Did you see Saturday Night Live this weekend? Well, if you did you saw three skits named "McGruber". The skits are funny and have recurred off and on over the past several years with Will Forte and Kristen Wiig portraying the main characters. They are a takeoff on the old MacGyver series.
The problem this past Saturday night is what appeared to be comedy was in fact paid advertisements by Pepsi. And then on Sunday afternoon one of the "skits" was used in the Super Bowl. The Pepsi Cola ad was named PepsUber. There was no mention by NBC on Saturday night that the skits were really paid commercials.
I have a problem with this. The spots should have been clearly labelled as advertisements by NBC when they aired. I wasn't sure what I was watching when I saw them. At first I thought it was just a satire of all the Super Bowl ads that would air the next day. Then, I thought it might have just been the ever encroaching product placement we see all the time. But, no, in the long run they were just a sleazy move by NBC permitting the lease of an SNL property to PepsiCo. And to add insult to injury, SNL is displaying the advertisements on it's vido page as if they are just sketches from the show. Some low life must be very pleased with themself.
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