Joe Nocera, Columnist

Those 'Political' Super Bowl Ads Weren't Quite About Politics

Commercials promoting diversity were aimed at employees, not customers or the White House.

Commercial opportunity.

Photographer: Patrick Smith/Getty Images
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What was the target audience for those commercials that ran during that glorious Super Bowl Sunday night? (I'm from New England.)

You know the ads I'm talking about -- the ones that were less about selling a product than conveying a sentiment about America. The Budweiser ad that depicted Adolphus Busch immigrating from Germany in the 1850s. ("Go back home," he's told as he walks down the street.) The Coca-Cola commercial, revived from 2014, in which Americans of different nationalities sing "America the Beautiful" in their native languages. The Expedia ad about influencing "narrow minds" and trying to "puncture prejudice." And, of course, the 84 Lumber commercial that tells the story of two illegal immigrants, a mother and a daughter, trying to find their way to the U.S.