Coca-Cola's Super Bowl Commercial - Not The Real Thing?

The Super Bowl. It’s a national pastime as American as baseball, apple pie and twerking. A day when we come together with family and friends for a total of four quarters to cheer or jeer a favorite teamwhichever team we despise the least. On this special day, millions of us throw eating regimens to the wayside as we scarf down hoagies, chicken wings, ribs and anything else that’ll fit in our bellies.

Ahh. The Super Bowl. An unofficial American holiday that, this year, managed to reveal what some would classify as shameful, un-American behavior. If your social media passion is anywhere close to the intensity of ours, then you most likely noticed the hoopla and haranguing that almost immediately followed the airing of Coca-Cola’s “America the Beautiful” commercial.

In less time than it takes for a soda to go flat, ‘Merica took to social media with hate-filled posts aimed at the multi-cultural spot. If you have yet to see it, brace yourself. The commercial shows Americans from all over the country enjoying a refreshing Coke as different voices sing America the Beautiful in (we hope you’re sitting down) multiple languages. Le gasp.

Although the negative comments caught the most attention, there were also positive remarks that supported the creative direction of the commercial. While the nasty commentary may have shocked many people, it’s not the first time that social media users have had an ugly reaction to a unique rendition of an American tune.

During Game 3 of the NBA Finals last year, the San Antonio Spurs invited 11-year-old San Antonio native Sebastian De La Cruz to sing the national anthem when musician Darius Rucker canceled his scheduled appearance. Sebastian professionally belted out the song in mariachi fashion while donning a traditional mariachi outfit. The onslaught of online responses that followed was pretty disgusting.

Now, what if someone chose to do a different version of a patriotic song that wasn’t, shall we say, as “ethnic” in its approach? Well, it happened… and it occurred Sunday… during all the Super Bowl hecticness when opera singer Renée Fleming opened the event with an operatic rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. However, what was social mania’s response?

I took it upon myself to do a little online experiment after the game to see what results I could find. First, I did a search for “super bowl 2014 coke america the beautiful” followed by another search for “super bowl 2014 national anthem”. As mentioned earlier, the first search revealed links to articles about the commercial’s online backlash with phrases like “commercial sparks outrage”, “Can you believe this reaction?”, “Racists explode at Coke” and, well, you get the idea. The second search, however, revealed comments such as “Renée Fleming sounds like an angel when singing the national anthem”, “Renée Fleming did a beautiful unique rendition” and “Renée Fleming makes history”. We’ll leave that there to simmer a bit – and won’t even try to decipher an article that states Queen Latifah “kept it safe for her rendition” of America the Beautiful prior to the big game.

In the middle of all the social media madness, however, it seems that no one immediately caught the historic moment during Coke’s commercial – the first gay family to appear in a Super Bowl ad. We’ll leave that for some simmerin’ as well. (It’s at the :43 mark if you’re interested in checking it out... and here’s something interesting to go along with it.) One thing that’s almost certain is that Coke knew what they were doing and most likely expected these results.

During the review stage of my article, a few of us sat around discussing the topic and some excellent points were made. For example, while many might want to immediately slap a label of racism on this behavior, is it really the correct term to use? We would like to think that our country has matured over the last few decades so could it be that people aren’t necessarily racist, but rather, they subscribe to an ideal which could be referred to as blind nationalism? A legacy that consists of the emotional leftovers from an old way of thinking. An outdated ideal that says you, you and you must sing a national song the way it was originally written and not the way you hear it in your heart? Yes, these songs can be seen as sacred to many Americans but this country is just as sacred to the many different people who live here.

As an old friend mentioned during our Facebook conversation about the controversy, maybe everyone should just have a Coke and a smile. Either way, we’ll let you make up your own mind. After all, America is a country that believes in freedom of expression. Right?

CultureSpan Marketing is a full-service marketing firm with its own in-house audio/visual production studio. We do social media, too! If your company is in need of an advertising campaign, give us a call at (915) 581-7900 so we can get started.