Take it away and it’s still Washington Football.
They’ve done it again. For the second year in a row, the Oneida Indian Nation released a “change the mascot” ad directed at the Washington Redskins ahead of the Super Bowl. The 30-second spot was also funded by the National Congress of American Indians.
The ad is a joint effort of the National Congress of American Indians and the Oneida Indian Nation, which has led — and financed — much of the name-change effort in recent years. The same groups collaborated on an ad called “Proud to Be” before last year’s Super Bowl; that two-minute spot has been viewed more than 3 million times on YouTube. A shorter version of “Proud to Be” also aired in seven major markets during Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Both the new ad and the 2014 effort were produced by the Goodness MFG agency.
The ad features Robert Griffin’s touchdown run against the Minnesota Vikings in 2012. But if you look closely, the Redskins logo has been removed from the helmet.
As Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post notes, the Oneida Nation did not ask the NFL for permission to use the footage. So, technically, this ad could get pulled for copyright infringement.
And wouldn’t that be something.
