State Department and Customs and Border Protection, take note. Leave it to Coca-Cola, the preeminent American brand, to get so much right in 60 seconds during the Super Bowl. The short spot is the song “America the Beautiful” cut between a variety of scenes of family and friends from different cultural backgrounds enjoying themselves in the natural beauty of this country, in cities and at home. With slight edits (to remove the product placement) this could easily be played at every port of entry in the country.

What really sets this spot apart is the seamless weaving of our emotional national ode sung in several different languages — Spanish, Hindi, Tagalog, Hebrew, Arabic, to name a few. (If you visit the Youtube page with the videos you can learn about the “making of” with the many people who helped sing this multi-linguistic version of the classic hymn.)

It’s hard not to be moved by the music and the subtle message of the change in language (although there are the haters) which speaks more clearly than any argument I’ve ever made that America the beautiful is made up not so much of people ticking those ridiculously confining ethnic or racial boxes  but people who speak different languages. And somehow, for the most part, we make it work better than any other country on the planet. That’s something to celebrate and to emulate, not to disparage and denounce.

I’ve also written before about the effectiveness of advertisements and what we can learn from them for effective public diplomacy. Coke once taught the world to sing and I think this spot is even more effective than that famous advertisement. It’s more than enough to make the whole world smile.

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