A screenshot of Hims & Hers’ 2025 Super Bowl commercial (Sherwood News)

Hims & Hers threw a Super Bowl Hail Mary that landed incomplete. Now the receiver is on the sidelines.

Hims & Hers did get increased attention from the ad, but the product it showcased for millions of people is no longer at the center of its business model.

J. Edward Moreno

3/12/25 3:12PM

Hims & Hers’ Super Bowl ad attracted controversy, but it also led to a spike in web searches and drove a bump in traffic to the tele-pharmacy’s site.

The commercial focused on weight-loss drugs, though less than two weeks after it was shown to millions of people, the Food and Drug Administration took semaglutide off its shortage list, meaning Hims & Hers can no longer sell copies of Ozempic or Wegovy. The company now has to rethink its strategy on weight-loss drugs.

The ad also ruffled Big Pharma’s feathers, with Novo Nordisk (which makes Ozempic and Wegovy) buying full-page ads in The New York Times and USA Today the Monday after the Super Bowl, questioning the safety of compounded drugs. As Hims & Hers figures out how to move forward, one wrong move could potentially trigger a lawsuit from the Danish pharmaceutical giant.

A Super Bowl ad reportedly cost $8 million per 30-second slot, and Hims & Hers’ ad was one minute long, suggesting it likely cost them about $16 million before production and agency costs.

The company did not immediately respond to a request to comment, including an inquiry about much the ad cost it. Hims & Hers typically spends about half its revenue on marketing, with nearly $679 million spent on marketing last year.

Google searches of “Hims & Hers” spiked on the day of the Super Bowl, according to Google Trends data. But that didn’t necessarily translate to sustained traffic to the company’s website.

Data from Similarweb shows that web traffic to hims.com and forhers.com spiked the day of the Super Bowl, but on a month-over-month basis was less in February than in January, which is typical. (The domain forhims.com also redirects to hims.com, though its traffic is much lower.)

Max Knoblauch3/20/26

China’s EV startup trio have all become profitable

China’s EV startup trio, Nio, Li Auto, and XPeng, are now all profitable, following the latter’s Q4 results released Friday.

XPeng reported a quarterly net profit of about $55 million, compared to rival Nio’s Q4 net profit (also its first) of about $40 million. Li Auto posted Q4 net profit of less than $1 million.

All three companies being profitable offers a stark contrast to the EV market in the US, where Rivian quietly delayed its 2027 profitability target in a filing about its Uber robotaxi partnership yesterday. Lucid is likely further away, and last month cut 12% of its US workforce as part of its “path toward profitability.”

Still, it’s not all rosy for China’s EV startups, either. XPeng ADRs were down more than 6% in Friday morning trading as its Q1 sales forecast came in below estimates. As China rolls back subsidies, auto sales are slumping. Chinese retail EV and hybrid sales fell 32% in February from the same month last year.

9.3%

Max Knoblauch3/19/26

As the war with Iran produces the biggest spike in US gas prices since Hurricane Katrina, car retailer CarMax is continuing to see heightened interest in EVs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids.

“From Feb 1st - March 1st (inclusive), compared to March 2nd to March 15th (inclusive), we saw a 9.3% lift in page views for these vehicles,” a spokesperson for the company told Sherwood News.

As industry insiders recently told us, EV interest climbs when gas prices rise. That appears to be holding true even without EV tax credits, which the Trump administration ended under its new budget package.

CarMax also saw EV searches spike in 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting oil price spike.

Walt Disney Chairman And CEO Bob Iger Rings Opening Bell At NY Stock Exchange

It’s the end of Disney’s Iger era (again)

Incoming CEO Josh D’Amaro is replacing Bob Iger on Wednesday, though Iger will remain a senior adviser through the end of the year.

Max Knoblauch3/18/26

Claire Yubin Oh

trust me.

3/18/26

Small Danish company Trustpilot has become a surprise AI winner

Trustpilot’s profits jumped nearly threefold in 2025, thanks to AI chatbots eager to cite its website in their responses.

$35.4B

Max Knoblauch3/16/26

The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost automakers at least $35.4 billion since the start of 2025, according to a new analysis by Automotive News.

That total will continue to climb this year, since the Supreme Court’s February tariff ruling largely leaves the 25% levy on vehicles and auto parts untouched.

Toyota has taken the biggest hit, projecting more than $9 billion in tariff costs in its fiscal year ending this month, while Detroit’s big three automakers — Ford, GM, and Stellantis — were hit with a combined $6.5 billion tariff charge in 2025.

In the fourth quarter, automakers sold about 8% fewer imported vehicles in the US compared to the same period a year ago, per the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

Tariff charges come at a rough time for legacy carmakers, which are also scaling back EV plans following the Trump administration’s elimination of tax credits and fuel standard goals. According to Automotive News, the cost of EV write-downs and restructuring is, so far, nearly $70 billion.

Hims & Hers threw a Super Bowl Hail Mary that landed incomplete. Now the receiver is on the sidelines.

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