What's the insight?

Super Bowl Edition: It’s a Tide Ad #TideAd

Consecutively being the biggest sporting event every year, the Super Bowl has massive viewership— making it one of the top marketing opportunities for many brands. Advertising during the game has become something of a competition in itself as brands often use every resource at their disposal to impress the masses and garner the most engagement through social media and word-of-mouth. The brand I believe to have won the 2018 Super Bowl ‘advertising competition’ is Tide with its “It’s a Tide Ad” ad campaign.

Here’s my breakdown:

How was Tide so successful in developing its ad campaign?

The answer is simple: the brand recognized an ultimate truth about human behavior and exploited it to create a strategic campaign that made the audience think “Woah. That is so true.” If you haven’t seen the ad spots yet, click here. The spots show Stranger Things’ actor David Harbour on set of what it seems to be various typical Super Bowl ads— ranging from a car ad to a jewelry ad— saying “It’s a Tide ad” to reveal that what you’re watching may not be what you think. There is an element of becoming self-aware as the brand shares its brand message with us -- “If it’s clean, it’s got to be Tide.” 

What’s the insight?

So: what’s the insight? Everyone— women, men, children, and elderly alike— want their clothes to be clean and fresh with every wear. This insight is so simple yet so fundamentally true, and Tide was able to leverage it to position the brand as the detergent that always leaves your clothes perfectly clean, just the way you (and everyone else) likes it. 

What was Tide’s goal, anyways?

I believe that Tide’s goal was to take over the Super Bowl with a campaign that positions the actor as an omniscient narrator asking viewers to question every ad they see. Because, if you’re seeing clean clothes, you could definitely be watching a Tide ad. It’s as Tide branded clean clothes as a trademark of its brand, positioning the basic functionality of detergent as one that is only synonymous with Tide. Smart thinking, Tide.

Tide did exceptionally well with connecting its big insight to the strategy for the brand’s 2018 Super Bowl commercial. I am already looking forward to what Tide will come up with for its 2019 Super Bowl spot!

See the ad below: