Super Bowl ads usually spark a decent amount of conversation about whether they were funny or trying to send a specific message.
This year, a Christian group called âHe Gets Usâ is sparking a lot of debate after it chose to plop down millions of dollars to promote Jesus during the big game.
Not everyone was thrilled with the move.
MSNBCâs Joy Reid brought it up during a segment of her show Monday night. She began by suggesting Super Bowl ads were âreally not that great this year.â
However, the host noted, âBut two from a group called âHe Gets Us,â really stood out, telling viewers to be childlike and urging us to look past our differences with a tagline, âJesus loved the people we hate.'â
âWhat those ads didnât tell you is who was behind the âHe Gets Usâ campaign. Itâs part of a $100 million campaign to help promote Christianity and build the brand of Jesus, according to its backers,â she continued. âBecause his brand has really just never been built before.â
Listen to her comments below (starting at 35:48):
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Reid noted âHe Gets Usâ is a subsidiary of an organization that has donated more than $50 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) â a pro-life organization. She also pointed out the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated it an âanti-LGBTQ hate group.â
It is worth pointing out the Southern Poverty Law Center is not Gospel. They have their own views that factor into their decisions to label an organization a âhate group.â And just because they slap an organization with the label does not make it so.
Reid continued, âIn other words, itâs not as apolitical as âHe Gets Usâ claims. And I think it is fair to say Jesus Christ wouldnât spend millions of dollars on television ads promoting his image.â
âBut who knows? Next year, if his brand is sufficiently promoted maybe he can find a way to improve the officiating,â she quipped.
Reid was not the only one to criticize these ads. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suggested the ads made fascism âlook benign.â
Aside from the donations made by the parent company of âHe Gets Us,â it is unclear what Reidâs objections are to the ads. She did not make a theological argument about them. Instead, she seemed to suggest the ads were a waste of money because people know Christianity and Jesus.
By this logic, why should any successful brand spend money on ads?
Chances are, people know what Doritos taste like. Just thinking about Doritos, you can probably taste the cheesy flavor, and their triangle shape pops into your mind. And yet viewers saw ads for Doritos. However, you donât see people saying, âPeople know what a Dorito tastes like. They donât need to build their brand.â
And yet, with Christianity, there are so many different views and labels applied to Jesus and the Bible. So why not spend money on ads to try to reach people in America?
