With Super Bowl LIV right around the corner, Olay is previewing its game day ad. While the football championship is historically a male-dominated event, Olay's Make Space For Women campaign puts the focus on the latest all-female NASA space walk — and it's seriously inspiring. From Taraji P. Henson to Katie Couric, here are all the badass women you can expect to see in the ad.
Ahead of the big game on Sunday, Feb. 2, Olay celebrated strong women in a video shared on Wednesday, Jan. 15, just hours after two astronauts at the International Space Station — Jessica Meir and Christina Koch — made history by conducting the second all-female spacewalk. Olay's campaign, which it's labeled #MakeSpaceForWomen, is all about closing the gender gap when it comes to the low number of women in STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) fields.
The company is putting its money where its mouth is — and you can help by taking just a few easy steps that could also potentially score you and a guest free tickets to Super Bowl LIV come February.
The 15-second preview shows retired astronaut Nicole Stott taking Lilly Singh and Busy Phillips on a mission into space with the help of Taraji P. Henson and Katie Couric. After joking about not knowing who has the keys to the spaceship, the group gets ready to head out. Viewers will have to tune in when the game airs on Sunday, Feb. 2, to see what happens next.
In addition to airing the ad, the skincare company will be donating money to the organization Girls Who Code. Here's how it works: Between Wednesday, Jan. 15 and Monday, Feb. 3, Olay will give $1 to Girls Who Code every time Twitter users use the hashtag #MakeSpaceForWomen and tag @OlaySkin in their tweet.
Stott, who's an engineer and a retired NASA astronaut, said the campaign spoke to her because of the current gender gap in the field.
"As a woman in STEM, I know what it’s like to be one of only a handful of women in a room — or on a space station," she said. "It's important for everyone to know that the spaceship doesn't care if you're a boy or girl."
Meanwhile, Empire's Henson celebrated the fact that the Super Bowl ad itself featured an all-female cast as a win.
"Being part of an ad geared toward women on a historically male-dominated night in advertising with a strong all-female cast by my side, and relaying the powerful message that there is enough space for women has been extremely rewarding on a personal and professional level," the actress said.
While it's also pretty rewarding in and of itself to help support the next generation of aspiring female scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and more, Olay is also giving users an extra incentive to start tweeting away. If you follow @OlaySkin on Twitter and tweet @OlaySkin using the hashtags #Sweepstakes and #MakeSpaceForWomen by Jan. 20, you'll be entered to win two tickets to the Super Bowl game, airfare for two, a three-night stay in a Miami hotel, and a $100 rideshare gift card. You can also enter by joining Club Olay and then clicking the "Enter Sweeps" button.
Again, the final Olay commercial will be airing during the game, but until then, you can head to Twitter to help support an empowering cause and cast your name in the running for some Super Bowl tickets.
