Coca-Cola Advertises Diversity

By Patrick Kevin Day, LATimes

Every year, there’s always one Super Bowl ad that generates a bit of next-day controversy. And this year’s ad appears to be Coca-Cola’s “It’s Beautiful” ad. The one-minute ad features children and adults from all walks of life, from across the country, singing “America the Beautiful” in multiple languages. Seems fairly straight-forward, right? Not like the infamous Bar Refaeli Go Daddy ad from last year that featured the Israeli supermodel making out with a nerd.

However, two aspects of the ad appear to have turned it into one of those cultural hot spots (or at least a lukewarm spot) that ignites a little social media outrage for awhile. Some objected to the idea of hearing “America the Beautiful” sung in languages that were not English. Others objected to the inclusion of two gay dads in the ad. […]

The multilingual aspect of the ad drew fire from former Republican Congressman Allen West, who wrote a blog post saying, “If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing “American the Beautiful” in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come — doggone we are on the road to perdition.”
Conservative columnist and Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes tweeted his dislike of the ad, writing, “So was Coca-Cola saying America is beautiful because new immigrants don’t learn to speak English?” (. . .)

Slightly more complicated is the controversy surrounding the inclusion of a gay couple in the ad. Coca-Cola has been under pressure for being a sponsor of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where the government has taken a decidedly anti-LGBT stance in the weeks leading up to the games. While, some felt the inclusion of a gay couple in the ad was a positive show of support, others felt it didn’t go far enough.

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