Video: Coca-cola features ‘first gay family’ in a Super Bowl advertisement
On Sunday, soft drinks giant Coca-Cola became the first ever Super Bowl-sponsored company to include a gay couple as part of its advertising campaign in the US sporting event.
The clip, which aired yesterday, spans a diverse range of ethnicities and individuals standing in as representatives of the country. It ends on the vignette of two male partners and their daughter who are shown roller skating together.
The hashtag #AmericaIsBeautiful then appears on screen accompanied by a chorus of children singing “America the Beautiful.”
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said: “Coca-Cola has demonstrated to corporate America that being LGBT-inclusive is good business, but as the world turns its attention to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics, it’s time for sponsors of the Olympics like Coca-Cola to show the whole world how beautiful LGBT families are.”
The ad follows a string of recent controversies faced by the company with regards to their treatment of the LGBT community.
The Olympic Sponsors, criticised in the past for failing to stand up against homophobia, launched their South African-based Share a Coke campaign in January, which banned users from printing the word “gay” on the side of a can of Coke.
The company later took down the website, and told Buzzfeed: “We are aware that the Share a Coke promotion we are running in South Africa has generated an unintended outcome. We apologise for any offence caused.”
In that same month, the company also published photos online of a group of gay rights activists who interrupted its Christmas advertising campaign with a surprise demonstration against its 2014 Winter Olympics sponsorship.
