Bragging About Rejected Super Bowl Ads

A week from Sunday the nation will sit mesmerized by muscular men duking it out on TV.. and in between those commercials they will also be watching the Super Bowl.

A few days a go the Business Insider asked Can We Please Put An End To The Fake "Rejected" Super Bowl Ads? Here are a few clips from it:

Ashley Madison doesn't want their ad on the Super Bowl. They deliberately made one that they knew would get turned down so that they could brag to the world that they are "controversial" and "too hot for TV." It's much cheaper that way.
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Companies figured out years ago that the best brand strategy isn't spending all your seed money on a Super Bowl ad. It's manufacturing a non-existent controversy around your Super Bowl ad, so that you get just as many people watching it at a fraction of the price.

(That also happens to be GoDaddy.com's entire business philosophy.)

Yes, it worked. We just wrote a post about Ashley Madison and JesusHatesObama.com, right? But guess what? Women in lingerie and political humor isn't too hot for TV or the Super Bowl. It's also not funny and it sure isn't clever.

Fake "Rejected" Super Bowl Ads? You gotta love this sort of ingenuity. Looking back on these "controversies" I have to admit that it never crossed my mind that it was all a ruse. Color me gullible. How about you? Were you duped?