Add this story to the list of outraged groups who, well, need to get a clue.
A restaurant trade group says it is insulted by an insurance company’s planned Super Bowl ad that stars Kevin Federline as a fast-food worker.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.’s 30-second spot shows Federline, who is estranged from pop princess Britney Spears, performing in a glitzy music video. However, the punch line is that he’s daydreaming while cooking french fries at a fast-food joint.
The ad amounts to a “strong and direct insult to the 12.8 million Americans who work in the restaurant industry,” wrote National Restaurant Association President and Chief Executive Steven Anderson in a letter to Nationwide CEO Jerry Jurgensen.
The commercial “would give the impression that working in a restaurant is demeaning and unpleasant,” Anderson wrote.
Yes, because working in a fast-food restaurant is one of the more highly prized careers among American high school graduates. Oh, come off it. The vast majority of people who work in those chains are teenagers. “You want fries with that?” has become a well-known phrase that mocks the industry.
A Nationwide executive shrugged off the criticism, saying that where humor is involved, there always will be somebody who doesn’t get it.
Ya think?