Super Bowl Ads Have Gone Soft

Remember watching the Super Bowl last year when that Nationwide ad came on? It featured a boy with tousled hair—so cute, right? And then the boy explained that he would never ride a bike, travel the world, or marry, because he was killed in a preventable home injury. The depressing spot generated so much backlash that the company issued a statement saying it intended “to start a conversation, not sell insurance.” The ad started a conversation, for sure, getting mocked mercilessly on Twitter: @KenJennings: “The Seahawks haven’t completed a pass but on the plus side I haven’t killed any of my kids”; @DanGrazianoESPN: “No one in the Nationwide advertising meeting put up their hand and went, ‘Let’s sleep on this?’ ”

Despite its poor execution, the ad was part of a trend toward longer commercials that pull on our heartstrings—one that many advertisers are expected to expand on this year, making emotional appeals to our better angels and abandoning humor and sex. Colgate will encourage viewers to save water while brushing their teeth. Anheuser-Busch InBev plans to introduce an ad campaign that promotes equal pay for women with this year’s Bud Light spot; last year the brand’s “Up for Whatever” ads were criticized for being tone-deaf to sexual assault. And GoDaddy, which made its name by pushing the boundaries of decency in previous championships, won’t air an ad during this year’s game for the first time in more than a decade. This is leading industry execs to ask: Has the Super Bowl gone soft? Advertisers “have been effectively neutered,” says Ian Schafer, founder of the Deep Focus agency.