For the new NFL season, partner P&G reinforces its Tide brand’s connection with the sport with an ongoing comic commercial series called ‘Thursday Night Tide Ads’.
The campaign, which builds on the brand’s award winning Super Bowl work in both 2017 and 2018, was developed by creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
The campaign’s structure centre’s on pairs of commercials integrated into broadcaster Fox’s Thursday Night Football telecast.
Both commercials are designed to fool viewers into thinking they are still watching coverage of the game rather than a commercial.
Each spot includes a ‘commercial reveal’ halfway through and all the pairs of commercials carry the same recurring joke.
Even the game announcers/analysts Joe Buck and Troy Aikman and players from both teams as well as match officials all play a part in the commercial comic con.
The campaign, which will run through the season, launched during the initial Thursday Night Football match up between the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants on 11 October.
The initial spot, called ‘Mic’d Up’ enables television viewers to peek inside an Eagles huddle during an inspirational speech from Malcolm Jenkins to his teammates.
“They think they’re on their home turf, but this ain’t New York. It’s New Jersey,” says Jenkins.
“And nobody’s got better jerseys than us. They’re green. They’re white. They’re so clean they might as well be a Tide ad.”
This was followed later in the game by ‘Clean Call; in which a referee on the field calls ‘intentional cleanliness’ on two spotless players and,also singlesout ‘chain gang’ and ‘oversized microphone guy’ on the sidelines, as well as a spotless Giants’ kicker.
Fox’s television analysts Buck and Aikman switched from live commentary to the pre-taped ad which simply seemed like it was still part of the action.
Until the spoof referee ends up just complimenting them all for ‘looking good!’
As well as the television commercials themselves, the campaign is amplified by supporting digital and social strands – including social posts from the expert analysts themselves on their own channels.
Wait… does this make every football game a #TideAd? pic.twitter.com/gxKGhOVHzV
— Joe Buck (@Buck) October 12, 2018
When you see clean, you can’t unsee it. #TideAd pic.twitter.com/2CaC0nLtex
— Troy Aikman (@TroyAikman) October 12, 2018
The commercial pairs approach continued with fresh, team-specific sets of spoof spots during Thursday Night Football games through the season.
Thus far they have also included ads in the Denver Broncos vs Arizona Cardinals’ match up,
and the game between the Texans and the Bengals.
Saatchi & Saatchi ECD Paul Bichler says the brand waited more than six months after the Super Bowl to “give the campaign a little breathing room – and we wanted to bring the audience something truly rewarding without overworking the idea.”
While Amy Krehbiel, associate brand director at P&G’s North American laundry division, added: “We’re always looking for exciting ways to connect and have it feel seamless to the viewer. People forget how much they appreciate clean clothes until they don’t have them. Any moment where things look clean, we want it to be associated with Tide.”
Comment:
Described by many in the sports marketing world as ‘meta ads’, this strategy plays on the modern marketing reality that it is increasingly hard for consumers to tell where reality ends and marketing begins.
But is this a long-term smart strategy?
After all, most fans hate brand sponsors that come between them and the spport they are passionate about.
Did this new campaign deliver?
A quick look at the campaign’s #TideAd hashtag on social media shows that real-time response was mixed.
Initially most viewers seemed to find the initial moment of misdirection amusing.
We admire an idea that is more interesting than your average sports commercial, but wonder how many times will P&G be able to go back to the tactic?
Sequels are never easy and it was certainly a challenge for P&G and Saatchi’s to top their ideas from the previous Super Bowls.
After all, last year’s brilliant series of Big Game ‘This Is A Tide Ad’ spots
and 2017’s stunning ‘Bradshaw Stain’ initiative (see our ‘2018 Activative Annual’) both won a host of awards.
Links:
Tide
https://www.pinterest.com/tide/
https://www.youtube.com/user/tidelaundry
Saatchi & Saatchi
NFL
http://www.nflshop.com/source/bm-nflc…
