The Princeton-based company Cure Auto Insurance has been accused of mocking sexual harassment in the workplace with its Super Bowl commercial.
Cure said that was not the intention in a statement shared with NJ Advance Media.
“The commercial was meant to use humor and encourage a conversation about today’s polarized political climate, in which it is unfortunate that people cannot have different opinions without fear of reprisal,” chief operating officer Eric Poe said.
Titled “Whip It Out,” the company’s commercial for Super Bowl 2021 makes use of near-double entendre, deploying sexually suggestive language.
“Ms. Davis, Tommy just brought me into his office and whipped out his opinion,” a female employee says in the workplace-set ad.
“I didn’t just whip it out,” Tommy replies. “She was into it. Plus, I have a pretty big opinion.”
On Twitter, some viewers expressed dismay at the commercial.
The ad depicts a workplace complaint of a woman against a man.Cure Auto Insurance/YouTube
“Awful ad,” @Mediagenic tweeted. “Straight outta a Proud Boys staff meeting.”
“Did we just watch a commercial making a joke about workplace sexual harassment???” @oliviaraesmith7 tweeted. “Did that happen or did I hallucinate.
”I truly cannot believe that in 2021 this commercial was considered appropriate,” Kate Fox tweeted. “DID BRETT KAVANAUGH WRITE THIS. #MeToo” she said, referring to the Supreme Court justice who was accused of sexual assault before his confirmation.
The #MeToo movement surged in 2017 following the revelations about a series of accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Sexual harassment and assault in the workplace played a prominent role in the reckoning with sexual abuse.
The Cure ad continues with the sexually suggestive language.
“Oh, please,” the female employee says. “It’s not that big.”
“She only gave me a second,” Tommy says.
“Tommy, not everyone in this office wants your opinion,” says Ms. Davis, who is ostensibly the boss.
“OK, well how about you, last weekend at happy hour when you begged me for my opinion?” Tommy says.
“I had a pitcher of margaritas,” she replies. “I would’ve taken Doug’s opinion,” she says, gesturing to a man in her office, who seems surprised.
“You would?” Doug says.
“No!” Ms. Davis says, appalled.
The commercial’s stated message follows the exchange: “We can’t protect your opinion but we can protect your car.”
But it was the much different message people received that presented a problem.
In his statement, Poe denied that the company was riffing on allegations of sexual assault or misconduct in its 2021 Super Bowl commercial.
“The suggestion that the commercial was attempting to poke fun at important societal injustices is misplaced,” he said.
Poe went on to say that Cure’s “employee base is 80% female, and that it was founded by a woman of minority descent, Dr. Lena Chang, an award-winning insurance actuary who is the CEO.”
“We regret that the commercial offended some select viewers,” he said, stopping short of apologizing for the ad.
The insurance company often seems to aim for an irreverent approach with its big game ads.
Cure’s Super Bowl commercial last year featured a woman with an actual (potato) chip on her shoulder.
As she is trying to make a point — a complaint — about someone, a male companion keeps saying “You have a chip on your shoulder.” When she fails to grasp the literal nature of his statement, he says it again and she slaps him in the face as he reaches out to remove the chip from her shoulder.
The same actors were used in Cure’s 2019 Super Bowl commercial, which revolved around the woman having a screw sticking out of her head.
“It’s just, there’s so much pressure,” she says. “I just don’t know what it is.”
“Babe, you got a screw in your head,” the man replies. When she doesn’t understand, he removes the screw with his mouth and spits it out. That’s why the woman has a bandage on her forehead in the 2020 commercial.
The ads would seem to imply that the woman in question either didn’t see that the solution to her problem was right in front of her face, that she was making a big problem of a little problem or, especially in the case of the screw, that she was focusing on something else when there was a more pressing dilemma at hand.
The end message of both commercials: “Sometimes, fixing your car is easier than fixing your life.”
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter.
N.J.’s Cure Auto Insurance regrets that ‘Whip it Out’ Super Bowl commercial ‘offended some select viewers’ - NJ.com
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