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Super Bowl Ad Analysis Essay

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Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Preventing Avoidable Accidents Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company’s Super Bowl advertisement, “#makesafehappen” released on February 1st, 2015, has received negative attention because of its morbid yet practical depiction of a young boy who has passed away due to a “preventable accident” before experiencing the life in which a teen or young adult would otherwise. The advertisement also uses the death of a young child to appeal to parents; especially the mothers, largely using pathos to raise awareness of deadly accidents which could otherwise be preventable. Logos and ethos, although weak in this advertisement, also raises awareness on preventing avoidable accidents. Before discussing ethos, pathos, …show more content…

Nationwide’s advertisement narrowly succeeds to persuade its audience into supporting their “makesafehappen” movement due of their controversial yet emotional tactics of telling the audience the activities the young boy will never be able to enjoy due to his untimely death. The creator then goes on to give the viewer a few examples of preventable accidents within the home to reveal the dangers within their own walls to persuade the creation of a safer home for the youth. The audience is then shown varies non-descriptive and random scenes of a fallen and easy accessible box of detergent packs and a shattered television screen on the ground, both caused by an unidentified force, ultimately causing the slight failure of ethos in this …show more content…

The emotional appeals utilized in the video are both heart-warming and worrisome due to the language and tone the boy uses throughout the advertisement. The repetition of the phrase, “I’ll never get to”, creates empathy for the boy through people who were able to accomplish the things the boy was not due to his “preventable accident”. This sympathy for the boy then creates acknowledgment, especially for parents, of the “preventable” dangers that lurk in the world; bringing about, the success of the “makesafehappen”

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