The ad was "very gentle", which was surprising considering how much talk it generated before it even aired, said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He said the use of humour helped make the ad more accessible - and not off-putting to most people - although the ad's message was hidden, which made it confusing to people who weren't familiar with it. "I think they took a very interesting strategy. It's clearly an effort to steer away from controversy," he said. "I suspect the people they were going after understood the message, but ... for most people, I don't think the ad really did a lot for them." Because the ad was so subtle and had so much mystery to it, it will get people whose minds are not made up about the abortion debate to evaluate the group's agenda, said Charles R. Taylor, professor of marketing at Villanova School of Business. "To the extent that there are people that they can influence, this probably does a good job of driving them to the Web site and getting them to check it out. I think it's much more effective than something more explicit would have been," he said. The Women's Media Center, which had objected to Focus on the Family advertising in the Super Bowl, said it was expecting a "benign" ad but not the humour. But the group's president, Jehmu Greene, said the tackle showed an undercurrent of violence against women. "I think they're attempting to use humour as another tactic of hiding their message and fooling the American people," she said. The ad didn't draw much attention at the Underground Lounge in New York, where the game was on. Sarah Cashin, 39, a business manager, said she didn't see why the ad was controversial. "I didn't find it offensive. I don't quite understand why everyone was so up in arms about it," she said.
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2010 Media Report Villanova School of Business