Tag Archives: Tebow

Super Bowl ad winners: Tebow soft-sell PR campaign and screaming chickens

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Hands-down the best Super Bowl commercial was the Tebow mother and son soft-sell, where the advance PR hullabaloo delivered the anti-abortion message, leaving the TV-spot, an advocacy theme flag-planting placed at a celebrated cost of three million dollars, to ice the cake. Only its detractors would find the final 30-second message anticlimactic. The “Tebow Ad” was a month long campaign. Count ABC and the NFL also big winners, whose commercial breaks were watched more closely because of the Tebow hoopla, especially lookouts anticipating a multiple Tebow spot. Sunday’s ads might have been scrutinized more than the game itself. Second place goes to the Denny’s Grand Slam screaming chicken spots, with another ad-world sophistication, piggybacking on the Tebow jitters with a spot that began with lighting a birthday cake, a Tebow feint, interrupted by the now-recurring alarmed chicken.

Focus on the Family’s brilliant move, orchestrated obviously by Madison Avenue talent and choreographed over the range of traditional advertising mediums –PR, editorials, activists– illustrates further what would-be social message advocates are up against when denied ad placement by the networks. Adbusters has sued the US networks for forbidding an anti-consumer spot. Could they have advanced an inoffensive and surrounded it with a meatier media debate? More and more it requires the collusion with the editorial bosses. Each successive Yes Men action has met with an ever tightening controlled response.

Media pundits are calling wins for the usual Budweiser and Dorito ads. Based on TiVo results. Bet you didn’t know those machines were returning the logs of your viewing habits in shorter than 30 second increments…

Tim Tebow here’s your sign

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Football-Ephesians-Tim-Tebow-Bible-Eye-BlackFootball evangelist Tim Tebow is at it again, proselytizing with his sportsman mascara. This time it’s Ephesians, something about how you’re saved by your belief in Jesus, regardless your deeds. It’s the same mentality that has Americans crusading against the Islamic world, desecrating humanity with an impunity sanctioned by blind faith. It’s the same mindless arrogance that emboldens Brit Hume to call Tiger Woods to Christianity, whose American tradition has it that all your mother killing and father raping will be forgiven. In Hume’s world, Tokyo Rose was tried for inciting war crimes. Hume doesn’t recognize that he’s guilty of worse. In Hume’s Christianity, apparently only Buddhists reap what they sow.

What is the point of the messaging in the eye black? Is it merely more ad space, like the helmets with the American flag decals, or uniforms with the Nike logos or embedded Swooshes, Gatoraid patchs and corporate sponsors of whichever bowl? Dark patches beneath the eyes might be nature’s way of easing the trauma of bright light on hangover sufferers. If the black light-sinks work, then Tebow’s white on black script most certainly impedes his vision.

It was always my impression that football players marked their faces with shoe polish like it was indian war paint, to give themselves a menacing look. I think that’s more Tebow’s motif, to intimidate with self-righteousness.

In which case, the I’m-better-than-you scripture reference would seem more along the lines of the sign which restaurants post above the coat rack: not responsible for stolen items, although common law dictates that if you are seated beyond line of sight of the garments you shed, the restaurant is responsible.

Tim Tebow informs us, through Ephesians, that he has chosen to follow God’s will for him, that his lifetime consist of playing American football. Whether they understands it or not, Tebow and company vitalize the spiritual center of America’s culture of violence. We kick ass, and hold God responsible.