Among the more tasteless ads on TV these days are several from MetLife. Two daughters have just heard that dad had an accident and rather than inquiring about his condition, they immediately start urging mom to buy life insurance.
“Mom, please think about it. You and dad need the protection.”
No they don’t. Life insurance won’t protect mom and dad against anything. Certainly not against death. It’s the greedy daughters who will benefit. Dad’s accident reminds them that their parents don’t have life insurance. What insufferably greedy women. How cold and calculating for the beneficiaries to urge the purchase of the policy.
In one version, a daughter even picks up the phone and says, “Let’s make the call together.” Yes. Quick. Let’s get right on that because dad’s next accident might be fatal.
She doesn’t look at all calculating, does she:
And just so it all doesn’t sound too creepy and morbid, Peanuts theme music plays in the background.
What a stupid, insensitive ad from a stupid, insensitive company. If I ever hear my son say, “Mom, you need the protection,” he’ll get written out of the will.
Your video isn’t working, but I’ve seen the ad and know exactly what you mean. Of course, that ad is just one in a long line of incredibly insensitive ads I’ve seen, and they only get worse at this time of year. Here’s just one example:
I think they forgot the first “r” in Grifter!
Fixed it. Sorry about that.
I wouldn’t call this one (TJ Maxx) “insensitive,” at least not in the way the MetLife commercial is. This one is just one more in the awful glut of BUY! BUY! BUY! insanity that we’re going to be subjected to for the next 5 or 6 weeks.
Definitely creepy and I would fire the person who approved it.
I always wonder how ads this stupid ever get approved. I think the people who produce them must develop tunnel vision and once they decide they have a clever idea, can’t see the forest for the trees.
awful, tasteless, and thoughtless
Exactly the words I was looking for.
Totally creepy and crass…so many ads with bad messages/construction – don’t they realize? (Oh, wait, probably not…a much younger group who don’t have the “seasoning” experience to understand…and look at all the ugly crap they grew up with and accept as normal)
Gone are the days of intelligent, or even clever, witty (not insulting or potty humor) writing.
Good call.
As timethief noted, it’s depressing to think someone somewhere actually approved this.
Unbelievable! or just downright tacky!
Heh, tacky. Yes, that’s a word my mom would have used.
I think the same thing when I see ads that attempt to equate partially prepaid medical costs with health.
That seems to be a form of national ignorance (or deliberate misrepresentation, depending on the source). Despite what we are told every day, having health care insurance is not at all the same as having good health or even access to health care. The government could give free health care insurance to every man, woman, and child in the country, but if it doesn’t also supply and adequately distribute enough doctors, nurses, technicians, and hospitals, the insurance won’t be worth a hill of beans.
Amen
I always thought myself financially smart, but this is one area in which I wasn’t so much and I ended up owning a couple of relatively expensive policies. One of them I cashed in a couple of decades ago, only to find that most of the cash value was taxable at my top marginal rate.
There really ought to be a class taught in high school about life insurance. I tell my kids, the only kind of life insurance that makes any sense is straight term, and that only when you’re young, only if you have kids or a non-working wife, and before you have substantial savings. If you can’t save, you’ve got bigger problems than leaving your heirs a nest egg through life insurance.
How clear the reasoning seems now! As the old German said,
The reasoning is clear when the beneficiaries are the ones promoting the purchase, that’s for sure.
Can’t be any worse than those stupid little kids on the AT&T commercials
I think those kids are kind of cute — the first few times. After that they become as tedious as any other oft-repeated commercial.
LOL – that Peanuts theme music really capped it off. There’s another one too – the one for AARP’s life insurance where a bunch of baby boomers just happened to be gathered in a diner and having a ‘casual’ conversation (including all the bullet points) about how easy it is to get life insurance by mail. All these ads creep me out. Of course, I’ve always thought insurance was a scam for one thing or another, so I’m not the public for it either.
If you think that stuff is creepy now, wait till you’re my age. The ghouls come out of the woodwork. Insurance, funeral homes, crematories, cemeteries, tombstones, nursing homes. Not to mention hearing aids, emergency call buttons, canes, stair lifts, walk-in tubs, etc., being pushed at me via TV, telephone, mailbox, and doorbell. Despite what my birthdate indicates, I’m nowhere near needing or wanting any of these products. (Knock wood!) When and if I do need them, you can bet I won’t be calling any company that’s been spamming me.
I’m an insurance marketer and I agree the commercial is poorly done and the acting is terrible, but wouldn’t say a daughter concerned about her parents getting life insurance means she’s greedy.
In fact it usually is a death in the family or an accident that prompts most people to think about life insurance.
What if the daughter knows she’s going to have to cover the funeral and burial expenses for mom and dad and she doesn’t have $10,000 or however much it costs to bury 2 people? What if mom and dad have a mortgage they’re going to stick her with? Those are just 2 examples that come to the top of my head.
Chris Huntley
Director of Marketing
No one would argue the value of life insurance in certain situations. But you can see what those here thought of the commercial, and the negative reaction was widespread. The ad did not run very long before being pulled. Unfortunately a similar ad running now isn’t a great deal better since it uses the same setting and actors (minus the older daughter). It’s difficult to defend a daughter who seems more concerned about selling life insurance than in her injured father’s immediate well-being. MetLife needs to dump this turkey and try something else.
What if the roles were reversed and two sons were speaking to their father about how their mother had done it again. She was trying to walk downstairs to do laundry and fell, hurting her arm. All the guys can talk about is making sure that they get life insurance on mom asap. No offer to get help for mom. No concern for mom. The sole concern is about money, since they’ve drained mom of any perceived value.
Just another crass example of husbands/fathers being further devalued in our culture.
This is a pathetic commercial and when I first saw it a couple of days ago, I honestly thought it was just a bad joke. I’ve shown it to others since who have also just laughed at its crass stupidity. There is no way that I would ever do business with MetLife now. They come across as either incredibly callous or incredibly ignorant, which are two traits that I don’t want in an insurance company!
The very ending of the ad is the part that bothers me the most. Apparently the daughter is making the decision for her parents by saying how about we call right now and picks up the phone. Your parents can’t decide for themselves? It comes off very disrespectful
Oh, I agree. She just can’t wait to get her parents signed up. You’d almost think she sells policies for MetLife …