Nationwide Super Bowl ad meant to be jarring

Scores of Super Bowl viewers sat down their plate of wings half-eaten, their appetites suddenly gone, when the Nationwide Insurance ad's punch line played. And then they picked up their phones.
 
Hearing an adorable mop-top boy sadly intone that he would never experience the rites of passage of growing up "because I died from an accident" had a "jarring" effect on viewers, which is exactly what Nationwide wanted, according to CNNMoney.
 
Bringing awareness to preventable childhood deaths, and not to "sell insurance," might have been the aim of the message but it didn't sit well with viewers. Social networking sites blew up after the ad aired, with mostly negative feedback ranging from calling the ad a "buzzkill" to "downright upsettling," and by halftime the "dead boy" was a trending meme on Twitter, according to the report.

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