Some years ago Mad magazine had a cartoon showing a mother and her weeping kids standing around the wreck of a car in which her husband has just been killed.
To calm down the kids, the mother says: “Don’t cry, children, fortunately for us he was fully insured!”
Not funny, the reaction of the average reader would probably be, one would imagine.
Now an insurance company, OUTsurance, uses precisely that argument in an ad which runs regularly on TV.
It shows a dad who assures his daughter that he will be home soon, only to end up in an accident with a huge truck.
The ad has two different endings which are shown on alternative evenings. In one, the dad arrives at the dinner table in a wheelchair; in the other one, his daughter greets him by touching his photograph while saying:“I love you.”
The big saviour? Why, OUTsurance of course!
Now I, and numerous people I have discussed it with, find the ad in bad taste. I have also tried (unsuccessfully) to contact OUTsurance.
The only telephone number I could find was that of an agent who wanted to sell insurance to me. She could not give me a number to contact so that I could take the matter further.
My question is: Is it really necessary to scare children and their mothers in this way, just to sell insurance?