Update Sunday,France Feb. 5, 8:30 pm EST: The full three-minute ending is now live, and it actually has a happy ending.
All the interest momentarily crashed the company's site.
Original story:
The big, beautiful wall in 84 Lumber's Super Bowl commercial has been downgraded to a flimsy barbed-wire fence.
The building supply company released a revised version of its immigration-themed ad on Thursday after Fox rejected its initial submission last month.
The Pennsylvania-based business had originally wanted the spot to involve a border wall. But the network ruled it "too political" based on its resemblance to a certain commander-in-chief's policy obsession.
The company decided to make the most of the situation by turning the ad into a cliffhanger.
It now follows a family of Mexican immigrants through an epic journey leading up to a point where one might assume they are about to approach said wall. But the ad cuts off there, and viewers are directed to the company's website to watch the banned ending.
The only remaining wall reference comes when a young girl looks meaningfully at a barbed wire fence in a bit of foreshadowing.
The commercial was never meant to be outright political commentary, though the company obviously recognized it might be controversial, according to Rob Schapiro, executive creative director at Brunner, the ad agency responsible.
"This is a conversation that is taking place in a lot of homes in our country right now, and so it was a conversation that 84 lumber was wiling to take part in," Schapiro said. "We recognize that people have different points of view, and we just wanted to make a statement in a patriotic way."
84 Lumber is hoping to use the pricey ad space to court employees -- particularly men between the ages of 20 and 29 years old.
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