At a time when plenty of NFL players and coaches are tiptoeing around the issue of politics, multiple companies opted to embrace political themes in high-dollar Super Bowl ads. The risk apparently hasn’t triggered a bad result, yet.
Jack Marshall and Alexandra Bruell of the Wall Street Journal explain that “for the moment there’s no evidence any advertisers are facing a serious backlash that could impact their sales or the perception of their brands long-term.” Marketing experts believe viewers “saw what they wanted to see” in commercials that “were just subtle enough to allow for multiple interpretations.”
Commercials from companies like Budweiser, 84 Lumber, and Airbnb contained statements about immigration and inclusion, messages that can be construed as opposition to policies of the new administration. The ads possibly aren’t creating a major backlash because supporters of the administration’s policies would say that the goal isn’t to stop legal immigration or inclusion -- even if the practical effect of the policies could be to do just that.