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KGB Hopes for Bogus Controversy Over 'Banned' Super Bowl Ad

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: February 2, 2010 / 12:41 PM EST / MoneyWatch

KGB, the trivia-question-answering service, has joined the list of companies hoping to generate a fake controversy over their "banned" Super Bowl ads. The spot that CBS (CBS) has -- according to KGB -- rejected features a couple of golfers with their heads up their backsides (video below). The joke is that they're talking rubbish about global warming because they didn't check with KGB. Tasteful it is not.

Although KGB said to BNET in an email that its ad was "banned" from the Big Game, I beg to differ. It is well-known that there are high decency standards for Super Bowl broadcasts -- children are watching. KGB cannot reasonably have expected its ad to pass muster.

Thus the ad looks more like a cheap PR ploy than an actual attempt to take advantage of the exposure the game offers. As such it joins a long line of advertisers conjuring bogus conflicts over their often tasteless ads, such as Calvin Klein, Mancrunch, and GoDaddy. They all deliberately produce ads they know will offend someone -- thus offering them the perfect platform to publicize something they didn't want to spend media placement money on in the first place.