"It's Beautiful", Coca-Cola's 1-minute Super Bowl ad sparked a barrage of social media comments and backlash just a few hours after it aired.
It was a breath of fresh air to some, but the commercial apparently angered a lot of conservative authorities because of its multilingual version of "America the Beautiful".
The ad was meant to inspire patriotism and unity despite a diversity of ethnicities in the country. However, to conservative critics the likes of Glenn Beck, the ad wasn't inspiring at all. The radio host told his listeners Monday that the ad was selling "a divided America".
"And I said, 'Why did you need that to divide us politically?' Because that's all this ad is. It's in your face, and if you don't like it, if you're offended by it, you're a racist. If you do like it, you're for immigration. You're for progress. That's all this is: to divide people."
Former Tea Party congressman Allen West also didn't like the "truly disturbing" commercial for "using languages I didn't recognise"
Coke's Facebook page was also barraged by a host of complaints with the hashtag #boycottCoke and #SpeakAmerican, and has trended globally according to Mediaite.
Featured in the ad was the "It's Beautiful" song sung to the tune of "America the Beautiful" and an array of languages to describe America being a melting pot of cultures. It also showed the first gay parents in a Super Bowl ad.
Coke released a statement Monday and stood by its ad. Coca Cola North America executive Katie Bayne said, "With 'It's Beautiful', we are simply showing that America is beautiful, and Coke is for everyone"
"We hope the ad gets people talking and thinking about what it means to be proud to be American."
This shows that you really can't please everyone, and you can't expect everyone to get what you're trying to tell them.
Here's the full video of the Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
