14 DAY TRIAL // In between ads for cars, beer, food and snacks, web services and pretty much everything else in between, that ran at the Super Bowl 2013, there was also a 60-second spot for the Church of Scientology.
You can find it below, embedded at the end of the video.
The ad is extremely classy and simple, until the scientology.org flashes on the screen at the end. As Radar Online notes, not once does the narrator mention the Church by name.
The same media outlet also reports that Scientology coughed up a considerable fortune to have the ad air during the game, if only in a few select markets.
“The Church of Scientology paid nearly $8 million [€5.9 million] to run a highly-stylized, 60-second commercial not long after the game went into halftime Sunday night,” the celebrity publication writes.
“The spot for Church of Scientology aired in several major metropolitan markets, including New York and Los Angeles. The ad is similar to Apple’s classic ‘Think Different’ commercial from 1997, media observers noted,” Radar further says.
Indeed, the ad is painting Scientology like the answer to all “big” questions, the only place to go for those who seek truth and knowledge in life.
It encourages creativity and freedom, and can possibly offer a meaning to life, as absurd as that might sound.
“Sure, some will doubt you. Let them. Dare to think for yourself, to look for yourself, to make up your own mind. Because in the eternal debate for answers, the one thing that's true is what's true for you,” the narrator says in the ad.
That sounds a bit of a stretch for an organization which has a reputation of being anything but kind to its members, which uses manipulation and even violence to keep them under control when the thought of leaving crosses their mind.
More importantly, voices online note, we should not forget that the “truth” and “knowledge” Scientology offers is the creation of a second-rate science fiction author, L. Ron Hubbard.
