Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl ad features Filipino language, family with gay parents

Air time during the Super Bowl—the US National Football League's championship game—is some of the most expensive advertising real estate in the world. And Coca-Cola has used its spot during this year's game to show a multilingual America with a rich diversity of cultures and families—and included Tagalog words to emphasize this.

The minute and a half spot featured "America the Beautiful" sung in at least seven different languages. It aired during a commercial break in the first half of the game.



Reactions have been mixed. The spot has earned praise from those who identified with some of the languages used, including Pinoys online who recognized the line “Sa ibabaw ng mga prutas!” as translation for the line “Above the fruited plain!”

“The best ad so far, I think, goes to Coke. But biased; my first language was Tagalog,” said Twitter user Clare Sayas, who also posted a link of the video.

“Nice. Didn't expect to hear Tagalog in the Super Bowl. Coke really is an amazing brand,” tweeted another user.

But some on social media were also quick to judge the rendition of the song, with some saying it violated the very American-ness of the patriotic hymn.

“I'm sorry but you can't sing about America in other languages. Thats just unamerican,” wrote one user, using the hashtag #f*ckcoke, which has since gained traction on the popular microblogging site.

“How dare you sing 'America' in different languages. F*ck Coca Cola. That's so disrespectful,” tweeted another user.

First gay family shown

Meanwhile, the ad is also historic for featuring the first gay family in an ad aired during America's big game.

In one of the vignettes showing how America is a melting pot of cultures and individuals, two male partners and their daughter are shown roller skating together.

The NBC report said that gay rights organization GLAAD has praised the ad, calling it "a step forward for the advertising industry."

Coca-Cola has received flak for being a main sponsor at the upcoming Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. The country recently passed a law that bans pro-gay "propaganda".  — Patricia Denise Chiu/BM, GMA News