#4- Advertising Analysis

Tide's Super Bowl Campaign

Tide, the popular laundry detergent brand by Proctor & Gamble, has been heavy in the news lately with the drama of people "supposedly" snacking on Tide Pods for Internet views. Recently, during the Super Bowl LII, Tide rolled out a plethora of new advertisements for their detergent.

Mostly all of the advertisements starred David Harbour, an
actor who portrays Police Chief James Hopper on the Netflix series Stranger Things. Every ad was essentially a parody of stereotypical advertisements like a car ad, Mr. Clean ad, beer ad, and an Amazon Alexa ad. At the end of every advertisement, Harbour would proclaim, "it's a Tide ad." Some ads, like one for insurance, featured him saying it was a Tide ad because of a mechanic's bright, clean shirt, despite his face being dirty.

David Harbour

These Tide advertisements were trying to be self-aware with Harbour acting as a constant narrator. They question why every ad couldn't be a Tide ad, since most people in advertisements are watching clean clothes that could've been washed with Tide detergent. Proctor & Gamble were wanting to make ads for Tide that encompassed every genre of ads that are typically shown during the Super Bowl. The ads started with a: 45 spot that introduced viewers to the feel of the ad. By splicing up the spots and spreading them out throughout the Super Bow, Proctor & Gamble made sure that viewers wouldn't miss any of the Tide ads. The ads also had a social media campaign with the #TideAd.

According to AdWeek, "the company bought an ad in every quarter- a 45-second establishing spot in the first quarter, along with 15-second ads for each of the following three quarters." The ads cost Proctor & Gamble around $15 million dollars to create. The lighting, scenery, clothes, makeup, and more aspects of the ads were designed to reflect the genre the ad was parodying, trying to trick viewers into thinking they were watching something else when it was only just a Tide ad.

In my opinion, this was a pretty clever advertising campaign. Usually when people see an ad for brand, they know what kind of product the ad is selling due to the tone (music, lighting, acting, storyline) of it. This Tide campaign threw viewers for a loop and managed to catch their attention everytime. The ads were creative and humorous, featured a familiar face that a lot of people know (David Harbour), and managed to advertise their popular laundry detergent in a new, fun way.