He had already debuted the “Join the Nation” slogan to signal the company virtues of reliability and diversity. “We’re trying to change the tone and conversation of the insurance category,” he told ADWEEK.
The 2015 Super Bowl ad was a bid to make consumers aware of preventable household injuries—the leading cause of childhood fatality—and to promote the company’s new “Make Safe Happen” website, a microsite dedicated to safety for kids.
But the message didn’t suit the occasion.
“While some did not care for the ad,” Nationwide said in a statement after the game, “we hope it served to begin a dialogue to make safe happen for children everywhere.” However important that conversation was, Americans didn’t want to have it on Super Bowl night.
“It was too depressing for the Super Bowl,” said Sol Marketing founder and CEO Deb Gabor. “What we’re used to in the Super Bowl is snack foods, beer commercials, talking frogs—stuff like that. So it was a little bit too dark.”
Insurance industry voices thought much the same. As Insurance Journal commented: “Childhood death is apparently not a conversation people want during Super Bowl parties.”
Viewers also didn’t appreciate what they saw as a scare tactic, and one that struck particular terror into the hearts of new parents.
“It’s one thing to use a tragic event, such as the death of a child, to highlight an issue like gun control—it’s quite another to use it to sell something and promote your brand,” said Steve Marino, chief creative officer for independent ad shop Aloysius Butler & Clark.
