Chances are if you (among the millions) watch the Super Bowl today you’re going to see one ad that turns out to be highly controverial. The Hill:
Super Bowl advertisements have a long history of attracting political controversies, and this year is no different.
While the match-up between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will be country’s focus on Sunday, the high-priced ads during the game will come in a close second. And in an election year, the odds are that there will be some ads that stir up political controversy.
Terry, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president to attract attention to the anti-abortion cause, filed a complaint with the FCC after WMAQ Chicago, an NBC affiliate, refused to run his ad.
Jason Rose, a public relations expert in Arizona and partner of the firm Rose, Moser and Allyn, said the sheer size of the Super Bowl audience drives companies to take a risk in advertising.
(UPDATE: NBC scored a real touchdown with its own NBC network promo for the Super Bowl — a slick musical number from “How to Succeed” adapted to promote all of NBC’s shows with some of its biggest entertainnment and news names. GO HERE.)
The Hill gives these links to five of the most controversial Superbowl commercials:
Pepsi Max
Focus on the Family
Sales Genie
Snickers
Move On
And if those aren’t enough for you, here’s a collection of Super Bowl ads from past years:
The top 25:
The Top 10 from 2011:
The Best from 2010:
The Top from 2009:
The Top 10 from 2008:
The Top 10 from 2007:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.