If you tuned into the Super Bowl Sunday night — or at least the commercials — maybe you caught Coca-Cola's "It's Beautiful" ad.
Coca-Cola ad "America the Beautiful"
It featured the patriotic tune in a number of different languages and showed cultures from all around the world.
The ad even showed a gay family for the first time in Super Bowl commercial history. (Via NBC)
In a statement Coke's president of North American brands said, “‘It’s Beautiful’ is exactly what Coca-Cola is all about: celebrating the diversity that makes this country great and the fact that anyone can thrive here and be happy. We hope the ad gets people talking and thinking about what it means to be proud to be American.” (Via Coca-Cola)
But as TIME puts it, Coca-Cola’s “'It’s Beautiful' Super Bowl Ad Brings Out Some Ugly Americans."
And there was no shortage on Twitter. By mid-morning Monday, the trolls were still out, talking about the ad with America the Beautiful and #boycottcoke trending.
Just a few of the relativley less offensive tweets read, "@CocaColaCo Ur superbowl ad was offensive & need an apology.No need 4 other languages Only English #BoycottCoke" (Via Twitter / @WhichWhich1)
And there's this one from Miss Teen Missouri United States, "Soo I will no longer be drinking Coke products #America #speakEnglish" (Via Twitter / @MeganReneeKelly)
Oh, just a side note, English is not actually the official language of the U.S. — there isn't one. (Via answers.usa.gov)
Now, it should be noted that a large amount of people did actually defend the ad. Including media outlets...
With headlines like this. (Via Deadspin)
And TheHuffington Postpoints out, grabbing attention is the whole point of an ad — so Coke's kind of winning. "While the ad surely makes a statement about the multilingual nature of America, the end goal is, of course, publicity. Even if some of what's being said is negative, the company still achieved their objective. The whole purpose of the ad was to get people talking about Coca-Cola -- in any language."
This comes just days after the racial backlash from this interracial family in a Cheerios commercial.
(Via Cheerios)
That one seriously almost blew the top off the Twittershpere. An MSNBC employee was ever fired over a tweet about the commercial. (Via The Wall Street Journal)
Coke's minute-long ad cost an estimated $8-million dollars according to The Washington Post.
