Irish Spring has unveiled its first-ever Super Bowl ad and it’s - humorously - giving off big cult vibes.
“The new commercial, entitled, 'Welcome to Irish Spring,' follows our less than fresh smelling hero as he comes across the lush, clean land of Irish Spring,” Colgate-Palmolive, the parent company of Irish Spring, said in a statement this week.
“But what begins as a blissful adventure, quickly transforms into something unforeseen.”
The disheveled-looking man, donning a Broncos t-shirt, happens upon the idyllic-looking grotto after inexplicably drifting in on a makeshift raft.
“What is this place?” he asks, half confused and half amazed.
“Welcome to Irish Spring, friend,” an older woman with a distinct accent says to him.
Another man, peeling what appears to be a bar of Irish Spring soap, adds ominously: “Where stinkiness is … unwelcome.”
Then, for some reason, a rabbit says sternly: “Bad smells must receive their correction.”
The man, sweaty armpits and all, is then placed in a basket and lowered into a large bath as the people around him chant “cast thy smell away!”
The man then emerges wearing - of course! - an Aran Wool type sweater and all the people happily join hands in a sort of knock-off céilí to dance around an Irish Spring monolith.
Cult vibes? Yes. But the Irish Spring ad offers a good dose of humor in the 30-second spot that will air in the fourth quarter of this weekend’s Super Bowl game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals.
The funny new Irish Spring ad comes in the wake of research from Colgate-Palmolive which found that 74.5% of "Zillenial guys" - a mash-up 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," Emily Fong Mitchell, general manager of personal care for North America at Colgate-Palmolive, said in a statement.
“Our Big Game commercial is the product of a lot of creative thinking about how we want to evolve.”
The spot was directed by award-winning filmmakers Matias Rygh and Mathias Eriksen, otherwise known as Matias & Mathias.
Spence Kramer, Founder & CEO of TEN6, said: "Strategically, Irish Spring has an unbeatable proposition: they make soap that smells good, so you can smell good.
"We noticed that no one in the category was owning the notion of smelling great, and it felt like very fertile territory. Testing showed that to be the case, and our clients trusted us enough to take this simple but powerful insight to the extreme."
New Irish Spring products will begin rolling out on February 13 and will be available at retail partners in the US in the subsequent weeks and months. To learn more about Irish Spring and its new commercial, visit IrishSpring.com, and check the brand out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube pages.
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