America... the Easily Distracted.

After the viewers of the Super Bowl were confronted with the Coca-Cola advertisement below, many opinions were voiced. Some referred to the mass voicing these opinions as a controversy caused by inferring that the advertisement was not as 'American' as it claimed due to its integrating of various cultures. In my eyes, the real controversy is slowly manifesting and unraveling but is currently cast to remain trapped in the desolation of silence- and maybe that is what Coca-Cola wanted all along.

Coca-Cola's strategy for this commercial certainly involved a soft sell, as it focuses more on manifesting emotion than its actual products. In fact, my personal opinion would say that this advertisement went way too far into the realm of the soft sell because when I saw it for the first time I was not concerned with the foreign languages and the united people of America-- I was wondering what the HECK this ad had to do with Coca-Cola. 

The hashtag for the commercial was #Americaisbeautiful. There was no verbal connection made between the concept in the advertisement to the brand. There was no typography that encouraged social media users to use that hashtag while enjoying the product. Nothing about this advertisement has anything to do with Coca-Cola, except the occasional drink is shown- but you have to look closely.

Moreover, something about this particular use of a soft sell and how the commercial barely fulfilled its branding duties unsettled me. Then I was in an Energy and the Environment course lecture- and it hit me.

It is of recent news that no longer can any Coca-Cola product produced in foreign countries still use raw natural cane sugar as its supplement for High Fructose Corn Syrup. My professor, Ed Schroth, noted that a gargantuan problem in terms of health for American's is, in fact and pun intended, obesity. In Coca-Cola's eyes this is a massive (again, intended) problem for their branding and product consumption as their products greatly contribute to this serious life-threatening condition. Clearly, Coca-Cola is NEVER going to utilize a hard sell technique in their advertisements. 

So just maybe, this whole "controversy" was easily predictable on their end- especially considering the demographic watching the Super Bowl in the first place. Anyone could have foreseen exactly what that advertisement would provoke out of some Americans.