The Blackmail Ad.

I’m back on the anti-ad campaign again. My latest pet hate is the one insurance companies use, in which a cherubic child looks most alarmed and has a speech bubble – or the equivalent of – which says something like ‘I can’t believe you don’t have life insurance, dad.’

The subtext, of course, is the implicit suggestion that if you’re a parent and don’t have life insurance, you are by definition a bad parent who cares little for his children. This amounts not only to unwarranted presumption, but is also a form of emotional blackmail. And we’re often advised, are we not, that it is folly ever to give in to emotional blackmail.

Ergo, one should never buy insurance from a company which uses this ploy.