Super Bowl Babies commercial is creepy NFL propaganda
The NFL is bordering on creepy with their “Football is Family” campaign, and that was on full display again last night. Here is the full “Super Bowl Babies Choir” commercial rolled out by the league during Super Bowl 50. Just watch it and try not cringe.
Obviously, the NFL is a business. And businesses naturally want to retain customers’ loyalty for their entire lives, and ideally, have those sentiments passed on to the next generation. But this was just odd.
One of my personal favorite follows on Twitter, Tom E. Curran nailed it last night:
Nothing says, "Let's start a family!!" like 9 hours of chili, chips, wings, booze and the aural aphrodisiac Phil Simms.
— Tom E. Curran (@tomecurran) February 8, 2016
The NFL is in weird territory here, hinting that successful outcomes in football lead to a regeneration of life. It’s not a good look.
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What’s really at play here is the NFL trying to push this notion of a football-filled life, where the consumer doesn’t just watch their team on Sundays, but outfits his or her entire wardrobe in NFL apparel, attends the laughable Pro Bowl and so on.
But it’s a little hard to generate goodwill toward your brand when every week it comes to light about a former player experiencing the effects of head trauma sustained over the course of a physically costly NFL career. The NFL is trying to put out the fire caused by the concussion issue, the Deflategate debacle and countless other public relations hiccups with the “Football is Family” campaign.
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Football, just like every other sport and avenue through which humans express themselves, can be family for some people. Just like coffee can be family, and pickup basketball at the local YMCA and the knitting club at the library. But the “Super Bowl Babies” ad and the other “Football is Family” efforts represent the NFL laying on the feel-good aspects of the game a little too much.