that when a fractured societal landscape briefly assembles around common ground, there are lessons to learn—if they listen well.  

Listening as Leadership 

Good leadership begins with listening well. 

Not the polite, nodding, performative I hear you kind. But the attentive, observant way of being that notices mood, subtext, and what people respond to when they’re not being asked to fill out an engagement survey. 

It’s the kind of listening that’s always reading the room. 

This can be counterintuitive. We’re trained as leaders to speak, persuade, and explain. It is easy to mistake volume and verbiage for influence. After all, if we’re not talking, are we even leading? 

But it’s hard to lead well if you don’t know the hearts of the people you’re asking to follow you. And learning that comes from listening—and careful observation. 

Super Bowl commercials offer a rare chance to read an exceptionally large room. Your people, your patients, your members, your community. 

Not because the ads are “true” or accurate representations of the populace. Advertisers are not moral philosophers. But they are highly motivated interpreters of the moment. Each spot is an expensive strategic bet—not just on a product, but on what its creators believe we’re ready to hear, feel, and notice. 

The ads aren’t simply telling us who we are. They’re telling us who someone thinks we want to be. Good messages face forward.  

Paying attention to what these spots say—and how we collectively respond to them—can be excellent leadership groundwork. 

Cultural Time Capsules in 30 Seconds 

Look back and you can see it clearly. 

  • Apple’s “1984” ad didn’t just sell a Macintosh. It captured a fear of conformity and a hunger for rebellion.
  • Budweiser’s “Whassup!?!” in 1999 (revived many times since) was more than the introduction of a new catchphrase. It was the acknowledgement of our need for human connection in a year that marked the greatest and fastest uptake of American internet activity since its advent.
  • Post-9/11 commercials were restrained and reverent—the Budweiser Clydesdales bowing toward the New York skyline.
  • And the grandaddy of them all—1979’s “Hey kid, catch!”— was Mean Joe Greene being warm and aspirational, telling a country yearning to escape its “national malaise” that it was ok to dream. 

Super Bowl commercials become cultural time capsules, preserving not facts, but feelings, caught in a YouTube amber. 

This year, the Clydesdales will be back again, leaning into Americana imagery that resonates when the country feels unsteady. Other brands—Uber Eats, Doritos—are leaning into celebrity and absurdity, famous faces inviting us into a shared inside joke. Or maybe to distract us. 

A preview of the ad lineup suggests familiar formulas: celebrities, nostalgia, humor, reassurance. Watch for movie stars, friendly musicians, and athletes we trust.  

Trust seems to be the commodity being sold this year. 

Which raises the question leaders should be asking: Is the audience buying what’s being sold? 

What to Watch For 

As you watch, resist the urge to rank best and worst. Instead, notice patterns. 

What makes people laugh? What earns a quiet nod? What causes eyes to narrow, just briefly, with interest? 

A few signals worth watching: 

  • Tone. Is the night dominated by humor, or are there moments of sincerity? Humor can signal exhaustion—laughter as relief. Sincerity often reflects a longing for meaning or reassurance.
  • Nostalgia. Old songs. Familiar characters. When the future feels uncertain, a shared past becomes an attractive refuge. Remember when? We could be that again.
  • Borrowed trust. When the stars are the story, brands are borrowing credibility. It can work, but only for a moment. Eventually, the experience must be delivered.
  • Restraint. Pay attention to any ad that says less... that trusts the audience a little. Silence and ambiguity are rare (this is the Super Bowl, after all) and powerful when used well. 

Some commercials will fail spectacularly.  

But a few will land, inspiring the key question: Why did that one work? 

Penetrating the Noise 

As healthcare leaders today, we’re operating in a uniquely trust-starved environment. Patients, clinicians, and staff are exhausted, skeptical, and inundated with messaging—much of it well-intentioned. 

Leadership communication has never been more important.  

Leaders, like advertisers, are always communicating—laboring to persuade in a cacophony of noise. Our instinct can be to shout louder or repeat more frequently. To become a clanging bell. 

But the Super Bowl commercials that work, that truly resonate, can remind us of something quieter: That people don’t respond to volume or complexity. They respond to signals that acknowledge how they feel. Empathy as the doorway for engagement. 

The most important leadership communication skill right now may not be speaking. It may be listening. An investment of your focus will deliver significant dividends when it is time to talk. 

In the week after the game, walk your halls. Ask which commercials people loved or hated—and why. Then listen carefully to the answers. 

It will take you about 30 seconds—no charge. 

Ken Graboys and David Jarrard

About the authors

Ken Graboys, CEO of Chartis, began his journey not in an office, but in rural Africa, working in communities facing famine and limited access to care. It was there he saw how the foundations of health—food, medicine, compassion—could shape the trajectory of entire communities. In 2001, he co-founded Chartis with the mission to improve the delivery of healthcare in the world. His career path—from fieldwork in Mauritania to healthcare transformation—illustrates a commitment to cultivating healthier communities through thoughtful, sustainable action. 

David Jarrard, Chairman of Jarrard, grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee—a town shaped by science and innovation. His early career as a journalist covering human stories gave him firsthand insight into how storytelling can influence public perception and drive change, which naturally connects to healthcare, a field where clear communication can impact patient outcomes and organizational success. This foundation led him to build one of the nation’s leading healthcare communications firms.  

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