CBS: Abortion OK for Super Bowl; Medieval Christian Poem Not
CBS (CBS) seems to be deliberately courting controversy with its inconsistent decisions regarding what can and cannot be shown in a Super Bowl ad. Last week, the network banned an ad for gay dating site Mancrunch.com but allowed an anti-abortion Christian ads featuring college football player Tim Tebow.
Today, CBS* banned Electronic Arts (ERTS) from using the tagline "Go to Hell" in its Super Bowl ad for the game Dante's Inferno. EA just announced that it will use the line "Hell Awaits" instead.
The game is based on the epic Dante Alighieri poem written in the early 1300s which describes a journey through the nine circles of hell. It's a medieval Christian poem. The EA ban suggests that CBS is anti-gay and pro-Christian, as long as you don't get too deeply into the history of Christian literature.
Wieden + Kennedy, the ad agency that handles EA, said it believed CBS though the "Go to Hell" was "too provocative":
"It was deemed too provocative," said Paulo Ribeiro, account director at Wieden, Portland, Ore. "The final verdict has yet to be rendered, but it is unlikely that we will get [it on the game.]"And the abortion thing isn't?
*CBS owns BNET.com.