5 Takeaways From Tide’s Full-Blown Super Bowl Blitz

A blueprint for hijacking the biggest advertising day of the year

Sunday night’s game may have been between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England’s Patriots, but Tide’s commercial takeover stole the advertising show.

Over the course of four hours, Tide slowly rolled out its elaborate “It’s a Tide Ad” campaign from Saatchi & Saatchi New York, starting with a somewhat confusing ad in the first quarter that asked viewers to question whether every ad they saw was actually a plug for the laundry detergent brand. Eventually, the full campaign was revealed to be a big, self-aware joke on the advertising world that has all the makings of a successful campaign—interesting and fun talent (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), a new story and a social media war room full of preplanned tweets and GIFs.

But

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