Much Ado About Tebow
Now that the Super Bowl is over (sorry Colts fans), can we talk about the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad? Listening to the critics the past two weeks, you would have expected a super provocative anti-abortion spot. Instead, we get a cutesy spot that sold precisely two things: (1) motherhood and (2) Tim Tebow. Abortion isn’t even mentioned; Mom Tebow doesn’t even say something like “I had to make a choice, and I chose to keep Timmy.” She just talked about how difficult her pregnancy was. The old Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation “Life: What a Beautiful Choice” ads were edgier. Frankly, I think the most controversial part of the Tebow ad was the Focus on the Family tag at the end. The manufactured controversy over this ad, which probably was related to CBS’s rejection of a sitcom-y ad for a gay dating site (hands meet in bowl of chips, making out ensues), seems out of proportion to what actually appeared on television.
Also, GoDaddy just needs to Go. Enough teasing already.
See also: “Pro-Choice or Pro-Abortion,” by Eric Seymour
9 Responses to “Much Ado About Tebow”
I’d agree, I don’t see any big deal about the commercial itself. The bigger deal is the confusing, possibly arbitrary, standards CBS has for selling ad time. It wasn’t just the ManCrunch commercial this year but other advocacy groups in the past.
Whatever controversy raged, must have raged on cable and network tv, since I was mostly unaware of it.
Question: Who do you think manufactured the “controversy” over these ads in the first place? You can probably take this to the bank, it was Focus on the Family and the gay dating website. Bet the ranch that they both generated press releases at the same time they submitted their respective commercials to CBS Standards and Practices. They knew they could stir up all of the usual suspects (cable and network tv, lame weekly newsmags) and generate tons of free pre-game publicity. And it worked. The dating ad is on youtube, probably generating a ton of hits. And the post-game talk here that the Tebow ad is so tame means Focus on the Family has a very savvy media operation. Tons of pre-broadcast publicity for such a * mostly un-controversial spot.
CBS certainly did NOT generate the pre-game publicity. Every time this kinda stuff happens, a network Standards and Practices Dept gets inundated with angry phone calls and nasty-to-threatening emails over whether they will run something or whether they won’t. Network brass get rattled and email addresses in Standards and Practices have to get changed. PETA did something similar last year to NBC when it submitted its way-too-sexy-with-vegetables Super Bowl spot that they KNEW would be rejected. The network was very unhappy with the situation it got put in, while flacks for PETA faux-raged against NBC and the group reaped free publicity.
*I say mostly because the message of the Tebow ad, that pregnant women shouldn’t take their doctor’s professional advice, seems kind of controversial to me.
“Faux-raging”–heh. I like that. Belongs in the modern political lexicon next to “Astroturfing”.
Yes, Focus on the Family issued a press release about the Tebow ad last month. They surely knew it would result in controversy and free publicity, but I think they’d have issued it even if that was not the predictable outcome (for them to buy an ad in the Super Bowl is a remarkable event by itself).
Personally, I’d like to see CBS (and all TV networks) come out and say that their choice of what ads to air is solely at their own discretion, that they try to keep in mind the sensitivities of their viewership, but that they’re not obligated to provide “equal time” to anyone. Not that that would ever happen, but I’d respect that a lot more than cryptic references to corporate policies.
NOW, Planned Parenthood, and the Women’s Media Center all objected to the Tebow ad.
Of course they objected to the ad! They knew the backstory, and well, what will happen if ordinary women find out? They might start worrying their pretty little heads when their doctors push for unwanted and unnecessary abortions! They might start asking for a second opinion, even! We can’t have that! True women who earn the Prochoice Seal of Feminist Approval just submit meekly to whatever the nice doctor says! They don’t follow the dictates of their own wishes and their own conscience and their own beliefs! How silly that would be!
And of course they Feminists are also upset about the failure of the Tebow family to follow traditional gender roles. True feminism holds that the roughhousing is only for fathers. Mothers are supposed to bake cupcakes and wave pom poms. Tsk, tsk!
Eric,
The staff of a network’s S & P Dept are mostly legal and devoted to truth in advertising, as well as as the sensitivities of their viewers. CBS only recently decided to run advocacy ads, with the same considerations applied to them as to regular ads with regards to broadcast worthiness. Those considerations are the ad’s veracity and/or if its too racy for its viewing audience. Ideology is not a consideration. Networks take this stuff very seriously because they are sooooo sensitive to public opinion/criticism.
The Tebow ad ran because it wasn’t inaccurate and it wasn’t racy. The dating spot didn’t because the network censors felt something in it was racy enough to incite a replay of what happened after the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction. And that’s all there is to it, folks.
DMD,
As Focus on the Family hoped they would. NOW, Planned Parenthood, and the Women’s Media Center are evidently much less media-savvy than Focus, or else they were publicity piggybacking on Focus for themselves. Probably hoping to raise some $$$ pre-Tebow broadcast. Except post-broadcast they can now be portrayed by the right as “unreasonable” because the Tebow was so “tame.” Media games. This one went to Focus, IMO.
I should have maybe added. For a big, expensive Super Bowl spot, advertisers are invited (if not required) to provide all kinds of pre-production material, from scripts to storyboards for review for on-air worthiness. Networks will then work with advertisers to remedy sketchy product.
However, even in normal circumstances script changes happen up until the very last minute, as the client and ad agency revise and fine tune to death. Then the director and production company tweak the boards or throw out the agency’s boards altogether. You can probably magnify that by 10X for a Super Bowl spot.
The case of the dating ad might very well have been that CBS got something completely unexpected at the last minute.
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I suppose that if networks announced a completely arbitrary/sole discretion standard, I’d applaud their honesty but suggest that the government should stop licensing the public broadcast spectrum to them.