Tugging at the heart strings - where's the line of "too much"?

TransAmerica is an insurance company that offers life insurance policies, retirement funds, and other services. A recent commercial for their life insurance policy attempts to tug at the audience’s heart strings and have a strong emotional reaction to the possibility of the death of a loved one. This could cause a feeling of need to protect your family from the possibility of this awful event, or maybe they took the “sappiness” too far, making it seem a little bit ridiculous.

This commercial implements depressive music  and dark visuals  to try to bring about feelings of a dark and gloomy time. This gets a little bit over-the-top in my opinion, but the moment that seals the deal is the little girl expressing “this is just how mom used to make it”. It was almost a moment that makes you roll your eyes. As a commercial we all realize that the ad is attempting to evoke feelings to change our behavior, that is a well-known fact, and being so incredibly transparent in its attempt to do this can render it ineffective to the more educated audience. In my opinion this commercial could have been good if they toned down the sadness just a bit, but at this level, it creates such a transparent attempt at duping the audience.