The Super Bowl may be a marketer’s dream, but NFL fans have been scratching their heads over one unorthodox commercial.
On Sunday (11 February) Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs managed to become Super Bowl champions for the third time in five seasons after defeating the San Francisco 49ers.
After heading into overtime for the second instance in NFL history, the likes of Taylor Swift, Ice Spice and Lana Del Rey celebrated the Chiefs claiming their fourth Super Bowl title.
Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Goldblum were also in attendance at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, as well as Justin and Hayley Bieber and Paul Rudd.
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According to Nielsen, over 100 million viewers tune in nearly every year to watch the game, witness the famous Super Bowl halftime show and sit through various commercial breaks.
Due to the sheer volume of people watching, it’s no wonder that the likes of Uber Eats, BMW and Bud Light all placed and paid for prime-time adverts this year.
Marvel dropping their first look at Deadpool 3 and Beyoncé’s surprise music announcement have also made headlines.
However, a strange commercial about washing feet has stolen the show.
The one-minute advert was aired during the football game’s first quarter and showed various images of people washing others’ toes.
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The 60-second advert recalls the biblical story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and is supposed to promote treating others with more kindness and respect.
The clip was put out by He Gets Us, which is managed by the nonprofit organisation Come Near - and many fans believed the video was compiled using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
However, He Gets Us has since stated that AI played no part in the divisive advert and that all images were shot by international fine art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten.
Speaking about the showing, the project said: “We thought that maybe this year, we should focus on the thematic inverse of last year’s commercial — one built on the premise of Love and Unity.
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“And with an upcoming election year that will be filled with division and derision, we decided to focus on one of the most important directives given by Jesus — Love Your Neighbour.”
Many NFL fans took to social media soon after the advert aired and had their say on the strange showcase.
One user of X, formerly Twitter, wrote: “Of all the commercials I will remember from Super Bowl LVIII, the foot washing will be the most memorable. In fact, I am pretty much guaranteed nightmares tonight.”
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A second said: “I’m familiar with weird Christian foot washing after being forced to do it at church camp which is why I was delighted to see the (un?)intentionally super horny Christian foot washing Super Bowl video AMA.”
“About time Jesus shot the locks off his wallet and bought a Super Bowl commercial,” another joked. “The whole foot washing thing was weird but Jesus is a weird cat!"
A fourth commented: “So they put an entire foot-washing ad on the Super Bowl just to try and convert [Quentin] Tarantino?"
Topics: Super Bowl, Sport, Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, Film and TV