Sunday’s broadcast of America’s most-watched sporting event will be the fourth to feature an ad asking viewers to reconsider Jesus. View it here.
“More” is the title of this year’s 60-second “He Gets Us” ad, a fast-paced, visually jarring look at the human quest to acquire money, beauty, toys, technology and pleasure. It concludes with two lines of text:
“There’s more to life than more.”
“What if Jesus shows us how to find it?”
The final screen reads, “HeGetsUs.com.” The ad seems to echo the teaching of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
The message of the ad is, “Despite all the noise, what if Jesus has what we’re looking for?”
The purpose of the ad is “to invite all people to move one step closer to the authentic Jesus, wherever they are,” said Tyler Johnson, a former pastor who serves as chief impact officer of Come Near, the ministry behind the ads.
The ministry hopes viewers who go to the HeGetsUs.com website will start a “micro-journey” toward Jesus through the site’s articles, videos and FAQs. People who go to the resources page will find information about reading the Bible along with an invite to “connect in a group.”
People interested in the group option can look up the closest nearby churches hosting Alpha groups that use material created by a British evangelism project.
Filmed in Los Angeles, the “More” ad is based on insights from research data, a national study with 5,000 respondents and 30 focus groups in six cities, exploring Americans’ views on spirituality and felt needs.
This is the fourth year for “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ads and the second year they’ve been produced by a Colorado Springs ministry called Come Near that took over the project from another ministry that launched the effort.
Come Near is named for a passage in the New Testament epistle of James: “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
The ministry doesn’t track how many people have become Christians through its work but does track viewer responses, including nearly 10 billion video views and more than 56 million online visitors. They’ve been encouraged to see 2 million Google searches for “Jesus” in the days after the ads air.
Ken Calwell in Papa Murphy’s ad
Come Near is a 20-employee nonprofit that has no physical office. Its chief executive is Ken Calwell, the former Pizza Hut marketing executive who introduced America to the stuffed crust pizza with an ad featuring Donald Trump. Calwell worked for Colorado Springs-based Compassion International from 2017 to 2023 before joining Come Near.
The ministry doesn’t reveal its budget, but Super Bowl ads aren’t cheap to create or air. This year, 30-second ad slots were going for $7 million to $8 million each and all were spoken for by September.
The He Gets Us campaign will continue with additional ads on broadcasts of soccer’s World Cup this summer and more ads scheduled for Christmas time. Other ads include one called “Be,” another called “Do,” and one called “Don’t.”
Since the He Gets Us Super Bowl ads firsts aired in 2023, they have been intended to cut through negative stereotypes people have about religion and introduce them to the “authentic” Jesus, who was not “safe or predictable.”
“What’s interesting is that the way Jesus is often talked about today doesn’t always match how he shows up in the stories about him,” says the Come Near website.
“In those stories, Jesus spends most of his time with people who are worn down, stressed or quietly overwhelmed. People carrying too much. People anxious about money, health, belonging or whether they’re getting life right. He notices the ones others overlook. He challenges systems that add pressure instead of relief, especially for people already living close to burnout.”