The best Super Bowl ad none of us saw.

Well, unless you watched the Super Bowl in Mexico. Two of Mexico's major television stations, Televisa and TV Azteca decided to run a block of political ads throughout the Super Bowl, actually interrupting the game instead of during the commercial breaks. These block ads included a promo spot for the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), and a group of spots for a number of Mexico's political parties. This also happened in a number of soccer games during the weekend and other types of programming. Needless to say, it seems people are pissed, and the IFE is as well. The IFE says it is going to investigate why the spots were run during programming rather than during commercial breaks.

What seems to be going on is the TV stations are angry with the IFE and the parties for the major 2007 electoral reform that prohibits parties from being able to independently purchase air time, a major source of revenue for the stations. So, they decide to take it out on their viewers and try to make them even more disgusted with the political parties. Not sure how well that strategy will work, the parties are already held in pretty low regard, and if further investigation shows the stations were being vindictive, they may face some (although likely minor) consequences.

I tried finding clips of the ads themselves this morning, but couldn't find any links. If anyone knows where I can see them, post in the comments. (Links in Spanish, sorry).