In what some would describe as a modern-day miracle, it seems as though Jesus Christ will be starring in his own Super Bowl ad at this year's event in Glendale, Arizona.
The Philadelphia Eagles are set to take on the Kansas City Chiefs in the main event of this year's highly-anticipated tournament at the State Farm Stadium and while you would think there would be enough NFL stars on the field to focus our attention on, there's one other man that seems to have diverted it.
And it's none other than Jesus. Yes, you read that correctly, we're referring to Jesus Christ.
Now I know what you're thinking: how in the name of everything that is good and pure can Jesus and the Super Bowl relate in any way? But centuries after his alleged "death" on Earth, the religious figure is set to make his Super Bowl debut via one hell of a pricey ad.
'He Gets Us' is a two-part campaign created by a Kansas-based Christian group called the Servant Foundation.
As per KCUR, the black-and-white video opens with a young Black man, surrounded by followers, an "influencer" moving in a scene that looks like it's taken from a 2020 #BlackLivesMatter protest. Then the man is then shown hugging a white police officer and a voice says that "one day he stood up for something he believed in." But the establishment tried to shut him up.
Then the words "Jesus was canceled" flash on the screen.
"They nailed him to a cross," the voiceover says.
The short video was initially posted to YouTube in April and has already been watched 12.2 million times, but now it's taking a bigger stage at this year's Super Bowl.
The ad will be set into two parts, with the second being titled The Rebel', and will be doubling down on Jesus's original message of empathy, justice, and love - but as nice as the message is, is it worth the hefty amount of money the organization paid for it?
According to the outlet, $20 million will be spent on the 'He Gets Us' ads in the hopes that they can re-brand the currently conservative image of the religious figure, but the creators have added that the total cost will be hitting the $1 billion mark.
"This is a rebranding of Christ as a revolutionary," said Gerard J. Tellis, the Neely Chaired Professor of American Enterprise at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. "It was a very troubling question, and it said, ‘How did the world's greatest love story become known as a hate group?'"
He continued: "Actually, the brand of Jesus performs very well among the American people. It's that his brand has become associated with some of these other things."
Vanderground also added that the campaign was built around market research targeted at "spiritually open skeptics."
"We found that when they look at Christianity, they see, unfortunately, hypocrisy and judgmentalism and discrimination many, many times," he explained. "And sometimes that's because those things have happened. Other times it's because that's really what's perpetuated through media, sometimes through tech, through academia, that to hold a belief is inherently to hate the other."
