For the fourth time in five years, it’s a Tide ad in the Super Bowl. And has been the norm of late, it’s a small-screen star, not a football star leading the lineup.

Jason Alexander stars as a badly abused hoodie via computer-generated imagery in Tide’s nearly annual trip to the Super Bowl with a 60-second spot in the second quarter.

The “Seinfeld” star is backing Tide Hygienic Clean, a line that promises to remove “visible and invisible dirt” and a centerpiece of the brand’s advertising on NFL games all year. Prior ads focused on hygienic, socially distanced versions of the traditional jersey swaps among rival players, facilitated by a remote-controlled robot version of Peyton Manning. The brand shipped in to wash and swap jerseys this year after the NFL banned the traditional swaps between players as part of its pandemic protocols.

But as has been the pattern since 2017, when Terry Bradshaw current and former NFL talent takes the bench in Tide’s Super Bowl spot in favor of a TV celebrity.
“We did some research on hoodies with celebrity faces on them,” says Daniel Lobaton, chief creative officer of Saatchi & Saatchi, New York. “Turns out, there’s a weird combination of what makes these great. Ironic and iconic nostalgia is something we threw around in the creative department. Jason brings everything we were looking for in this story. He was amazing to work with and full of ideas of how we could make this funnier. He was so specific with his acting, giving us a range of emotions—for a hoodie.”

In his CGI hoodie incarnation, Alexander mugs his way through a variety of indignities, including being on the receiving end of dog drool and food droppings.