For the launch of Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness, Tide partnered with Marvel Studios to launch a spot that would make every Marvel fan on the Internet talk about it and scrutinize every detail. To do this, we decided to capitalize on Marvel fans’ obsession with Easter eggs. There are often characters and storylines that are woven throughout different Marvel Studios films, which is part of the draw for fans. We decided to tap into this behavior and hide Easter eggs throughout our :60 to delight fans and spark fan theories and speculation. Our objective wasn’t just to get views, but to make people watch, re-watch, pause, zoom in, share, and discuss.

With Marvel fans on high-alert over the Doctor Strange sequel, and really any time new content drops, we set out to create a co-branded :60 film that would tap into fans’ obsession with hidden details. We knew the moment the first Easter egg appeared, fans would scrutinize the rest of the commercial for more. With that in mind, we opened the film on Wong, Doctor Strange’s ally, eating the infamous tuna melt he didn’t get in a previous Marvel Studios film, “Avengers: Infinity War.” After he gets a stain on Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation, and the Cloak is unwilling to be washed, a chase through the streets of Marvel’s New York ensues. Throughout the chase, up until the resolution, we included several items and locations from past movies, comic books, and Disney+ Shows; driving fans to not only watch, but pause, re-watch, zoom in, compare, hypothesize and share.

If every Marvel fan obsesses over Easter eggs - how could we bake enough into a Tide commercial to make it feel like a short film and insert Tide into the Marvel fan conversations? We know fans follow Marvel channels waiting for content drops and we know they obsess over every detail and video looking for clues and hidden items. We also know they don’t want to be told where to look, but instead, want to scrutinize and make the discoveries on their own. So in our ongoing campaign, we leaned into all of the above, and we hid Marvel-style Easter eggs throughout our ad, giving fans something new to obsess over. By designing an ad this way, specifically for fans, we didn’t need to include an explicit call to action, but rather the video in itself drove fans to watch, search and share.

The video was posted by Marvel Entertainment on Instagram and Twitter on Tuesday, April 19th. The star of both the commercial and the upcoming Marvel Studios movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Benedict Wong, shared the post as well. We also had David Harbour, another Marvel Cinematic Universe star, share the video to close the loop on the teaser we had created with him, where his Tide PODS are mysteriously stolen (the spot now revealed it was Wong who took them). Dropping the content from Marvel and having two Marvel stars share it drove scale and conversations on the same thread, fueling the Easter egg discoveries and fan excitement. The hidden Easter eggs and the tie back to our teaser content were so well done, fans even took to other channels like TikTok and Reddit to discuss their discoveries.

By activating the Marvel fandom, we created a moment that surpassed the buzz of Tide’s 2021 Super Bowl campaign, which was the #1 Super Bowl Commercial according to Thrillist.

Generating 154.6MM total social listening impressions, the Tide x Marvel film drove 23% more social listening impressions than Tide’s entire 2021 Super Bowl campaign (126MM social listening impressions).

Without any paid media, social buzz alone drove 3.3MM views of the Tide x Dr. Strange film on Tide’s YouTube channel. That’s 72% more views than Tide’s 2021 Super Bowl Spot, which came in at 1.92MM views.

Across all Tide and partner channels, the Marvel x Tide film generated 6.8MM video views and 987M engagements without paid media. Across all phases of the campaign, there were 17.8MM video views and 2.3MM engagements - all organic. Total earned media impressions are 263MM+ and counting.