The Haphazard Blog

Super Bowl Commercials

by on February 6, 2010 1:38 PM, under Entertainment, Politics, TV

CBS has created a small mess in choosing what commercials will be allowed to air during the Super Bowl. It started with the Tim Tebow and his mother’s commercial advocating for life. It is reported to be Pam Tebow’s story about choosing to continue her pregnancy despite the urging of doctor’s that she have an abortion because of the risks of the pregnancy. This of course turned into a Pro-Life/Pro-Choice war.

The underlying message in favor of life is a good one. I don’t quite get this commercial. Is it supposed to mean more because Tim Tebow is famous? Could there be a commercial where the mother of someone like Slobodan Miloševic? (if she is still alive) says she was urged to have an abortion but didn’t. Is that what Pam Tebow is implying? I think the spot would be more appropriate with commercial actors instead. The biggest issue people seem to have is that it is being paid for by Focus on the Family who have a public Pro-Life stance. If they had their way, people like Pam Tebow would not have a choice to make. (On a slight aside, people are actually questioning the validity of this story because Pam Tebow was told this in the Philippines where abortion was and still is illegal in all circumstances.)

CBS then went ahead and muddied the waters by rejecting a commercial from a male gay dating site, Man Crunch. It certainly seems like they are applying different standards to what is acceptable to air in these situations. There seemed to be plenty of push back against the Focus on the Family commercial. On the positive side, Man Crunch got a lot of free advertising without having to hand over $2.5-2.8M. Something to keep in mind for start up companies next year.

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