If there’s a theme in this year’s Super Bowl ads it has to be tickle the old funny bone! However, some people aren’t laughing following the arrival of Uber Eats’ effort for Monday’s big game.
The minute-long spot – the work of creative agency Special US – stars big names like Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Usher, Jelly Roll plus David and Victoria Beckham.
The spot also features a scene where a man asks, “There’s peanuts in peanut butter?”, before his face swells up from a nut reaction.
During the scene, a tiny disclaimer is shown on the bottom of the screen in white letters that says, “Please please please don’t forget there are peanuts in peanut butter.”
Rather than laugh, the ad has angered food allergy advocates in the US who are calling for the offending scene to be deleted.
Here’s the ad again, with the “peanut incident” at the 37-second mark.
Industry group Food Allergy Research and Education led a chorus of complaints about the ad. The group’s CEO Sung Poblete, said: “We were surprised and disappointed to see that Uber Eats would use the disease of life-threatening food allergy as humour in its new Super Bowl commercial. Life-threatening food allergy is a disease, not a diet. Enough is enough.”
People also shared their displeasure with the joke in the comments on Instagram.
“Food allergies are not funny. Food allergy families work hard every day to keep their families safe, especially from insensitive and unaware people. Being a food delivery company, I cannot understand how anyone in your company thought this would be appropriate , let alone funny. It’s a shame because the rest of it was a good ad,” said one.
Another added: “You were SO close to having a great commercial. Why did you put in the peanut allergy part? It’s unnecessary to the plot and you are mocking a life-threatening medical condition to the largest television audience of the year. You are green-lighting food allergy bullying. It’s irresponsible and dangerous. Would you do this with another life-threatening disease?”
“Your creative team could have done so much better. 33 million Americans have food allergies, and because of this, you’ll have that many fewer customers. Pick something more creative…maybe have Serena Williams show up to the US Open, forgetting her tennis racket. By the way, she’s allergic to peanuts,” another wrote.
Uber Eats or Special US have not publicly commented on the backlash.
