Hasta La Motion!

Nationwide, the American insurance company, has used the 2015 Super Bowl to run “Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up”, an emotive television commercial exploring child mortality. The commercial shows a young boy lamenting the experiences that he’ll never get to encounter, learning to ride a bike, getting cooties, learning to fly, travelling the world with his best friend, or getting married. He’ll never grow up because he died in an accident. A second film on the Nationwide YouTube channel gets more explicit about preventable accidents in the home: drowning, falling, back-overs, tip-overs, poisoning and choking. Nationwide is partnering with Safe Kids Worldwide and Nationwide Childrens Hospital to help parents address safety risks, with interactive campaign elements online at makesafehappen.com.

Nationwide has issued a statement responding to criticism that the commercial was too negative for the Super Bowl.

“Preventable injuries around the home are the leading cause of childhood deaths in America. Most people don’t know that. Nationwide ran an ad during the Super Bowl that started a fierce conversation. The sole purpose of this message was to start a conversation, not sell insurance. We want to build awareness of an issue that is near and dear to all of us—the safety and well being of our children. We knew the ad would spur a variety of reactions. In fact, thousands of people visited MakeSafeHappen.com, a new website to help educate parents and caregivers with information and resources in an effort to make their homes safer and avoid a potential injury or death. Nationwide has been working with experts for more than 60 years to make homes safer. While some did not care for the ad, we hope it served to begin a dialogue to make safe happen for children everywhere.”

Credits

The Nationwide Make Safe Happen campaign was developed at Ogilvy North America by creative directors Chris Van Oosterhout and Steve Howard, creatives Lauren van Aswegen and Chad Johnson, and producer Melanie Baublis.

Filming was shot by director Fredrik Bond via MJZ with producer Line Postmyr.

Editor was Patric Ryan at Union Editorial with assistant editor Ryan Stacom.

Post production and visual effects were produced at The Mill, New York, by executive producer Melanie Wickham, shoot supervisors Kathy Saiegel and Vince Baertsoen, creative director Vince Baertsoen, 2D lead artist Westley Sarokin, 2D artists Antoine Douadi, Daniel Giraldo, Liz Berndt, Ben Kwok, James Corden, 3D lead artist Ed Shires, CG lead Joji Tsuruga, 3D artists Josh Frankel, Justin Diamond, Navdeep Singh, Nick Couret, Olivier Varterssesian, Paul Liaw, Same Crees, Weicheh Yu, Xuan Seifert, Yong Chan Kim, Taylor Cook, Ren Hsien-Hsu, Paolo Cogliati, Lauren Shields, Katie Schiffer, Corey Langelotti, Billy Dongyoon Jang, Nicolas Couret-Chailloux, additional artists Charlotte Carr, Jessica Ledoux , Leanne Belgiorno, Tim Regan, Rob Modini, Can Y. Sanalan, Alex Caldow, colourist Fergus McCall, senior producer Jeremy Moore, and character concept designer Aran Quinn.