Meta bets on its Ray-Bans mainstream appeal with a Super Bowl ad

Meta isn’t shy about its ambitions to make its Ray-Ban smart glasses a mainstream gadget. So much so, it’s made not one but two Super Bowl ads featuring not one, but two Marvel actors. (And Kris Jenner.) And as a little cherry on top, Meta announced it’s creating a limited edition Super Bowl version of the glasses that won’t be for sale to the general public.

You can already watch the first of the two Super Bowl ads, which features Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt causing chaos in Kris Jenner’s personal art collection. The actors are shown asking the Meta AI to identify art pieces, as well as translate foreign languages. Jenner, meanwhile, is shown asking the AI glasses to ring up her lawyer after an incident with a $6.2 million banana.

In a blog about the ads, Meta says the limited edition glasses will be a pair of matte black Wayfarers with either gold, mirror-like lenses or lenses featuring the team colors of the Super Bowl finalists. The glasses will also come with a custom-etched case. However, they won’t be available for purchase, hinting that these will likely be seeded to celebrities and influencers to drum up buzz.

There are a couple things at play here. For starters, smart glasses have come a long way with the public from the debacle that was Google Glass. Meta announced last week that the Ray-Bans have sold over 1 million units in 2024. That’s the type of success for an emerging gadget category that could justify an expensive Super Bowl ad. Second, Meta has recently shown it’s keen on pushing that success further using new styles and limited edition versions, not unlike how Nike or other sneaker companies create hype. Meta will purportedly release Oakley-branded smart glasses later this year for athletes, and last year, it also had a limited-edition translucent model of the Ray-Bans for its Meta Connect event.