Super Bowl Ad Controversey

Advertising Age is reporting that the National Restaurant Association is upset with a Nationwide Insurance ad queued up for the Super Bowl. The ad (part of the "Life Comes At You Fast" series) depicts Kevin Federline enjoying his new solo rap career before being woken up by his boss at a fast food restaurant. It's only a dream. K. Fed's real life is to work at a fast food restaurant.

The CEO of the National Restaurant Association has written Nationwide an angry letter. Here's an excerpt:

"Developing creative concepts that accomplish the marketing strategies for a product should not require denigrating another industry. Should an ad of this nature run during the Super Bowl, we will make sure that our membership -- many of whom are customers of Nationwide -- know the negative implications this ad portrays of the restaurant industry."

Bob Garfield (of On The Media) makes a great point in response: the vast majority of that industry's employees live below the poverty line, and so Garfield asks, "How about the many of the 12.8 million Americans he is so concerned about who work full-time in his industry and still live in poverty? Who's he going to write to about them?"