Remember the salad days of ♫ Chick-en parm you taste so good ♫? Gone. In a flash. With one advertisement about a kid who couldn't sail the open seas with his dog because, as it turned out, he died from a tragic though ultimately preventable accident in the home. He drowned in an overflowing bathtub, or was crushed by a glorious high definition television, or drank bleach, or something. It doesn't really matter; he's dead and he's missing out on life. And the Super Bowl! He's missing out on all the fun of the Super Bowl, and the fun of roasting a wildly dark insurance commercial about kids dying at home. But this was a conversation that needed to happen. Lots of accidents at home are preventable, people don't know that.
Advertisement
Hours after the Super Bowl, Nationwide addressed the dead child they offered the 49 million folks watching their Super Bowl ad, for which they presumably paid $4.5 million. This actually happened. The reactions were so swift and so one-sided that a company released a statement about an advertisement. Sure, we're all still talking about Nationwide, but people are still talking about Donald Trump, too:"Preventable injuries around the home are the leading cause of childhood deaths in America. Most people don't know that. Nationwide ran an ad during the Super Bowl that started a fierce conversation. The sole purpose of this message was to start a conversation, not sell insurance. We want to build awareness of an issue that is near and dear to all of us-the safety and well being of our children. We knew the ad would spur a variety of reactions. In fact, thousands of people visited MakeSafeHappen.com, a new website to help educate parents and caregivers with information and resources in an effort to make their homes safer and avoid a potential injury or death. Nationwide has been working with experts for more than 60 years to make homes safer. While some did not care for the ad, we hope it served to begin a dialogue to make safe happen for children everywhere."The insurance company is just looking out for you, guys. The company whose actual business model is to charge you money in exchange for the promise of more money later on in case shit happens, and then find every conceivable way to not give you that money when shit happens, just wants to get the ball rolling on this whole making kids safe thing. And spent $4.5 million on an ad to get "thousands" of people to visit a website where you can learn how to prevent your child from swallowing a button battery, "your home's smallest danger."The company could have done this, you know, without depressing the hell out of the country. See, we like nostalgia. It's big these days. They would have had a big hit of a commercial if they brought back, say, the girl from Out of This World to help avoid home disasters, like cans of paint sitting precariously on a ladder right in front of the door for some reason.But no, let's kill an innocent kid with an adorable dog.