Nationwide Insurance’s 30 second ad set for the Super Bowl has provoked the restaurant industry and has called for the cancellation of a TV commercial featuring Britney Spears’ estranged husband, Kevin Federline as he goes from dreaming about being a rap star to working at a burger restaurant.
The commercial is due to be aired during the National Football League’s Super Bowl championship on Sunday, February 4, advertising’s biggest televised sporting event of the year. Last year’s Super Bowl drew more than 90 million viewers.
National Restaurant Association President and Chief Executive Steven Anderson in a letter to Nationwide CEO Jerry Jurgensen claims
the spot amounts to a strong and direct insult to the 12.8 million Americans who work in the restaurant industry.
Anderson wrote,
The commercial would give the impression that working in a restaurant is demeaning and unpleasant.
But Nationwide spokesman Eric Hardgrove defended the ad saying,
The intent of the ad isn’t to offend or insult the many fine individuals who work in the restaurant industry. The focus of the ad is the element of surprise, not the setting of a fast food restaurant.
Spears and Federline’s divorce battle started last November. Federline’s debut rap album, ‘Playing With Fire,’ sold a dismal 6,500 copies in its first week of release last fall. And a number of dates on his US tour were canceled due to lack of interest.
