10 Most Bizarre Commercials Ever
8. Tide - Yep, It’s A Tide Ad
This was one of the best bits of marketing in Super Bowl history. Segments during the American Football supershow are pricey ($4.5 million for the 2018 game), but if you can afford it, they’re definitely worth it. While Dodge’s use of Martin Luther King to sell trucks was roundly criticised, it was still watched by millions of viewers and got discussed for weeks after. No publicity is bad publicity, right?
That’s why the ‘Yep, It’s A Tide Ad’ was so genius. After the initial gimmick, it burgled pretty much every other advert for the hours long event. After the bad PR around eating Tide Pods, they remade themselves as a new meme in the best way.
Fronted by Stranger Things’ David Harbour, Tide set up ads for cars, razors, mattresses, beer, jewellery... pretty much anything that you can think of. All ended with a cut to Harbour saying ‘Yep, it’s a Tide ad’.
For the rest of the game, it didn’t matter what the other ads were selling. They stopped being commercials for Budweiser or Nike or Chrysler. Everyone was waiting for Harbour. Everyone was waiting for it to be a Tide ad. And because of that, if became a Tide ad.