How can a detergent ad overpower all the efforts of all the big impact brands and all their big impact agencies to become the ad most talked about at the Super Bowl.

Well, to start, Saatchi & Saatchi New York ran five Procter & Gamble Tide ads. But they could have all been bland ads. It’s just that they weren’t. Tide hijacked some of the world’s most famous ads – turning them all into Tide ads. How did they become Tide ads? The clean clothes that everyone wears, the campaign’s star, David Harbour – Jim Hopper on Stranger Things – noted in the hero ad.

The 45-second hero ad was accompanied by four 15-second ads, each of which appropriated ad icons like the Old Spice Guy, Bud’s Clydesdales and Mr Clean.

https://youtu.be/doP7xKdGOKs

https://youtu.be/kulyPinO49I

https://youtu.be/qkcZbhTAznQ

https://youtu.be/L4NbT_XQ_eE

The campaign was ranked #1 for effectiveness in Ad Age’s rankings and it set social media alight.

The aim of the campaign was to take over the Super Bowl. So in the hero ad, Hopper asks his audience to question every ad they see—because if they’re seeing clean clothes, they could be watching a Tide ad. Then it interspersed into the Super Bowl ad run its own series of memorable ads for other brands that turned out to be Tide ads – a Tide ad ran in every quarter of the Super Bowl.

The thinking behind the campaign was fiendishly logical. Tide is the leading detergent brand in the US – it follows that at least half of the people you see are wearing clothes washed with Tide.

Five ads that depend on you watching most of them? You could only do that at a broadcast event like the Super Bowl. And you can only do that if your creative is very, very cleverly crafted. Kudos to S&S NY.