What do you see?

One of the Super Bowl ads that ran tonight was an ad for the Prudential insurance company–you know, the “Get a Piece of the Rock” company. Allah has the ad over at Hot Air.

A bizarro business columnist at the NYTimes thinks the Prudential ad guys may possibly be sending a coded message about Iraq.

Because “a rock” sounds like “Iraq.” The title of the column is “Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War:”

No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials.

More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous…

…Then, too, there was the unfortunate homonym at the heart of a commercial from Prudential Financial, titled “What Can a Rock Do?”

The problem with the spot, created internally at Prudential, was that whenever the announcer said, “a rock” — invoking the Prudential logo, the rock of Gibraltar — it sounded as if he were saying, yes, “Iraq.”

To be sure, sometimes “a rock” is just “a rock,” and someone who has watched the Super Bowl XIX years in a row only for the commercials may be inferring things that Madison Avenue never meant to imply.

Step away from the computer, dude, and give. It. A. Rest.

***

Reader Peter L. dashed off an e-mail to the Times columnist Stuart Elliott:

Are you insane? You see the Iraq war in the Super Bowl commercials??? I think your article shows YOUR obsession with the war (no need to wonder how you feel about it). Do you see the war in crossword puzzles? Your morning cereal?

But let’s dig deeper, shall we? I think the Bud Light commercial with the apes reflects the ongoing debate about evolution. Or maybe the one about the guy getting the ice cold Coke is a symbol of our need for coolness in this age of global warming. I’m onto something here, aren’t I?

Frankly, I thought many of the ads were pretty lewd, reflecting our society’s low standard of values.

Wait – let me guess: You just rolled your eyes and though, “Oh, he’s one of THEM.”

Right back at you.

Dan Riehl:

Okay, is it just me, or does it sound like the editors at the NY Times must have taped the Superbowl commercials and are now playing them backwards to distill the hidden message buried deep within?

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