As washingtontimes.com is reporting, the United States Concealed Carry Association made an attempt to place the above ad in this year’s Super Bowl program. You would be forgiven for thinking that this was just another brilliant bit of Daniel Defense-style guerrilla marketing, angling for an inevitable rejection and running with it from there. Cynic that I am, that’s what I suspected. But when I reached out to USCCA editor Kevin Michalowski to get the story from the horse’s mouth, here’s what he told me . . .
It was indeed a genuine ad…. and genuine attempt to place the ad in the Official Superbowl Program. It was not a TV commercial… some people are confused about that.
We attempted to place a full page advertisement as a combination deal with the other national sports leagues including NBA, NHL and NASCAR. The representatives working with the Super Bowl Program objected to the gun on the model’s hip, the words “jail” and “violent” in the text of the ad and they did not like the full name of our company “The United States Concealed Carry Association” presented in the ad. The ad was directing people to a website where they could download a guide to personal safety. The NFL reps also wanted to have input on the landing page where the customers would sign up for the safety guide.
So, we removed those elements. We cut out the offending words, removed the gun from the photo and even changed our name to the commonly use acronym USCCA. After all of that, the NFL reps still rejected the ad, so we tried to tone it done again. It was then rejected without further comment.
I should point out that the NHL and NASCAR both accepted our ad without any complaints.
And here’s Kevin making the case himself:
[h/t SS]