My reaction to watching the “Nationwide: K-fed Rollin’ VIP” Superbowl commercial was similar to what I felt after watching a few scenes from the recent controversial American Idol auditions where they spotlighted the vocally-challenged contestants and crossed certain moral lines that discourage poking fun at mentally challenged persons. The K-Fed Nationwide Super Bowl commercial has been surfacing on the internet for a few weeks now. It seems that everyone wants a little peek at this rapper’s nitemare.
The surprising part about the Nationwide: K-Fed Rollin’ VIP Super Bowl commercial is that it isn’t the worst commercial that aired on Super Bowl Sunday. In fact, it didn’t even make my “Worst Super Bowl Commercials of 2007” article. K-Fed may have had his five minutes of fame while the Colts won the game.
The Nationwide: K-Fed Rollin’ VIP Super Bowl commercial made no false promises about what it would offer. K-Fed stole the scene with his humorous look at, well…himself. The commercial took the K-Fed real-life fantasy-turned reality-turned divorce theme and let the boy rap for twenty seconds on one of the most heavily viewed timespots on television during the year. Somebody has a sense of humor.
The commercial strikes fast at the beginning, featuring K-Fed wrapped in a long fur coat while he starts to rap. The words flow effortlessly out of K-Feds mouth as he puts on a K-Fed fashion show and raps the words that have scored him plenty of Hollywood babes in the past (note: he is the father of 4 children).
Yo, who got it better than me? K-Fed raps these words without the question mark at the beginning of the video and leads into rap filled with plenty of sugar daddy, shinin’ superstar, and hollerin’ for dollars talk. A posse of women serve as K-Fed arm candy, but he hardly pays attention while he has the spotlight in this commercial.
While K-Fed may be shining like a superstar from top to bottom, in this Nationwide commercial, I did not get past watching the twenty seconds of K-Fed rapping to notice what Nationwide was actually advertising. K-Fed is a tricky advertising risk. On one hand, this commercial has probably set records for the number of people who want to catch a secret peek at K-Fed’s good-humored mockery of himself. On the other, I think that it would be interesting to see how this commercial booster Nationwide products. In my mind, all I see is K-Fed pretending he’s the pimp daddy of rap.
Nationwide pulls the plug on K-Fed’s rap fantasy with a nice little twist at the end of the commercial. In the blink of my eye, after being blinded by K-Fed’s bling, reality shoots K-Fed back to a burger joint, where his boss is yelling, “Federline! Fries!” All the bling is gone when K-Fed models his last fashion ensemble of a red burger hat and matching uniform.
For all that it’s worth, this is a pretty harmless commercial. The Nationwide name will forever be remembered for giving attention-starved K-Fed twenty seconds of fame on Super Bowl Sunday. I can only assume that K-Fed was more aware than many of the recent American Idol contestants, why he was given so much free time in the spotlight. If K-Fed can laugh at himeself, than we might as well join him.
