Entertainment
Super Bowl Advertisers Aim Not to Offend
MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Super Bowl advertisers are being careful not to offend.
GoDaddy decided not to run an ad that showed a dog being sold online so as not to offend dog lovers. The Victoria’s Secret angels are fully clothed in its teaser spot, at least, although they reveal more in their actual Super Bowl ad. And an anti-domestic abuse commercial will have a high profile-spot during the game after a year of domestic violence scandals in the NFL.
Advertisers have to find a balance between grabbing people’s attention and not going too far to shock or offend a broad base of more than 110 million viewers. They want to be sure to make the estimated $4.5 million they’re spending for a 30-second Super Bowl ad worth it. This year, that seems to mean erring on the side of caution.
“Companies are being more prudent,” said MediaPost columnist Barbara LIppert. “It’s also a very weird atmosphere with all the coverage about deflated balls and domestic abuse. Maybe advertisers want to be a little more careful in that climate.”
It’s a far cry from the dot.com commercial attempts in 2000, when an E(asterisk)Trade ad showed a monkey in a garage and touted the fact that the company had just wasted $2 million dollars, but MediaPost’s Lippert says it makes sense to be restrained.
Even GoDaddy, which made its name with racy Super Bowl spots since it began advertising 11 years ago, has been moving away from being edgy; last year one of its Super Bowl ads focused on a woman running a small business.
This year, they promised a warm and fuzzy ad featuring a puppy, spoofing a Budweiser ad from last year that also featured a puppy. But the twist at the end of GoDaddy’s spot showed the puppy was being sold online via a web site created with Godaddy.com. After it debuted early, a social media storm erupted, with pet lovers finding the ad offensive. GoDaddy said late Tuesday it wouldn’t air the ad.
“At the end of the day, our purpose at GoDaddy is to help small businesses around the world build a successful online presence,” said CEO Blake Irving. “We underestimated the emotional response.” GoDaddy says it has another ad it plans to run.
Wix.com, which helps people build web sites, has taken a lesson from GoDaddy. Instead of debuting as a Super Bowl advertiser with a racy spot like GoDaddy did when it was a new advertiser, Wix.com went for non-edgy laughs with an ad that shows retired football players coming up with funny fictional businesses. Brett Favre, for instance, invents a charcuteries business called “Favre and Carve”).
Other companies appear to be playing it safer too by not focusing so much on bare skin and sophomoric humor. A Victoria’s Secret 90-second teaser ad showed supermodels fully dressed as football players. The actual Super Bowl ad shows the models dressed in Victoria’s Secret lingerie, though.
And the NFL is airing a public service announcement from NoMore, a coalition of anti-domestic abuse organizations. The ad depicts a chilling 911 call from a battered woman to demonstrate the terror of domestic abuse.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Entertainment
O.J. Simpson, 76, Dies of Prostate Cancer
Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.
By Post Staff
Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.
Born and raised in San Francisco, the Galileo High School graduate was recruited by the University of Southern California after he was on a winning Junior College All-American team.
At USC, he gained wide acclaim as a running back leading to him becoming the No. 1 pick in the AFL-NFL draft in 1969 and joining the Buffalo Bills, where he had demanded – and received — the largest contract in professional sports history: $650,000 over five years. In 1978, the Bills traded Simpson to his hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, retiring from the game in 1979.
Simpson’s acting career had begun before his pro football career with small parts in 1960s TV (“Dragnet”) before “Roots” and film (“The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” Capricorn One”).
He was also a commentator for “Monday Night Football,” and “The NFL on NBC,” and in the mid-1970s Simpson’s good looks and amiability made him, according to People magazine, “the first b\Black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”
The Hertz rent-a-car commercials raised his recognition factor while raising Hertz’s profit by than 50%, making him critical to the company’s bottom line.
It could be said that even more than his success as a football star, the commercials of his running through airports endeared him to the Black community at a time when it was still unusual for a Black person to represent a national, mainstream company.
He remained on Hertz team into the 1990s while also getting income endorsing Pioneer Chicken, Honey Baked Ham and Calistoga water company products and running O.J. Simpson Enterprises, which owned hotels and restaurants.
He married childhood sweetheart Marguerite Whitley when he was 19 and became the father of three children. Before he divorced in 1979, he met waitress and beauty queen Nicole Brown, who he would marry in 1985. A stormy relationship before, during and after their marriage ended, it would lead to a highway car chase as police sought to arrest Simpson for the murder by stabbing of Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.
The pursuit, arrest, and trial of Simpson were among the most widely publicized events in American history, Wikipedia reported.
Characterized as the “Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 but found liable in the amount of $33 million in a civil action filed by the victims’ families three years later.
Simpson would be ensnared in the criminal justice system 12 years later when he was arrested after forcing his way into a Las Vegas hotel room to recover sports memorabilia he believed belonged to him.
In 2008, he received a sentence of 33 years and was paroled nine years later in 2017.
When his death was announced, Simpson’s accomplishments and downfalls were acknowledged.
Sports analyst Christine Brennan said: “… Even if you didn’t love football, you knew O.J. because of his ability to transcend sports and of course become the businessman and the pitchman that he was.
“And then the trial, and the civil trial, the civil case he lost, and the fall from grace that was extraordinary and well-deserved, absolutely self-induced, and a man that would never be seen the same again,” she added.
“OJ Simpson played an important role in exposing the racial divisions in America,” attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson’s legal “dream team” told the Associated Press by telephone. “His trial also exposed police corruption among some officials in the Los Angeles Police Department. He will leave a mixed legacy. Great athlete. Many people think he was guilty. Some think he was innocent.”
“Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson’s children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time,” Magic Johnson said on X.
“I feel that the system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” attorney Gloria Allred, who once represented Nicole’s family, told ABC News. “I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family, and they should be remembered.”
Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment, according to Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. He died in his Las Vegas, Nevada, home with his family at his side.
He is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason from his first marriage and Sydney and Justin from his second marriage. He was predeceased son, Aaren, who drowned in a family swimming pool in 1979.
Sources for this report include Wikipedia, ABC News, Associated Press, and X.
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