Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

In the year of the “go viral or go home” Super Bowl commercial, Coca-Cola is now embroiled in the latest advertising controversy for going too far on-air and online with an offensive spot in the desert. The soda giant’s cowboys vs. showgirls vs. badlanders “choose your own adventure” style ad is being condemned by Arab-American groups for what they call a “racist” depiction of Arabs, Sue Zeidler of Reuters reports. The spot, which you can watch for yourself below, begins with an image of camels being ridden through a desert:

According to the Reuters report a number of leaders in the Arab-American community have issued complaints. President of the Muslim Institute for Interfaith studies Imam Ali Siddiqui said: “The Coke commercial for the Super Ball is racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish Camel Jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world.”

But the controversy isn’t limited to the one-minute spot. As teasers and hashtags and online campaigns become must-have additions in a crowded advertising world this Super Sunday, Coke’s “You Decide the Ending” vote has come under intense scrutiny as well. Though Coca-Cola is asking viewers to vote for which team “wins the Coke” at the end of the ad, the group with the camels doesn’t even participate in the competition — and online voting options only exist for the other three groups featured in the spot.

The director of legal and policy affairs at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Abed Ayoub asked, according to Reuters: “What message is Coke sending with this?” He added: “By not including the Arab in the race, it is clear that the Arab is held to a different standard when compared to the other characters in the commercial.” Ayoub said his organization intends to communicate with both CBS and Coke and he wants to see “how can we fix this if possible before Sunday.”

Is stereotyping wrong when the qualities being assigned to a given group are positive ones? How you answer that question probably determines whether you believe Volkswagen’s new Super Bowl commercial about people so happy they speak in Jamaican accents is racist or just cute.

I tend to err on the side of cute, but I wouldn’t argue with anyone who finds it to be in poor taste. There’s certainly something patronizing about reducing an entire complex culture down to “Don’t worry, be happy.”

Is “Dave” the face of the real Jamaica — a nation beset by intense corruption, violence and poverty — or the one that American tourists want to imagine (and the Jamaican tourism industry wants them to imagine)? It smacks of minstrelsy.

Still, Volkswagen says it tested the ad extensively with Jamaicans and got positive feedback. On YouTube, the response has been similar, running nearly 19-to-1 in favor.

If there’s an objective problem with the spot, it may be that it’s factually dubious. Jamaicans are not actually among the world’s happiest peoples, either according to the U.N. World Happiness Report or the Legatum Prosperity Index.

Read More at : Forbes

Read more and see the ad in question at: FOX News

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) took to the House floor Tuesday night to criticize what she called a “demeaning” Pepsi ad that aired during the Super Bowl.

In the ad for Pepsi Max, a black woman sitting on a park bench gets angry with her husband after an attractive, white female jogger sits down next to the couple and smiles and waves at the man.