Pro-Life advertising to be shown during Super Bowl XLIV

It is the biggest day of the year for US advertising with companies spending between $2.5 million and $2.8 million to ensure their product is seen by the widest possible audience. But this year's Super Bowl will take advertising to a new market.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports a new ad will air on behalf of the evangelical Christian organisation Focus on the Family, featuring the University of Florida's star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam. The ad is expected to focus on her decision to ignore medical advice to have an abortion. The almost $3 million advert, which Focus on the Family says was paid for by donations, contravenes a network policy regarding the type of ads shown during the Super Bowl. Online petitions have called on the CBS network to withdraw it. "Super Bowl ads are traditionally about making people laugh and, while there's no doubting the sincerity of Tebow's beliefs, I think people will find this jarring,"says Clay Travis, an author and journalist who has written extensively about Tebow. It's such a flashpoint subject and I'm surprised that CBS would go there after the fuss that was caused by Janet Jackson's nipple. The son of missionaries, who wears make-up referencing biblical passages during games, Tebow has repeatedly talked about his mission, noting that football enables him to spread God's word. "The key to understanding why they've agreed to this advertisement definitely lies with Tebow," Travis said. "Without him I don't think that CBS would have agreed to the ad. He's the most famous religious figure under 40 in this country; but it's still an interesting decision to run the ad because once you've done so you can't go back. It opens the way for Super Bowl ads to become what they've never been - political. Travis added, "It's not even a matter of whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, I think most people would find an advert dealing with abortion to be out of place during the Super Bowl. And suddenly multicultural America, with a variety of religious beliefs, will come face-to-face with a man whose strict adherence to a muscular form of Christianity, despite his personal charisma, isn't all warm and fuzzy. Especially when that statement of religious values comes not at the close of a game in a short on-field interview, but in a contest that the athlete is not even competing in. Focus on the Family, the right wing non-profit funding Tebow's ad, isn't a middle-of-the-road religious organization. Tebow's Super Bowl ad, for instance, will embrace a pro-life stance, which is the position of Focus on the Family, but something that half of America will disagree with," added Clay Travis. Jim Daly, Focus on the Family president and chief executive, said in a statement that the Tebows' message about family comes at the right moment in the culture because families need to be inspired Focus on the Family is a global non-profit Christian organization with special emphasis on marriage and parenthood. The Focus on the Family ad won out over a PETA ad showing a bevy of beauties unable to resist the sexual lure of vegetables. Do not expect this Super Bowl Ad to be one of the funniest out there.