Protests, legal briefs and massive amounts of tweets and social media opinions gave way to a couple of pointed Super Bowl commercials on Sunday.
Airbnb and Budweiser were the latest brands to take center stage as the world continues to grapple with the ramifications of an executive order passed by Donald Trump that aims to shut immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations.
Creating an ad of this magnitude, one that will air during the Super Bowl and bear a cost commensurate with that kind of spotlight, takes a great deal of time and care.
Seeing as how Trump penned his order just a couple weeks ago, it would be ridiculous to think any video would be intentionally crafted to that specific ban, but when it comes to Airbnb's Super Bowl spot, Trump's recent executive action is precisely the impetus behind the theme.
The ad states the following as a montage of faces pop up: "We believe no matter who you are, where you're from, who you love or who you worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept."
This then leads to the simple hashtag #WeAccept.
[READMORE]READ MORE: Appeals Court Rejects Bid to Reinstate Travel Ban [/READMORE]
According to CNBC, this simple but poignant commercial was aimed directly at the recent travel ban.
According to a source cited by CNBC, Airbnb wanted to purchase time during the Super Bowl, found out there was still some available and bought the airtime last Thursday.
It was a remarkably quick turnaround made possible by the fact that previous footage seen in Airbnb's September "Community Commitment" campaign was used.
As CNBC reports, CEO Brian Chesky, chief product officer Joe Gebbia and chief technology officer Nathan Blecharczyk helped craft the message seen over the footage.
Then there was another commercial that only seemingly fired back at Trump's order.
As The Washington Post reports, the following beautiful video depicting an immigrant Adolphus Busch making his way into the United States to co-found an iconic brand was created over the span of many months.
Marcel Marcondes, vice president of marketing at Anheuser-Busch, emailed The Washington Post and stated: "We created the Budweiser commercial to highlight the ambition of our founder, Adolphus Busch, and his unrelenting pursuit of the American dream. This is a story about our heritage and the uncompromising commitment that goes into brewing our beer. It's an idea we've been developing along with our creative agency for nearly a year."
Regardless of intent, a polarizing travel ban became the biggest topic of the night-aside from a collapsing Falcons defense.
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