Half the people I know don’t actually watch the Superbowl for the football game – they watch it for the commercials. There is no better time of year for a company to advertise than during those few highly coveted hours every February. According to NBC Sports, CNN, and every other news outlet I could find, this year’s Superbowl was the most-watched television broadcast in U.S. history. It averaged 114.4 million viewers, most of whom were very sad and rather butt-hurt after Nationwide aired its controversial commercial, “Boy,” during the second quarter.
If you live outside of the U.S. or under a rock without internet access, you might be wondering, “Who is this Boy you speak of and how did he traumatize millions of people?” Let me break it down for you: a commercial opens with a young boy trying to ride a bike on a clean suburban street but his little asshole friends leave him behind. Then the boy rides a school bus and gets kissed by some random girl who has a scorching case of animated cooties. After that, the boy hang glides and sails a boat across a raging sea in what one can only assume is an attempt to get as far away from Cootie Girl as possible. Finally, the boy is seen wearing a tuxedo to a somber wedding that he laments will never happen.
This adorable little boy goes on to explain to the viewer that he’ll never experience any of these idyllic moments we just witnessed because he died in a household accident.
Bet you didn’t see that twist coming. No one else did, either – and were they ever pissed about it.
The scene changes to that of a flooded bathtub. The camera slowly pans into the open cabinet beneath the kitchen sink where dangerous cleaning chemicals were stored and detergent pods were eaten. Then, it moves to a television that fell. These images are extremely unsettling because they’ve come straight from the worst nightmares of every parent. They are intentionally disturbing. They will continue to haunt the viewer long after the commercial has ended, and that was kind of the point.
The number one cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents that occur where children are supposed to be safest: at home. Looking beyond the obvious Sixth Sense reference (he was dead the whole time, OMG you guys!), Nationwide’s message is a very clear one: We cannot prevent every accident that might ever happen to our children, but we can and certainly should take the appropriate steps to minimize those risks.
We experience our day to day lives inside a “safe” little bubble that surrounds the four walls we call home. Predictability is woven through the very fabric of our routines. We are so comfortable within them that it’s easy to forget just how quickly our entire worlds could be shattered by one minor oversight. As “Boy” demonstrated, it doesn’t take much.
Nationwide’s goal was to raise awareness of potential dangers in the home, not to increase their life insurance sales and make a buck on the deaths of children as many people have come to believe. The delivery of the message was especially shocking because we’re so accustomed to insurance companies amusing us with advertisements that feature verbose geckos or white ladies named Flo that we don’t know how to react when they do otherwise. I get that. Being entertained during the breaks in our entertainment is something our society has come to expect, but some of the most important messages cannot be conveyed through humor.
“Boy” was one of them.
Good advertising gets people talking and Nationwide has definitely hit the mark. Was their commercial sad? You bet. Dead kids aren’t funny. Did Nationwide’s advertisement make people think about household accidents and consider how they could better prevent them? Abso-fucking-lutely.
That 45-second spot might be saving a kid’s life right now.