After sitting out last year’s Super Bowl, Tide returned with an all-too-familiar string of ads that wove a storyline through all four quarters.

Handled by Woven, Tide’s #LaundryLater campaign consisted of a series of four spots (one per quarter) totalling 90 seconds, in which “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” actor Charlie Day puts off cleaning his stained shirt until “later.” 

The first three ads suggest when “later” could be as Day interacts with a host of crossover characters from Wonder Woman to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Knight, all of whom can’t help but mock his stain. The fourth ad, which could stand alone as a spot for Tide, features an elderly Day whose shirt is finally clean because “it’s later”—only to get his sweater dirty once more.

“Tide has consistently pushed advertising towards entertainment,” a Procter & Gamble spokesman says. “Breaking the advertising mold being a part of pop culture helps us do that, and sometimes that includes involving other brands.

“While Bud Light and Tide are very different products, we do enjoy surprising and delighting our audiences during the Super Bowl,” says an AB InBev spokesman. “We figured what better way to do that than pairing up in this year’s Tide ad.” (Bud Light recently discontinued its medieval “Dilly Dilly” realm that had long defined the brand’s Super Bowl presence).

The laundry brand’s wide-reaching Super Bowl LIV media buy was reminiscent of its 2018 endeavor, when it also ran an ad in each quarter that told a complete story.  

BRAND: Tide

AGENCY: Woven

QUARTERS AIRED: All

SUPER BOWL: LIV

YEAR: 2020