Nissan Pulls Controversial School Bus TV Ad

Nissan as agreed to pull a controversial TV ad, which featured a father seemingly racing a school bus with his son in the car.

Nissan agreed to pull the TV ad after complaints and pressure from a national educational group. The ad depicted a father driving his son to school in a Nissan Altima after he narrowly misses the school bus. During the trip, the father is seemingly racing the bus to get his son to school. Nissan said in a statement they meant for the ad to tell a story in an “irreverent” way. In a statement, reported by School Transportation News, Dan Bedore, director of product communications for Nissan North America said the, “…commercial was intended to tell a story in an irreverent and entertaining way.” Some felt the video promoted reckless driving.

Under pressure from groups such as the National Association for Pupil Transportation, Nissan decided to pull the ad near the start of November. Citing pressure from NAPT, Before said in a statement, “…we realize that our attempt at humor has been perceived as a slight to those people who do an honorable and invaluable service to their communities…and apologize for the attempt at humor that resulted [in] an unintended offense.  We have removed the ad completely from all of our national and regional advertising rotations.”

Nissan also saw pressure to pull the ad from a video from a law firm. Utica, New York based Brindisi, Murad, Brindisi & Pearlman created a YouTube video showing the controversial commercial and gave an opportunity for consumers to sign a petition against it.

Do you think the Nissan commercial promotes reckless driving and should have been pulled? What do you make of the efforts on the part of the educational group to petition Nissan and successfully get the ad taken town? In Nissan’s place, would you have pulled the school bus ad?