Watch Irish Spring's first Super Bowl ad enter a spooky land of malodor intolerance

The world of Irish Spring has transformed from its heritage of bucolic scenes rife with deeply traditional gender roles to a more sinister land of forced deodorization in the Colgate-Palmolive Co. brand's first-ever Super Bowl spot. The 30-second spot from Ten6, set to air during the fourth quarter of the Feb. 13 NBC broadcast, shows a river traveler swept to a distant land where malodor is not tolerated. He is dipped into a large vat of water with Irish Spring body wash, apparently. Then he emerges refreshed, and joins his captors in dancing around a giant bottle of Irish Spring body wash as if it were a Stonehenge-like monolith. The tagline: “Smell From a Nice-Smelling Place.” The spot, directed by Matias Rygh and Mathias Eriksen, also known as Matias & Mathias, backs a brand restage that includes a new logo and graphics, new packaging and a new fragrance—Mountain Chill—as well as updates to existing scents. Colgate-Palmolive cites research that 74.5% of what it terms “Zillenial guys,” an apparent mashup of Gen Z and millennials, say the top reason they shower is to get rid of body odor. “As a brand that has been around for 50 years, it’s important to modernize and stay fresh so younger generations understand what Irish Spring is all about. And that’s good smells,” said Emily Fong Mitchell, general manager of personal care for North America at Colgate-Palmolive, in a statement. “Our Big Game commercial is the product of a lot of creative thinking about how we want to evolve.”

Watch Irish Spring's first Super Bowl ad enter a spooky land of malodor intolerance

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