The Made In America advertising was understated this year.
Another Super Bowl is in the books, and they’re getting ready for the parade in Philadelphia. But the Big Game isn’t only about football; it’s a cultural event, a sometimes explicitly political event, and – as always – an advertising bonanza.
A 30-second commercial in 2025 cost about $8 million, according to USA Today. That amount of money makes it fascinating to see what companies and their ad departments decide to spend it on. This year, Mountain Dew decided to go with an anthropomorphic Seal (my verdict: weird). The Detroiters guys pitched pizza rolls (my verdict: hilarious). But few in 2025 leaned into the patriotism that has been the purview of Made In America commercials in years past.
It’s certainly not a topic that’s out of bounds. There have been a handful of such commercials over the Bowls that have highlighted a product’s origin, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, Chrysler exemplified the latter with its Imported from Detroit spot featuring Eminem in 2011, and then with Clint Eastwood’s “it’s halftime in America” monologue in 2012.
Illinois manufacturer WeatherTech, meanwhile, has been the standard bearer for the former. In 2014 the company – that produces vehicle floormats and accessories — ran an ad explicitly about how American-made its production process was. It then repeated the formula with ads in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Here’s the WeatherTech ad from 2014:
But again, that’s not the case this year! WeatherTech, which (as evidenced by buying yet another spot in 2025) clearly sees a return on a Super Bowl advertising strategy, took the comedic route this year, running a spot about grannies wilding out in a convertible and spilling stuff all over their car’s interior.
In our estimation, the most American-made Super Bowl ad in this cycle was the following one from Jeep, which produced another understated spot. And that tracks; Jeep is owned by Stellantis, which is the parent company that owns Chrysler, which is the brand that cranked out the Imported From Detroit ads 15 years ago. Jeep’s ad was patriotic, and leans heavily on Harrison Ford’s gravitas to convince the audience of its Americanness:
For what it’s worth: There are a couple of Jeep models that are very pretty American-made, according to the most recent Kogod Made In America Auto Index.