Worst Super Bowl ad ever? Nationwide's jarring dead-kid ad

In a Super Bowl already laden with heart-tugging ads designed to remind you that you could be a much better friend, parent, lover, or airplane seatmate, it takes something especially egregious to stand out. Midway through the second quarter, Nationwide unveiled an ad of a mopheaded little kid talking of all the wondrous things he'd never do ... BECAUSE HE IS DEAD.

[Related: Grading the best and worst Super Bowl XLIX commercials]

Really. Nationwide thought it was a great idea to show a dead-kid ad in the middle of the Super Bowl? Yes, yes, we know, this is a Serious Issue, but come on. I'm generally a live-and-let live type, but if we can't agree that dead kids aren't fodder for commercial exploitation, then we're all in trouble.

Twitter did not take kindly to the ad:

Nationwide CMO Matt Jauchius had a ready-made defense handy, and if you're going to the trouble of making a preemptive defense you might want to consider whether your "edgy" campaign is really worth it: "The purpose of the ad is to, in a way, stage an intervention on this issue. We’re serious about it and we wanted the ad to reflect that. The question was, what level of intervention did we want to stage? If you go funny or lighthearted with this topic, it might offend people, but beyond that it might not be effective in breaking through and creating awareness of this problem. We chose a more serious tone precisely because it will be so different than most commercials during the Super Bowl. We went that way to create awareness in consumers’ minds [emphasis added] that this is the number one killer of children in the US. Most people don’t know that."

Note the emphasized segment above. Nationwide was looking to appeal to consumers first, parents second. Look, we get it: protecting kids is a noble endeavor. But there's absolutely nobody on earth who's actually in favor of mortal childhood accidents. This was a gargantuan misstep by Nationwide. We didn't think it was possible to get any more cynical about American ads, but yep, we're here.

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

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