--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Nationwide: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up” image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- Nov 17, 2015 # Nationwide: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up” by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close The insurance company faced [intense backlash](http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/02/01/nationwide-insurance-stands-by-controversial-super-bowl-ad/ "undefined") for its Super Bowl commercial that takes a dark turn when you find out the little boy narrating it “died from an accident.” People complained the ad was a morbid and callous way to sell a product, leading to Nationwide issuing a statement saying, “The sole purpose of this message was to start a conversation, not sell insurance.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4116148/nationwide-the-boy-who-couldnt-grow-up/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4116148/nationwide-the-boy-who-couldnt-grow-up/"},"headline":"Nationwide: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up”","datePublished":"2015-11-17T15:01:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:10:24.239Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4116148/nationwide-the-boy-who-couldnt-grow-up/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4116148/nationwide-the-boy-who-couldnt-grow-up/","name":"Nationwide: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up”"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Nationwide- The boy who couldn´t grow up - Super Bowl 2015 XLIX Ad","description":"Nationwide- The boy who couldn´t grow up - Super Bowl 2015 XLIX Ad","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ZfppJtdd/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-02-02T02:22:19.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ZfppJtdd.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4116148/nationwide-the-boy-who-couldnt-grow-up/","duration":"PT45S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/top-10-everything-of-2015/4116148/nationwide-the-boy-who-couldnt-grow-up/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```