Cetaphil’s Super Bowl-TikTok controversy—brand, agency deny using creator’s viral story

Galderma’s Cetaphil is getting blowback from a TikTok creator and her followers over its tear-jerking campaign timed to the Super Bowl showing a dad and daughter bonding over Taylor Swift, football and skin care, after the creator pointed to her widely viewed videos from September telling a story with her stepfather. Shortly after the #GameTimeGlow campaign broke on Friday and went viral on social media, TikTok creator Sharon Mbabazi shared her discontent in a TikTok video that has since been deleted: “Like y’all could have at least given us some credit. What’s up? They have a mixed-race girl in the video and a white guy. I’m a Black girl. My stepdad is white. And in the video, she’s doing her makeup, her skin care on her vanity and her white dad walks in. I was doing my makeup on my vanity, and my white dad walks in and tells me about football,” Mbabazi said, referencing videos she shared to TikTok in September which now have millions of views. “I thought, OK, maybe it’s a coincidence, until I saw the dad walk into her room and put skin care under his eyes, like what my step dad and I did in our video, and he put eye patches under his eye. Like literally bar for bar it’s the same concept, same idea.” In one of Mbabazi’s TikTok videos from the fall, her stepfather walks into her room to tell her about a football game coming up shortly. @sharavinaaa Replying to @honeypot my daily reminder bc I wasn’t home for the last game 🤣 #taylorswift #traviskelce #kansaschiefs ♬ original sound - Sharon Mbabazi In the Cetaphil spot, the daughter goes from her vanity to join dad on the couch to watch a game. At the end of the Cetaphil spot, the text, “Real father and daughter, living in New York” appears. Craig Elimeliah, chief creative officer, /prompt, a joint venture between Lippe Taylor and Twelvenote formed in November, told Ad Age that the ad was not based on Mbabazi and that the father and daughter cast in the ad are actually father and daughter. Mbabazi’s TikTok bio indicates she is from San Francisco. Mbabazi did not reply to messages on TikTok for comment. Mbabazi and /prompt have since spoken. “We are going to do some work together,” said Elimeliah. Mbabazi also posted a TikTok Saturday night reading, “Good updates coming tomorrow!” On Sunday evening, Mbabazi shared an update on the situation, saying in a video that “Cetaphil has reached out, and they’ve acknowledged all the videos and all the content, and they’ve made things right with us.” She didn’t elaborate on what “making things right” involved, but teased the upcoming partnership with the brand, telling viewers to “stay tuned for something coming later.” @sharavinaaa ♬ original sound - Sharon Mbabazi Elimeliah said that Mbabazi and her dad would appear in a follow-up to the spot. “We never saw the footage,” Elimeliah said, referring to Mbabazi’s TikToks, adding that Mbabazi is a woman in her 20s and the Cetaphil spot is about a teenage daughter and her dad. Mbabazi is 24 years old, according to her TikTok. She appeared to delete her initial video calling out Cetaphil shortly after this story was published. Also read: Inside the Taylor Swift on Super Bowl marketing “Part of our job is to make people feel seen and that’s what we did. It was a coincidental casting decision that was made last minute.” Elimeliah is referring to the decision to cast a Black teenage girl and white father in the spot. Mbabazi is Black and her stepfather is white. Initially, Elimeliah said the spot was supposed to feature a Black daughter and Black father but the chemistry between the two actors chosen was evident and they decided to go in a different direction. Part of the criticism of the ad, also, was the decision to use a light-skinned girl instead of a darker-skinned girl. Mbabazi’s TikTok from the fall, and the related series of videos with her and her stepdad, have drawn millions of views in total, including more than 900,000 TikTok views as of Saturday for the video with the under-eye patches. @sharavinaaa Replying to @user7270110434048 @Cetaphil US #superbowlcommercial #cetaphilsuperbowlcommercial #swifttok #swifties #fyp #trending ♬ original sound - Sharon Mbabazi In response to many negative TikTok comments demanding Cetaphil compensate Mbabazi, the Cetaphil US account indicated it didn’t knock off her work, and portrayed the similarities as a coincidence. “@Sharon Mbabazi’s work is incredible. We had a great chat with her on the phone earlier today. We told her how much we’ve loved discovering her videos since this ad went live.” Cetaphil noted also: “We absolutely love that this beautiful and universal story between dads and daughter connecting over football is something so many others loved.” In an earlier post on Saturday, Mbabazi confirmed having had a call with Cetaphil, but she said that the conversation didn’t satisfy her or resolve her issues. Twelvenote initially described the campaign on Friday as a social campaign starting on YouTube, though by Saturday it had more views—and more negative feedback from Mbabazi supporters—on TikTok. A Twelvenote representative said Cetaphil had made a regional Super Bowl buy in Texas for the ad, which the brand has been using to ride the wave of interest in Swift and her role in spiking interest by young women and girls in the NFL.

Cetaphil’s Super Bowl-TikTok controversy—brand, agency deny using creator’s viral story

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