84 Lumber, Eighty Four, Pa., made headlines on February 5 with its first-ever Super Bowl ad. The ad depicts a Mexican mother and daughter’s journey to the U.S. for the chance at a new life. Near the end of the full ad, the duo reaches a wall, which presumably separates the Mexican and U.S. border. Though they are both upset, the daughter doesn’t give up and finds a large door in the wall that’s been left cracked open. They push through the door and enter the U.S. Then 84’s tagline rolls across the screen: “The will to succeed is always welcome here.”
The whole ad, which is just under six minutes, isn’t what aired during 84’s halftime spot. The commercial that aired left the mother and daughter still on their journey, without arriving at the wall. Fox, which aired the Super Bowl, claimed the commercial was too controversial and made 84 change it. 84 complied, but directed viewers to its website to see the conclusion. According to Meredith Klein, public relations account supervisor at 84’s ad agency, Brunner, the website “received 300,000 web requests [in the first minute after the commercial aired on TV].” The site could only process about half of those requests, and the situation was resolved in ten minutes. “In the first hour after the spot aired, we received six million requests,” Klein says.
As of Wednesday morning, the ad has gotten 14.1 million views on 84’s YouTube channel. Klein does note that this metric includes views of the 90-second commercial (before it aired on TV), the conclusion video, and views of the ad in its entirety.
While 84 certainly received a lot of buzz about its ad, reviews have been mixed. One Twitter user replied to a ProSales tweet about the ad saying that 84 “shouldn’t have let it air at all,” while another user tweeted ProSales saying “they’ll never get that $ back…” Other Twitter users have praised the ad as “beautiful” and encouraged others to watch the commercial and share it.
“My intent was to show, through the mother and daughter, that through struggles we will do anything we possibly can to make [the world] a better place for our children,” Maggie Hardy Magerko, president and owner of 84 Lumber, tells People magazine. If I thought the wall was negative, I wouldn’t have had the wall.” Magerko further notes that the ad is left to “[the viewers’] interpretations.”
